The Story and Challenge
Andersen Corporation has been a valued client-partner of Cultura Solutions over the last 10 years and after having successfully placed 9 key leaders within their IT organization, inclusive of the CIO, our team was called upon for early stage guidance on another key leadership hiring initiative. The recent pandemic drove Andersen’s leadership team to recognize the heightened necessity to rapidly progress, innovate, and connect their manufacturing technology, transitioning siloed point solutions to an enterprise-wide design enabling end-to-end connectivity. This IT evolution would be no small feat inside their large matrixed enterprise and would include over 40 existing manufacturing and distribution facilities across the US and Canada, as well as 2 major production expansions on the horizon. This pivotal, strategic project presented a significant opportunity for the CIO to hire Andersen’s first senior executive in IT dedicated to enterprise-wide manufacturing. More broadly, Andersen has aspirations to double the size of their organization within the next decade which would require this new hire to be a seasoned leader capable of not only shepherding the innovation and execution of large scale initiatives, but also of building out a more robust management and leadership team within the IT and Manufacturing functions with paths to promotion.
Our Approach
Our principals spent 2 weeks conducting a deeply analytical research and sourcing process focused on identifying top Information Technology leaders with strong experience inside key manufacturing organizations. Our first step was to narrow in on the most progressive and disruptive manufacturing organizations in the region, which resulted in a list of over 100 notable enterprises located largely in the Twin Cities as well as some bordering areas. Next, we built out a targeted chart of candidate prospects that yielded over 130 names. Important in the makeup of our prospects for this critical leadership role was Industry 4.0 capabilities, specifically experience developing a “smart manufacturing environment of the future”, alongside robust knowledge in systems such as MES, ERP, and CPQ. In addition to the more tangible expertise, it was also imperative to our client that we assess the prospects' management skills and their aptitude to innovate, take calculated risks, and their confidence in moving the needle. Given that this key leader would need to seamlessly step in to inherit nearly half of the IT talent pool at Andersen and drive forward such a large strategic enterprise undertaking, we focused our search primarily on current leaders at a VP level or higher inside of organizations generating ideally at least $1B in revenue.
The Results
After 6 weeks of intensive local and regional outreach engaging with hundreds of top executives in this space sharing an accurate and compelling story around Andersen’s history and supply chain vision, we presented a short list of 6 impactful and highly vetted top candidates. Aligning with diversity, equity and inclusion goals, over half of the candidates presented to the hiring team were members of underrepresented groups. Our team felt confident that the candidates presented were thoroughly vetted and of the highest caliber to fill this role because during the final 2 weeks of the search, our principals spent over 2 hours with each individual top prospect focused almost entirely on assessing their technical and functional alignment as well as leadership and cultural fit. Following our presentation, 3 of the prospects were selected to move forward in a formal and intensive interview process inclusive of 3 separate rounds with 9 key stakeholders at Andersen, including the CEO. Throughout the interview process, our team supported coordination of the interviews while remaining laser focused on helping influence and craft an unforgettable and positive candidate experience. Subsequently, 1 of the talented finalists was quickly identified as a front runner and the leadership team made an offer to that candidate, who happily accepted to join the Andersen family. Our team has received feedback that they are already successfully contributing at a very high level.
