The challenge.
A global leader in the production and processing of industrial minerals was seeking a Vice President of Operations for the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. This vacancy was to replace an expatriate who was due to return to Europe and therefore a replacement needed to be identified and no one in the group suited the requirements.
With a majority local workforce within the region, it had been identified that the most suitable candidate would be someone local to the region, or with previous experience working in the APAC. Additionally, the candidate required specific technical skills and international exposure. With a clear lack of local talent available and no expatriate contract on offer, the pool of appropriate candidates was significantly shallowed.
The solution.
Rather than managing the search locally, Chad Harrison International (CHI) conducted a fully international retained search. This started by identifying all the companies that used the same or similar mining & manufacturing processes, followed by approaching levels -1 and +1 to the VP Operations (or equivalent) within those businesses.
By engaging with those professionals, CHI was able to gather recommendations and market intel that guided the search, resulting in referrals and identifying candidates who were not present via the public domain.
By searching internationally, we were able to identify a number of professionals who were local to the APAC region but had since relocated to other parts of the world. We also identified those who had previously worked in the APAC region but were now in another location – in many cases these candidates had a personal connection to the region.
The result.
Through extensive research and conversations, CHI was able to present the client with a shortlist of five candidates all of whom had regional experience, were able to relocate, had the necessary technical skills required for the role, and were prepared to take the local contract rather than expatriate terms.
The interview process concluded with the successful hiring of a candidate who was native to the region and had been living aboard for 10 years.