Global Consulting Firm to Expand to Chemical Consulting

The Challenge

Find a senior partner to lead a global build-out in the chemical sector for our client’s resources practice. A leading integrated consulting firm has committed to building a world scale chemical practice in Europe first and then spread to other geographies. The objective was to find a leading partner then work with that partner to build the group.

The Approach

Externalize the firm’s vision
Experiences building groups told us that we needed to find a partner with a proven track record of building a practice. This partner would need a compelling value proposition to be willing to take a risk with our client. We worked with our client to develop a compelling hiring case that would attract the highest quality talent.

Develop a compelling career case
We spent a significant amount of time generating internal consensus with our client for allowing a reasonable amount of time to build the group in Europe. We also established a formal mentoring process to be sure the lead partner and the team hired would be integrated effectively.

Locate and secure the best candidates
Magellan researched and developed a short list of qualified candidates. We then built a unique profile for each potential candidate and developed a unique career approach for each. We then met with each partner on the short list and spent extended time working then through our clients hiring argument and the long term career advantages of joining.

After each meeting a list of potential team members was also developed. We also spent time validating the hiring criteria with our client to be sure we were on track.

The Magellan Difference

• Created a competitive analysis of the state of chemical consulting practices in Europe and then globally and built unique hiring arguments for our client to use in attracting top talent
• Worked with each candidate individually to build a unique career case argument for them to consider our client
• Succeeded in finding a leader and building a global chemical consulting team for our client

The Results

By focusing on the client’s vision and carefully identifying potential candidates Magellan was able to secure a leader and quickly build a team.
As we predicted of the short listed viable candidates identified one was able to internalize our client’s opportunity and agreed to join. By sourcing team members early in the process we were also able to reduce the successful candidate’s time to traction dramatically.

Within 12 months the team in Europe was up and running and a team in the US was well on its way to being built.

New team set record of achieving commercial traction
Time to traction was also reduced by creating deep understanding with our client about how to efficiently onboard senior lateral hires. Additionally Magellan focused on self-integration skills for the managers we hired to ensure successful integration. As the team was being built Magellan continued recruiting in new geographies and reported back to our client emerging market intelligence from the chemicals sector experts we interviewed as part of our search.

Client parsed the line between strategy and integration consulting
Another benefit of the search was the clarifying to our client of the significant line of differentiation between strategy consulting and integrated consulting. The unique challenges of each segment and the driving need to find a way to integrate them significantly reshaped our clients culture.