Our client, a US-based biotechnology company specialising in developing and marketing innovative products for rare diseases, needed to recruit a heavyweight senior general manager to build and drive business in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).
Challenge
In an effort to strengthen and grow its business in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) — specifically in the southern CEE region comprising Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia — our client needed to hire a full-time general manager.
The position, to be based in Prague, Budapest or Vienna called for an executive with general management skills, experience in business operations with full P&L responsibility and sound knowledge of the southern CEE market and pharmaceutical industry. In addition, our client was looking for a candidate with a minimum of 10 years’ experience in sales and marketing management as well as good organisational, planning and financial skills.
Action
In the first instance we met with the client in Budapest to learn and understand precisely what skills were needed to fulfill the objectives of the role.
With this knowledge we worked with the client to ascertain the critical competencies required of this role and, based on that knowledge, we were able to develop a detailed candidate specification.
Once this had been determined, we started the search by listing target pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies operating in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
We searched among the senior executives of these companies for possible candidates who had experience in the following areas: general management; leadership of sales and marketing executives; building up and developing both teams and businesses.
In addition, our client wanted to see candidates who had worked in a multicultural environment and had experience working in Central and Eastern Europe.
We identified a list of 16 potential candidates who were interviewed by the client. Working with the client, we then narrowed this list down to the two most likely candidates.
The short-listed candidates were then presented to the company’s European management team in Prague who chose one to go forward. This candidate was invited to the US to meet our client’s global management team who approved his appointment and offered him the role.
Result
The new placement is now in the process of building up and developing the company’s new southern and Central Eastern European business with positive results.
Shortly after completing this search Spencer Stuart was asked to undertake another assignment for the same client, this time to find the medical director for the company’s Central and Eastern European region.