The client already had large offices in mainland Europe and a satellite in Canada with a large portfolio across the North American continent. But they needed someone based in the USA to oversea operations in that part of the world. The role was a great opportunity for the right candidate, involving sitting on the board of various investment companies, with a mixed bag of asset classes – transport, social and renewable energy. It needed someone with a broad range of understanding and the ability to be proactive, to look for ways to help these investments improve performance. All while remaining politically astute. This was tricky – there aren’t many of those type of people about – there are lots of people managing the assets themselves, but not sitting over the top of multiple – the talent pool, as we say, was shallow. We’d have to look at finding people capable of stepping into the role. We looked at direct competitors, we looked at Concession General Managers, people in origination teams and those who go out and find the deals. We needed someone who had worked both sides of the fence. In the end we relied on the detail in the brief – the necessary technical skills and educational achievements – to narrow down our potential candidates. And then we had to ensure we asked the right questions. Lots of people wanted the role, but it was up to us to determine whether they were suited to it. We dug deep into their motivations and understanding and had to get really honest with people if we didn’t think they were right. We kept in touch with the client all the way through, shared notes and ideas and ended up with a good quality shortlist from which they happily and successfully hired.

A relatively new industry, recruitment of ESG specialists is particularly tricky. There are limited numbers of people with the requisite level of experience and expertise. And, of course, everyone wants those people! All of which means it’s not just difficult to find high quality people who are available, but once found, it’s challenging to secure those people for our clients. The role in the brief would be working closely with private equity and infrastructure clients, advising them on new investment ESG and sustainable finance – it was a change of direction for us to be recruiting for an advisory role instead of an investment one. But that prior experience came through for us as it allowed us to identify the best candidates and ask the right questions. Our approach, particularly when the market is tight, is to do everything in the most professional way possible. We pride ourselves on digging deep and learning everything we can about a potential star candidate, before pitching the role to them and inviting them for a further conversation. We know our stuff. We don’t just talk to lots of people, we choose only the most outstanding candidates on and ‘in’ the market, and tailor our conversation so they simply can’t say no. In this case the client was so happy with the candidates we found, they chose to hire two out of the three on the short list.

Our client, an infrastructure investment fund, was planning to diversify into fibre and broadband assets. It was a largescale investment into a new market area for them, and one with which they needed our support to help them find the right skills to make it a success. The person they were looking for had a slightly different skillset to those we’d recruited for them previously. They needed someone with the experience to set up the investment vehicle from scratch.  They would have to manage all the stakeholder relationships, financial performance and report to investment committees. It was a varied and rewarding role, but also a challenging one. The hiring managers for the role were in Paris and New York, while the contract would be based in Canada. This made the process a little challenging. Any potential candidates needed to know the area and its investment opportunities, as well as the technicalities of putting fibre in the ground etc. And the client was relying on us to make sure this was the case. In this case, our research team were able to put their skills to good use by finding the perfect person already in the perfect location, in only three months. The client was so happy we’ve had three more briefs through in the subsequent three months.

We were approached by a contact within one of the largest energy investors in the Middle East, to aid in their search for an Investment Director. They were looking for someone with strong project finance and origination skills, as well as a good working knowledge of the Middle East region. The role required a broad working knowledge of energy investment, from hydrocarbon to renewables. The challenge in this case was one of location. Simply put, it can be hard to encourage people to move to parts of the GCC. It’s also difficult to find people from elsewhere in the world who have the necessary depth of knowledge in the region and its cultural and business differences to make a positive impact on a client’s business there. To overcome this, we make it a priority to test the waters with potential candidates in terms of their feelings about the relocation. It’s important to make sure the people we’re approaching are serious – after all, it is easy to say yes to relocating until faced with that black and white contract on the desk in front of you! We ask plenty of pertinent question – have they relocated before? Is the family onboard? Etc. to make sure that the assignment would work out for both parties – the client and the candidate. In the end, the Coronavirus pandemic reared its head during this search and encouraged more flexible ways of working. This paved the way to finding candidates from further afield.  We developed a high standard international shortlist from which the client recruited successfully.

As an established, not to mention well known, investor and developer in social infrastructure, it was of the utmost importance we kept the search confidential. This was tricky as we needed someone who knew the market inside out, someone who could step into the role seamlessly without causing disruption to the business, and someone who had an understanding of the investment world, as well as the more technical aspects of facilities management. It was important to the client, too, that we met gender ratios and targets as they had plans to diversify within their management teams. Of course, we cannot positively discriminate – our mission is always to find the best person for the role - but we can make sure we look in the right places to find high quality candidates from across the spectrums of gender and minority groups. In this case, we left no stone unturned, exploring potential candidates both within and outside of the investment world. We produced a detailed research report for the client’s internal HR audit processes, detailing all of the people who were identified as capable. The eventual hire was a top-quality candidate who is already proving very successful in the role.

A client came to us looking for a CEO to head up a new infrastructure fund that would be entering the US market.  They specifically needed someone who excelled at origination and high-level networking within the remit of transit and transportation.

The challenge we had was one of confidentiality. This is a tight market in terms of recruitment and it’s difficult to get people interested in a role if you can’t tell them who they’ll be working for. But that’s something we have plenty of experience in.

Through a search across the US real asset market, using a mixture of cold research coupled with network and knowledge, we found a number of high-quality candidates, finally settling on a shortlist of four which gave the client an incredibly difficult choice.

All in all, this brief took around five months to complete, with the client commenting that the entire process was useful. As a new market entrant, they were able to adjust and refine their strategy thanks to the many insightful discussions they had with us and with the potential candidates put forward.