Executive Talent and Leadership Development Practice – USA, UK, Russia
CASE 1
When Julie was hired to start up operations in Russia for a leading direct selling company in the cosmetics and skin care industry, she had to recruit and train not only the direct selling sales force from scratch, but also the entire company staff. When Julie chose a young woman with the background criteria that she was looking for to be the office manager, company human resources told her that the woman did not have “the right profile.” However, to Julie the woman had exactly the right profile. She was highly intelligent as demonstrated by her academic record but equally as importantly, the young woman had worked at a series of hourly paid jobs throughout college to help pay her tuition. This told Julie that she had practical work experience and personality traits of punctuality, personal responsibility and conscientiousness that would be useful.
Julie took it upon herself to train the young woman and constantly give her increasing levels of responsibility, while always supporting her, in order to develop her executive leadership capabilities and business operating skills. Contact us to find out what happened to this young woman’s career over the next ten years.
CASE 2
Julie was asked to join the board of a publicly traded company that had purchased several small startups and turnarounds in the direct to consumer industries in fast moving consumer goods. As Julie began detailed financial and operational reviews of the businesses, it became clear that the fixed cost structure of the largest business was in serious need of restructuring. The company was experiencing a severe decline in sales, but of hundreds of employees, had only five employees in the sales department, all of whom were at manager level or lower. By contrast, the company employed over thirteen people in the maintenance department.
After completing a detailed review of financial and operational information, Julie traveled to the company’s head offices and manufacturing facilities in Ohio to meet with company staff and interview over fifty people in manufacturing, finance, accounting, technology, sales, marketing, human resources and operations before making final recommendations on cost cutting and restructuring measures.
After meeting with the employees in the sales function, Julie immediately identified two key managers who clearly understood the business and the challenges it was facing. Upon her recommendation these two employees were immediately promoted to director level positions and, even though the company needed to cut millions of dollars from its fixed expenses, given substantial raises. Contact us to find out what happened to these two employees in the following twelve months.
CASE 3
A company in which Dagmar was providing non-executive Independent Director services found itself in crisis when its Chairman suddenly resigned, leaving the company with a CEO who was struggling to get the company’s technology development on track. Please contact us to find out what happened to the CEO and the company.
These are just a few examples of our ability to identify and promote executive leadership from within. We are also able to identify leadership gaps, create and execute detailed succession plans, and source and secure outside talent solutions where necessary.