Finding a Director for the UK education sector
[ 1 Apr 2010 ]
This time the task was for one of the major players in the UK education sector - a business which is uniquely placed, and the role was to lead a combined publishing and qualifications development team focused on several key subject areas. So we were looking for someone with strong strategic skills and a record of leadership and development of people combined with a good understanding of the UK education system. Building on our existing knowledge of the sector, we looked across the other publishers, the awarding bodies and the education quangos, researching a number of organisations which we had not previously looked at, and I talked to a range of interesting people. Finding the right set of skills combined with the necessary commercial acumen was not easy but we were able to introduce several capable individuals to the client who ultimately appointed one of them in preference to some strong internal contenders: not an automatic outcome by any means. The selected person has now agreed terms, resigned from his present employer and agreed a starting date. It was a challenging but satisfying exercise which I think demonstrates how an active approach to finding people can work effectively when the requirements are clear and parameters for comprehensive research can be drawn up. Whilst this was a director level appointment, the approach can work equally well for less senior positions.
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