Executive Search
Appointing a New Country Manager – Turnaround of
the Russian Subsidiary
Challenge
A leading international
pharmacy-led health and beauty group acquired one of the key local players in
the pharmaceutical sector in Russia with 3,400 employees and USD 1 billion in
revenue. Initially, they kept the top local management in place and began the
post-merger integration process. The local management team struggled to adjust
to the fact that they had become part of a global organisation and was reluctant
to implement new processes, systems and best practices. In the meantime, the market conditions became more challenging and as a result the Russian subsidiary started
making a loss and losing market share. Furthermore, relations between
management in the Russian subsidiary and the UK headquarters had deteriorated
to the extent that productive communication was hardly possible and there was a
lot of mistrust between the two.
Solution
The client engaged Excelion
Partners International to conduct a confidential executive search for a new,
progressive, international and strategic Country Manager of the Russian subsidiary.
We worked closely alongside the group‘s top management team at the UK headquarters
to establish a detailed position specification covering key priorities of the
job, challenges of the situation in Russia and critical competences that the
future Country Manager should possess in order to be successful.
As the client was familiar
with key players in the sector in Russia and did not believe there was anyone
suitable for the role, we had to come up with a comprehensive search strategy
and be creative about industries, sectors and companies which would provide
potential candidates to meet the high expectations of the client. As part of
the search strategy we also advised our client on considerations of whether the
candidate should be a Russian national or expatriate and whether we should search
for someone locally or bring in from abroad.
Based on our deep knowledge
of the market and wide network of contacts we were able to identify a number of
high-calibre candidates representing a good mix between locals and expatriates
residing both in Russia and abroad. Following a review with the client we discreetly
approached a selected number of prioritised candidates, presented them with a
compelling proposition of the job in Russia and were able to secure their
interest.
Having carried out our
thorough personal interviews and rigid assessments, we presented a limited
number of qualified candidates to the client and facilitated several rounds of
interviews. Once the final candidate was selected, we helped the client in
negotiating a job offer and employment contract. We remained involved for a period of three
months after the new Country Manager started the job to ensure smooth
integration during the onboarding phase.
Impact
Within just a few weeks the
new Country Manager challenged the status quo and initiated a discussion about
the future of the business in Russia. Subsequently he facilitated the
development of a new strategy for the Russian subsidiary which was later confirmed
by headquarters. He was also able to
re-establish constructive communication and trust between the UK headquarters
and the Russian subsidiary. Within six
months the new Country Manager started gaining traction. He restructured his
core team by replacing some of the previous management and implemented new
processes, systems and best practices. The successful implementation of these
operational changes along with the new strategy started paying off and the Russian
subsidiary started to regain market share and business performance began to
improve.