CEO Practice

Client – Indo-US JV company – one of the market leaders in the Float Glass Industry

Role – Vice President & CEO India

Location – Ankleshwar, Gujarat

Search Background:

Our client is a 50:50 JV between one of the world’s largest conglomerates and a large Indian Business House. Our client has planned capex worth USD 200 Mn in the India operations to set up a new float glass plant and grow the India business 3X in 2-3 years.

Need:

Our client always had an expat as the CEO to lead the India Business. With major expansion planned, the board wanted to hire a local candidate. We were given the search for the VP & CEO India role with the mandate to identify a dynamic and senior business leader as a Country Head, someone who can rapidly grow the business in India while managing the interests of the JV partners.

Search Challenges:

The most critical challenge in the search was to find a leader who was a culture fit. The Client was looking for a seasoned professional, having a global mindset but with the ability to work with the JV’s Indian promoters. The incumbent was expected to operate out of a small town of Ankleshwar in Gujarat.

WalkWater Search Strategy:

WalkWater mapped companies across building materials / building solutions industries – Glass, Cement, Paint, Fire & Security, Construction Chemicals, Consumer lighting etc. Potential candidates were identified from companies that had undergone major expansion in recent past or were experiencing rapid growth. The assessment was focused on finding the right cultural fit for this challenging assignment. WalkWater screened 80+ senior management talent across the mentioned industries before presenting 5 suitable candidates to the management.

Result:

Our efforts led to the identification of the selected candidate who leading the India and Middle East Business operations for large US MNC in the Fire & Security business. He continues in this role for close to two years and has been highly successful in building credibility for the Indian Operations within JV partners.

Client – Indo-UK JV company in the Aerospace component manufacturing business

Role – Chief Executive Officer – India

Location – Bangalore, India

Search background:

The UK company is a global Aerospace major providing highly efficient integrated power and propulsion solutions. Their power systems are predominantly used in aerospace, marine, energy and off-highway applications.

This company is one of the world’s leading producers of aero engines for large civil aircraft and corporate jets. They are the second largest provider of defence aero engines in the world.

This company is the only Aero engine OEM to setup its own manufacturing setup in India as a JV with India’s largest PSU in the Aerospace and Defense domain.

Need:

Our client wanted a senior Business Leader in the capacity of a CEO India who would replace an expat and help the organization grow by meeting the stringent global requirements of quality, cost and delivery. The incumbent will also strategize and implement future growth plans. This role would report to the UK company’s India CEO, Board of Directors of the JV and Global Operations Director in UK.

Search Challenges:

Our client needed a high-profile candidate with strong experience of leading a manufacturing setup of high precision parts. The company wanted someone who has strong technical and operations experience as well as the cultural alignment to manage the complexity of running a 50:50 JV with a large Indian PSU. The challenge was to find someone currently working in an established organization but ready to move to a smaller setup with future plans of growth. The talent landscape was also very small considering the underdeveloped Aero OEM manufacturing ecosystem in India.

WalkWater Talent Strategy:

The WalkWater team led by one of its Directors partnered closely with the global and local leadership of the UK company to understand the person fit, skillset mapping and critical competencies assessment. We ran an extensive search process and mapped senior leaders across aerospace and high precision manufacturing industry in India as well those based outside of India. While functional skills were important, we gave equal emphasis to the cultural fitment of the candidate for this search. While the original brief was to focus on candidates from Aerospace industry, WT convinced the client to look beyond to other industries like auto-component and precision manufacturing industries.

Result:

The search was closed successfully with the Director – Manufacturing Operations of large US Auto component company joining as the CEO. He continues to lead this role and is successfully building the business further. One of his key growth strategies today will be to expand the JV’s manufacturing capacity and put in on a strong future growth path.

Client – A US based conglomerate – one of the world’s best-known multi-industry company

Role – President & Managing Director, India

Location: Bangalore

Search Background:

Our client is one of the world’s best known multi-industry companies, recognized for its powerful brands. In India, company had a sales office for one of its subsidiaries and an assembly plant for another one. It also had a Global Technology Centre in Bangalore doing captive work in engineering design and IT for global operations.

Need:

Our client was looking for a senior executive in the capacity of the President & MD to provide leadership, growth and management oversight to all its business entities in India and be responsible for advancing it’s globalization strategy within the region, as well as overseeing business development and market expansion efforts for all group companies in India.

Search Challenges:

To be successful in this role, the incumbent needed to have robust knowledge of Indian bureaucracy and Defense Procurement Process (DPP) coupled with strong understanding & relationship network within government structure as well as armed forces. Further our client being an MNC meant that, to be effective, the incumbent should have had experience of being part of global corporate team. It was a difficult combination to find. This being a Bangalore based role also added further level of complexity as most of such leadership roles are based in New Delhi.

WT Strategy:

WT mapped leadership roles across Aerospace & Defense organizations, Engineering Centers, Multi Industry conglomerates & Large Indian companies. This included Honeywell, Goodrich, SAAB, GE Aviation, Pratt & Whitney, Northrup Grumman, Rolls-Royce, General Dynamics, Cobham, Bombardier, Ingersoll Rand, Volvo, Tata and L&T. WT screened 70 candidates from which a longlist of 37 candidates was drawn up.

Result:

The Search resulted in the Managing Director of a European Defense manufacturer joining our client as President & MD. He continued in this role for close to 4 years and was successful in bringing Global Leadership and India’s Ministry of Defense together multiple times to further BD efforts in India. One of the JV companies was in active discussions with a couple of Indian states to set up a helicopter manufacturing plant in India.

Role – Global Chief Executive

Client – Large listed Indian Business House, Flow Control Business Unit

Location – Sharjah, UAE.

Search background:

Our client is a leader in flow-control solutions for critical services. A wholly owned subsidiary of a large diversified Indian conglomerate, the company leverages its fifty- year heritage of excellence to manufacture valves for key sectors of the economy such as oil & gas, power, petrochemicals, chemicals, fertilizers and pharmaceuticals.

They have a domestic market of around 200 MUSD. Internationally, current sales are in excess of 125 MUSD. The company is headquartered in Chennai and has manufacturing in 3 locations.

Need:

The incumbent in the Chief Executive role had some serious health concerns and there was no strong second in line in place. Looking at the peculiarity of the business, they did not have anyone fitting the role across the group. The challenge was not only to find someone who can replace him, the search was to be done on a SoS basis.

Search Challenges:

Our client was looking for someone with an in-depth understanding about the Valves industry. The person was expected to deal with senior stakeholders in the global Oil & Gas & Power industries. As a large percentage of the business came from International markets, it was important that the expected candidate should have handled global markets and should be capable of holding his won against global Valves players.

There were also some specific constraints around the age, compensation, volume of business managed etc.

WalkWater Talent Strategy:

WT team followed a 5-prong approach in which they identified leadership professionals from MNC Valve companies, Indian Valve companies, Capital Equipment suppliers to Oil & Gas, Power industries and Automation companies. When it quickly became clear that it is going to be a challenge finding such talent in India, WT mapped professionals across the globe and zeroed in on the relevant candidates. WT looked at 70+ companies globally to get the right set of candidates.

Result:

The search resulted in the placement of a global leader from the Oil & Gas Industry. He has extensive Global Experience in Oil and Gas Industry (Rotating Equipment and Valve Products). He has been instrumental in accelerating growth, enhancing profit margins, improving productivity and cash flows for global businesses. After the completion of 3 months and handing over, the incumbent is now fully responsible for the day-to-day running of the company. The candidate was based in US for over 2 decades and relocated to Sharjah for this role.

Client – Leading Renewable Energy Asset Management Company, amongst the Top 10 in the Global RE Asset Management Industry

Role – CEO

Location – Mumbai

Search Background:

Our client is a new age tech-enabled Renewable Energy Asset Management company and a part of a large well renowned Indian Group, USD 20.7 Billion Group spread across 100+ countries. It is amongst the Top 10 global RE asset management companies, with more than 500+ years of collective team experience and a total portfolio (O&M, SCADA, Due-Diligence and Testing & Commissioning Services) of over 6 GWp. The client wanted to hire a CEO who is ambitious, can drive change and make this asset profitable for the group. The focus of this role was to build a strong topline, expand client reach and build a strong customer service focus with the right team on the ground.

Need:

The Renewable Energy Asset Management business is increasingly gaining traction amongst customers and technology and digital focus is becoming a strong differentiator and competitive advantage. The client brief given to us was to look for someone who is native digital in mindset and who can transform the organization through digitization and technology transformation.

Search Challenges:

The most critical challenge in the search was to find a leader who was a seasoned professional, having a global mindset and someone who had scaled up a large asset management business preferably in the renewable industry. The challenge was to find a young leader, technology savvy and strong customer service mindset.

However, the reality is that the renewal energy asset management function is typically insourced within the Asset owner and there are no major third party renewal energy asset management companies. Also, the talent available in the Solar and Wind Energy sectors was not up to the benchmarks set by the client. There was a clear need to broadbase the search strategy and to look at talent in the adjacent industries for this search.

WalkWater Strategy:

Realizing the challenge in this search, the WalkWater team mapped companies across the solar, wind and thermal sectors and looked for talent who have worked in the O&M / Asset Management functions in both the Asset Manager as well as the EPC / Third Party Asset Management companies. Potential candidates were identified from companies that had undergone major expansion in recent past or were experiencing rapid growth. We also specifically mapped companies which had used technology and digital as tools for business transformation. The assessment was focused on finding the right cultural fit for this challenging assignment. WalkWater screened 110+ senior management talent across the mentioned industries before presenting 5 suitable candidates to the management.

Result:

Our efforts led to the identification of the selected candidate who was leading the Services business of Thermax Babcock & Wilcox Energy Solutions business. The selected candidate is a seasoned leader and brings more than 27 years of experience, of which the last 15 years was spent with Thermax in a variety of role. He has been leading Services business for over 11 years in Thermax and was identified as a HiPot within Thermax.

Client – One of the largest Indian multinational conglomerates

Role – Chief Executive Officer – Analytics

Location – Mumbai

Search Background:

Our client is one of the largest Indian multinational conglomerates. The group had embarked on a new Customer Centricity initiative; and as part of which, the company wanted to build a group wide Analytics competency.

Need:

The group wanted to create an in-house data science & analytics company that would provide Analytics as a service to all the consumer facing companies of group. They were looking for a leader with global exposure, demonstrated leadership in building Analytics, Data Science and Big Data capabilities and should have the stature to be the CEO of the company

Search Challenges:

The challenge in this role was to identify an analytics and data science leader with the ability on one hand to build deep technical competencies and on the other hand to build a company as a CEO. While analytics is a fairly established industry in India, most of the data science leaders were based in the US. Attracting a senior data science & Analytics leader for a grounds up initiative was a challenge. The Search was initiated by the Board and to identify the right cultural fit was a critical challenge in this Search.

WalkWater Search Strategy:

WalkWater executed a global search followed by an in-depth and structured assessment and the industries we mapped globally were:

• Tech product companies
• BFSI
• FMCG
• Boutique analytics companies.

Walkwater presented 5 candidates (India and US) within a time frame of 6 weeks.

Result:

The search resulted in the joining of global analytics leader who in his last role led analytics for a large multinational bank. Most of his prior experience was in the US. He has gone on to build a 70-member team which is servicing almost all Consumer driven businesses in the group; with high end data analytics and services.

Client – Leading global supply chain software company

Role – VP and India Managing Director

Location – Bangalore

Search Background:

Our client is a leading global supply chain software company powering today’s digital transformation. They have a large presence in India (over 2500 associates) predominantly across Product development, Customer Support and Consulting functions. They were in the process of positioning the India Centre of Excellence as a Centre for Innovation, deep tech, Research and Development.

Need:

Our client was looking for a leader to lead the India COE with a demonstrated track record of leading India development centers of multinationals, focused on innovation and emerging technologies. The ideal candidate was a Chief Technology Officer who had subsequently played Country Head roles.

Search Challenges:

The most critical challenge in the search was to find a leader with a mix of exceptional technical and research credentials,  exposure in leading highly matrixed setups and the ability to represent the COE in India. While the role was internal focused in the sense of building deep research and development capabilities, at the same time worked actively with external ecosystem – academia, customers, partners and industry peers.

WalkWater Search Strategy:

Walkwater did an in-depth study and mapping of global product development leaders in India as well as the US from the following sub sectors:

• MNC Enterprise Software products
• MNC Internet Software products

Walkwater presented 5 candidates within a time frame of 4 weeks.

Result:

Our efforts led to the identification of the selected candidate who in his last role was the Vice President & Managing Site Director (Bangalore & Pune), for a global leader in the cloud infrastructure software product space. Prior to that he was the Chief Technology Officer for a global player in the storage and security domain. He is a senior executive with a sustained track record in leading the India and global development centers of multinationals. He holds numerous patents and peer-reviewed publications

Client – Leading global classifieds startup

Role – Chief Executive Officer for a new business

Location – Gurgaon.

Search Background:

Our client is a leading global classifieds commerce organization.

Need:

The Client was in the process of investing heavily in a new line of business in India. The CEO would be responsible for the entire P&L of the business, setting up operations across multiple cities across India and running a very very large operations team.

Search Challenges:

The most critical challenge in the search was to find a leader who had a mix of being a strong operations leader and someone who could run the P&L. The Client wanted someone who had run a large business for established companies and has then moved to the startup world.

WalkWater Strategy:

WalkWater did an in-depth study and mapping of senior business leaders in the Indian startup space and presented 4 candidates within a time frame of 4 weeks.

Result:

Our efforts led to the identification of the selected candidate who in his last role was the Chief Business Officer of a large ecommerce startup in India. He had varied leadership experience across diverse sectors such as Financial Services, BPO and ecommerce. He continues in this role and has built multi city operations and is doing extremely well.

Client – Private Equity Controlled Personal Care Indian MNC

Role – CEO – India

Location – Mumbai

Search Background:

Our client is a global company with operations spread across 5 continents. It is one of the leading razor blade manufacturing companies acquired and controlled by a leading PE firm based in London.

Need:

The client was looking at a leader who could build in successful transformation of the India Business of the organization. As the organization was going through majority acquisition, the need of the hour was to get a leader to build India as a key market. The requirement was to transform the team, business and turnaround the company to be profitable.

Search Challenges:

The most critical challenge in the search was to find a leader who was a tough leader, someone who was strong to build the company and its culture right form scratch. The client was looking at someone who was hand on and had strong experience across sales channels. Someone who can build strong distribution footprint both in the urban and rural market. Ideally a candidate who has worked across different distribution and GTM strategy in terms of maximizing the product reach and can lead large team.

WalkWater Strategy:

WalkWater did an in-depth study and mapping of ideal candidates both from MNCs and Indian organization.  We specifically targeted organizations who had strong distribution network across different channels. WalkWater presented 1 candidate for the search within a time frame of a week.

Result:

Our efforts led to the identification of the selected candidate who in his last role was the Sales Director for a large MNC in the Breakfast Cereals business and was responsible for building the distribution footprint of the company in the rural market. Prior to that, he was the NSM for a large US MNC which sells impulsive category food item.  He continues in this role and has been highly successful in building a profitable business in India with a stable team.