Diversity

Client – Captive Center of Global Automotive MNC

Sector / Practice – Industrial

Role – Vice President, CAE (Aerothermal & Safety)

Location – Bangalore

Search Background:

Our Client is a 100% captive unit of a Gofbal Automotive German MNC which has close to 5000 employees in India. This center is the largest Research and Development center outside the host country of parent organization and is engaged in digital (virtual) vehicle component development (computer aided design, computer aided engineering and electrical and electronics) and global technology support.

Need:

Being a captive unit, client has been pushing the parent organization to outsource more critical work to the India center. As part of management team, incumbent was required to demonstrate strong business acumen, compelling leadership, excellent team work & communication skills.

Search Challenges:

The search had multiple challenges. As required for any captive unit leader, ability to manage and influence global stakeholders was a key criterion. Candidate had to be technically sound to be able to command respect from the team. The most critical challenge in the search was that, as an equal opportunity employer, client wanted to hire a woman engineering leader for this role. This was a tough ask as there are very few women engineering leaders with relevant experience in Indian automotive industry. Relocation was also a major drawback as most of the relevant talent was found in Pune & Chennai, both automotive hubs.

WalkWater Strategy:

WalkWater mapped Indian origin women candidates in automotive OEMs as well as major Tier 1 companies across the globe. To cast a wider net, WT also considered strong women leaders from adjacent industry sectors such as automotive embedded systems, engineering services including those who had relevant domain experience before moving to other industry sectors. WT evaluated 12 strong potential candidates from which client decided to purse 2 for detailed interviews.

Result:

The Search resulted in Engineering Head of captive center of a global auto-component MNC in India joining the client. She continues in this role after a year and has been successful in establishing herself as one of the strong leaders as well as showcasing the India story to the global organization.

Client – French MNC – World Leader in Energy Management & Automation Industry

Sector / Practice – Industrial

Role – Director R&D, Power Products

Location – Bangalore, India

Search Background:

Our client is a French MNC with operations in more than 100 countries. They have 5 business units and are the world leaders in the areas of LV Electrical Products, Energy Management Solutions and Automation. Our client had just carved out Power Products (MV) out of a larger unit and was planning to grow as a separate unit both locally in India and globally.

Need:

Our client wanted to grow the Power Products as a separate business globally and hence the R&D function was also carved out to support the business growth. Locally, the R&D unit was managed by an incumbent who had been with the company for a long time. In line with the global restructuring, our client wanted to bring a seasoned leader with global mindset as the role was expected to grow and manage the business expectations across Asia Pacific (excluding China), Middle East and Africa. The client wanted to hire a diversity leader only for this role.

Search Challenges:

The most critical challenge in the search was to find a diversity leader with the right product understanding and somebody who has worked on a global scale. The need was to partner with global stakeholders from Business and R&D functions. The target pool should have the right product knowledge and the competencies to build the newly carved out centre to the next level and bring in global visibility to the team.

WalkWater Search Strategy:

WalkWater mapped companies across LV, MV, Power and Energy Management domains across the globe. Potential candidates were identified from companies that had global R&D centres and have seen rapid growth in India. The assessment was focused on finding the right product understanding and global mindset. WalkWater screened 30+ organizations (both in India and Indian talent abroad) talent across the mentioned industries and found none from the gender diversity background. WalkWater presented the data and also the analysis on why the client should look at talent from adjacent industries like healthcare, semiconductor, automotive etc. The point was appreciated by the client and the search continued with a broader target sector focus. WalkWater after detailed mapping, presented 6 suitable candidates to the management.

Result:

Our efforts led to the identification of the selected candidate who was leading the global program management as part of the R&D function of one the biggest healthcare equipment manufacturer in the world. The candidate also had a strong experience of being one of the earliest members in another Telecom organization and could adapt easily on the technical requirements associated with the role. She has been onboarded successfully after global leaders’ multiple meeting and has been highly successful in building credibility for the R&D function in the organization.

Client – Large US MNC – world leader in the agri-chemical and seeds industry

Sector / Practice – Pharma & Lifesciences

Role – Marketing Director, South East Asia

Location – Hyderabad

Situation:

Our client is a major American agri-chemical and seed producer and is the biggest pure play agricultural organization in the world. This company was formed after a very recent global M&A process that resulted in the formation of a new organisation. The NewCo’s Management in India was looking to onboard a diversity leader to lead the marketing function for South Asia. This role was part of the management team of the client organisation.

Critical Business Issue:

The Marketing Director was expected to drive the marketing strategies across Seed business and crop Protection portfolios to optimize business results in the South Asia region in alignment with global business strategies. This role reports to Managing Director, South Asia and takes guidance from the Regional Marketing Leader, and in alignment with the Regional/Zonal Platform/Portfolio and Regional Commercial Effectiveness team.

Search Challenges:

The company needed a women leader from Agri Industry to lead the marketing function for South Asia. Finding the right talent with 15+ years of Agri Industry experience with the right mix of Sales, Marketing & Operations in leadership roles was the key challenge. Given that the client had just recently completed the M&A process, the challenge was also to find a women leader currently working with the right skillsets and cultural alignment as per company’s requirement.

WalkWater Strategy:

WalkWater targeted specific companies for the searches and mapped companies in two major buckets – Agri Companies and FMCG companies having products focused for rural markets.Since the search was for diversity talent, WT expanded its reach to look for talent in locations outside India and mapped target set of companies in Singapore, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Philippines etc. After a detailed evaluation WT presented candidates both from India and abroad from both buckets – Agri and FMCG.

Result:

The search resulted in the relocation of a senior women leader, the Country Manager of Vietnam from Monsanto joining the company. The incumbent has a PhD in Plant Genetics, had prior experience working with Advanta & ICRISAT at senior leadership roles in India and Singapore. The candidate continues in this role and is doing extremely well.

Client – US MNC, Leading global supply chain software company

Sector / Practice – Technology

Role – Senior Director Cloud Support

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 are aggressively pushing the SAAS model with respect to both Product Development as well as Support.

Need:

On the back of the aggressive adoption of SAAS model, both the customer support and technical support organizations had to transform drastically. Coupled with this, they were also aggressively looking to better the company’s women leadership representation. It is in this background that our client started looking for a woman leader to own parts of the cloud support teams. The role needed extensive understanding of customer / technical support function for both On premise & SaaS cloud applications. India being a CoE, the incumbent would play a strategic role in proactively maintaining high customer satisfaction in the region & also would be responsible indirectly for delivery in the other CoEs.

Search Challenges:

The challenge in this role was to identify a leader with strong exposure to having driven the change from the On Premise Support to the SAAS support model. Attracting senior diversity talent with extensive understanding of new age SaaS products and growing needs of customer support in the SaaS, API & DevOps world was critical. Moreover, to identify the right candidate, cultural fit was crucial in this Search.

WalkWater Strategy:

WalkWater did an in-depth study and mapping of women leaders in customer/application/product support functions in India from the following sub-sectors: Enterprise Software products, Internet Software products, Networking organizations, IT Services. We presented 4 candidates (India) within a time frame of 4 weeks.

Result:

Our efforts led to the identification of the selected candidate who had been with an MNC software product company for over 16 years and had led multiple support teams across geographies for different product suites. She had been instrumental in transitioning a large global product suite from an On-Premise model to SAAS.

She continues in this role and has been highly successful in building a high-performance cloud support team.

Client – US MNC – One of the largest Marketing technology companies

Sector / Practice – Technology

Role – VP Agency

Location – Bangalore

Search Background:

Our client is one of the largest players at the intersection of marketing, technology, data and advertising. It is a part of a larger Advertising group globally and its India organisation is a key partner driving technology, analytics and creative campaigns for customers globally.

Need:

The need was to hire a VP of Agency, delivering creative solutions for the global clients. Creative, data, technology and analytics was often a bundle of services provided by our client to its customers. Our client wanted better representation for women at the leadership (VP level) and this was a focused search to identify women leaders.

Search Challenges:

The most critical challenge in the search was to find a leader who had a mix of exposure to advertising, analytics and technology. Traditional advertising industry was not known to building cutting edge tech and analytics skills within and the function was often outsourced. Identifying a woman leader with traditional advertising roots but who had then transitioned to the digital advertising industry was the key search challenge.

WalkWater Strategy:

WalkWater did an in-depth study and mapping of digital advertising and marketing leaders from the following sub sectors:

• Digital agencies
• IT Services companies with a digital marketing BU presence
• Enterprise product MNCs & Startups

We screened an extensive long list of candidates and WalkWater presented 4 candidates within a time frame of 4 weeks.

Result:

Our efforts led to the identification of the selected candidate who in her last couple of roles was the creative head for large digital agencies focused on the Technology sector. Prior to that, she had spent over 5 years with a large technology product company in a global analytics delivery role. She continues in this role and has been highly successful in building and growing the agency team.

Client – US MNC – One of the largest Marketing technology companies

Sector / Practice – Technology

Role – Director Analytics

Location – Bangalore

Search Background:

Our client is one of the largest players at the intersection of marketing, technology, data and advertising. It is a part of a larger Advertising group globally and India was a key partner driving technology, analytics and creative campaigns for customers globally.

Need:

The analytics organization of the company was growing and there was a need to identify a senior leader with strong exposure to marketing analytics coupled with exposure to Data and Machine Learning. The role would lead delivery for clients based globally and so the need to find a leader with global delivery experience was key too. While the company was doing well when it came to women leadership hiring in India, the analytics team wasn’t represented well enough. That was a key need in the search.

Search Challenges:

While marketing analytics is a fairly evolved domain, the main challenge in this role was to identify a woman leader with the combination of Marketing Analytics and ML experience. Leaders with strong statistical backgrounds, who then transitioned to sectors which demanded top notch tech skills were difficult to find.

WalkWater Strategy:

WalkWater did an in-depth study and mapping of women leaders in Marketing Analytics from the following subsectors:

• Tech startups
• Banking and Financial Services
• Analytics Services Companies and IT Service Companies

WalkWater swiftly mapped, shortlisted and presented 5 candidates within a month’s time.

Result:

Our efforts led to the identification of the selected candidate who was leading data analytics and insights for a global Fintech player. Her prior experience was an entrepreneurial role building analytics COE at a large Indian business house. Prior to that she was with a large Financial services company where she was responsible for the delivery of analytical models and solutions in the space of customer lifecycle management.

She continues in this role and has been highly successful in building a top-notch analytics team.

Client – Dutch MNC – World Leader in Lighting Product & Solutions Industry

Sector / Practice – Technology

Role – Global Head – R&D, Systems & Services BU (Diversity Search)

Location – Bangalore, India

Search Background:

Our client is a Dutch MNC with operations in more than 70 countries and a world leader in lighting for professionals, consumers and lighting for the Internet of Things. Our client’s focus was to bring a global role of Head R&D for the Systems & Services BU (~ 3 billion Euro PnL) for the first time to India. The role, earlier based out of their global headquarters was being transitioned to India.

Need:

The role was always based in their global headquarters and the need was to find a globally competent leader to head the function being based out of Bangalore. The Bangalore R&D Centre was growing with more IoT, Software & Digital competencies which are also the business needs for the future.

Search Challenges:

The most critical challenge in the search was to identify a leader who had either worked outside of India or managed R&D centers beyond India. The leader had to have a mix of expertise across Hardware, Software and Digital Technologies and should have driven the function independently. The search was driven by the Global CEO of the BU directly and our client was looking for a seasoned professional, having a global mindset and the ability to work with the global business stakeholders. The target pool should have the right product knowledge and the competencies to drive the R&D function to the next level and bring in global visibility to the team.
To add to the complexity, the client preferred a gender diversity candidate.

WalkWater Strategy:

The WalkWater team undertook a global mapping of R&D leadership talent across companies in the Energy Management, Lighting & Healthcare sectors. Potential candidates were identified from companies that had global R&D centres and have seen rapid growth in India. The assessment was focused on finding the right cultural fit for this challenging assignment. WalkWater screened 50+ senior management (both in India and Indian talent abroad) talent across the mentioned industries before presenting 4 suitable candidates to the management.

Result:

Our efforts led to the identification of the selected diversity candidate who was leading the R&D function of one of the biggest Healthcare equipment providers in the world. The candidate had earlier worked with a German MNC in the automotive domain and had worked in Germany leading R&D centers across India, Germany & Latin America. The candidate also had a strong experience of being one of the earliest members in adopting and driving Software, Cloud and Digital Technologies. In a short period, she has been recognized as one of the top talents for the business for the organization.