CEO Placement of a Turnaround Company

Retail

Our Client is a public retail/e-commerce company. The client was frustrated that the search firm they hired had not produced a candidate whom they could hire. We were on a time crunch to present viable candidates. This was a turnaround, and we needed a credible candidate with deep industry knowledge who could navigate a turnaround, could build a team, and get buy-in from internal and external personnel.

Job Title	CEO
Service Used	$700 Million company
Industry	Retail/E-Commerce
Company Profile	Retail/E-Commerce Company

Days To Fill

Challenge

The client wanted a well regarded retail/e-commerce executive with superb merchandising skills in the categories that this company sold. The candidate had to have had turnaround experience. This search had been out to another search firm for six months. The client was frustrated with the other firm because they had not been able to interview any candidates presented to them. All of the candidates presented were were well above the compensation range, nor would they ever consider the move to this company. We were given one month to present at least two candidates for this client to physically interview.

Strategy

Once hearing from the client about what was needed on the technical skills and soft skills, our network and industry knowledge immediately enabled us to identify two very viable candidates who met all the needs for this CEO role. The winning candidate was referred to us by a friend of PeopleSuite, who is a very reputable CEO themselves. This candidate had been sought out by other executive search firms, including the firm that currently had the search, but the candidate refused to take their calls. Because we were connected through our CEO friend’s name, the candidate took our call.

Result

The challenge was met and we exceeded the client’s expectations -- two candidates were presented, interviewed, and the winning candidate was extended an offer within 6 weeks. The new CEO had to rebuild the company almost from scratch. He had to do direct sourcing and eliminate previous merchandising strategies. He revamped the assortments, reduced categories that were not bringing in needed ROI, increased categories which would bring in better ROI, and introduced categories to give customers better and more complete choices. Where previously analysts were skeptical about this company’s survival, today the company is in a much better place and industry analysts are congratulating this CEO for a job well-done.

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