challenge
Faced with a serious leadership challenge, a leading U.S. manufacturer of nutritional products, protein bars and powders sought out Tatum as a trusted executive search partner. Specifically, the client needed to find a highly capable finance and accounting executive, ideally someone with previous experience in the manufacturing space, who could seamlessly transition into the role of CFO within a 12–18-month timeline.
solution
Leveraging our deep domain expertise in executive search, Tatum immediately got to work on the discovery phases. In the course of consultation with client-side stakeholders, we built out a rubric of competency requirements, must-haves and other differentiators in order to identify the perfect candidate. These included:
- proven leadership aptitude, like the ability to build and mentor highly effective teams, as well as a demonstrated track record of achievement in improving finance functions
- skill at partnering with other departments to introduce KPIs and other metrics
- comfort with fast-paced business environments and an ability to meet tight deadlines and manage complexity
- previous experience with M&As/IPOs, guiding businesses through the process of being sold or acquired or working for PE-owned companies
- familiarity with manufacturing companies in general, and product-costing methodologies in particular
outcome
Having built a list of 100 highly qualified candidates in the Los Angeles market, Tatum held qualifying interviews to generate a list of finalists. What’s more, we shared our rich assessment data, including the results of our culture-fit and management-style assessments — after all, we knew that partnering with the client’s existing CFO would be essential to ensuring the success of the transition, so personality and culture fit were paramount concerns.
Highlights of the engagement included:
- narrowing our search based on interviews with over 75 candidates to deliver a nine-person short list to the client — four of whom were ultimately identified as candidates who would make a great fit for the company
- successfully completing our search within 75 days of the kickoff date
See all of the ways we can solve for your talent pain points by getting in touch with one of our executive search experts today.