CLIENT

$700M heavy civil highway contractor

Mid Atlantic United States

SEARCH ASSIGNMENT

+ Chief Financial Officer

REFERRED BY
We were introduced to the client by Cornerstone Advisors, a succession and human capital development firm that has trusted us for over seven years.

CHALLENGES
The second generation CEO needed to replace his retiring CFO who had been with him for more than 30 years. The previous CFO was the CEO’s trusted advisor and “right hand man” during a period of significant growth. Before engaging our firm, the company hired a replacement outside of the construction industry, believing this would allow him to bring a new level of financial sophistication to his growing company. The replacement came from a manufacturing background and was not able to understand the unique financial aspects of a construction company however.

We needed to produce proven CFO candidates from substantial construction companies, similar in size, and working in the same markets as our client. The candidates needed to be able to gain the immediate respect of a very seasoned senior leadership and operations staff. The CEO needed someone he could immediately trust, and ideally someone who would become his new trusted advisor and “right hand man.”

SEARCH PLAN + RESULTS
We spent considerable time meeting with the CEO, the SVP of Human Resources, and the leadership team. We wanted to understand their business, the challenges the new CFO would face and we needed to understand the culture and what kind of individual would work best with the CEO.

We knew we would need a large pool of senior level finance candidates from similar organizations. To accomplish this, our research team put together a national database of similar construction companies targeting their senior finance executives. These individuals were confidentially contacted via phone, email and through personal recommendations and referrals. We marketed the opportunity as exactly what it was – a true CFO/CEO partnership opportunity with a market-leading company on the brink of significant growth.

Over the course of three days the shortlisted candidates were brought to an offsite location for initial interviews with our firm and the CEO. This arrangement allowed us to strengthen our relationship with CEO and gain more insight into the company over the three days of interviews. We narrowed the choice to two candidates. The CEO liked both of them, but the results of our custom-designed Kolbe and Caliper assessment tools helped the him choose the right candidate with confidence.

The new CFO has been with our client since 1999. We continue to provide executive search services to them as well as other top construction companies that they have referred us to.