The Challenge
Amplifon, a ~$2B hearing healthcare firm headquartered in Italy, aspired to onboard a sourcing leader within their Americas operation based in Minneapolis, MN. The incumbent would be tasked with building a standardized, geographically-cognizant procurement program to consult with corporate executive teams, establish vendor relations, and execute end-to-end indirect procurement processes, strategies, partnerships, and programs within the holistic, global sourcing strategy. With little structure and processes yet in place, this leader had to be comfortable operating in an entrepreneurial player-coach seat, and working cross-functionally within the organization’s highly distributed, culturally diverse, and intricately matrixed organizational chart.
Our Approach
Our principals spent hours onsite at Amplifon Americas’ headquarters with their CHRO, Talent Acquisition Team, President of the Americas, and Italy-based Head of Procurement to better understand their businesses, their unique global cultural identity, and to nail down details of the leadership gap within the procurement function. We spent 5 days in research building a targeted prospect chart of accomplished procurement leaders with global experience and entrepreneurial abilities. Recognizing the importance of this leader’s ability to build an early-stage function and manage relationships with indirect and direct procurement vendors, we not only focused on prospects with medical device and healthcare experience, but were industry agnostic in our approach, prioritizing multi-national matrixed company experience. 1 additional day was spent reviewing specific elements of Amplifon’s complex company history and the particular leadership personnel we were representing across the globe, which enabled us to share messaging in a highly compelling way with the local marketplace.
The Results
After 4 weeks of comprehensive outreach, we met onsite with Amplifon’s hiring team to present a fully assessed short list of 6 impactful top candidate prospects. 5 were selected to move forward to first round interviews and subsequently, 2 were selected to return onsite for final in-person and video conference meetings with global executives. Although challenged by the decision to pick between 2 talented finalists, the leadership team made an offer and their top candidate happily accepted to join the Amplifon family.
