Chip components firm needed a progressive regional VP to lead through pending spin-out

A US-based producer of analog, digital, mixed signal and optoelectronics components and subsystems required a Regional VP with multinational mindset to spearhead their semiconductor products business as it was about to be divested to a private equity firm.

Besides a genuinely international mindset the successful candidate would need to demonstrate excellent leadership skills and successful experience dealing with change management, as he or she would need to navigate a major business transition.

Most of the hiring and management team would also be working through a situation they hadn’t experienced in the past which would have implications in how well they could handle the information requests candidates would have.

More importantly, the company had never brought in an external resource for a hire of this level in Asia Pacific and therefore were limited in their understanding of the process.

Finally, the HQ was located in a relatively remote area away from most of its competitors.

Our team first set out to identify superior business leaders with experience in change management and relevant contacts within the region’s key partners and end users. Considerable focus was placed on identifying those with superior reputations in the market as managers of people and communicators with HQ.

This ultimately drove the pool of prospects down significantly, yet we were able to distill our shortlist to 3 people of key interest to the client. Each candidate had in some way taken an operation through a period of major uncertainty successfully, each were multinational in outlook, and all had had significant business success throughout their career.

The selected and ultimately hired finalist was considered a key strategic hire by the client. The client commented that it was one of the most seamless assignments they’d handled to date working with a search firm and were especially pleased considering the dearth of candidates they anticipated going into the search.