Stanford
Lucerne

Stanford
Lucerne

Stanford
Lucerne

Stanford
Lucerne

Stanford
Lucerne

Stanford
Lucerne

Stanford
Lucerne

Stanford
Lucerne

Stanford
Lucerne

Stanford
Lucerne

Policies – nuts and bolts, and the softer issues

Working arrangements

Off-limits

Confidentiality

Commitment

What You See Is What You Get

Reputation

POLICIES

Working arrangements

Stanford Lucerne only works within professional retainer-based arrangements, acting as a partner to the client company. However, our approach to setting fees and structuring a payment schedule is flexible, and we are more than happy to adjust the schedule to suit the situation. (See Case Studies)

Fees are agreed in advance, and are calculated to reflect fair payment for the work involved. The fees do not vary according to the actual remuneration of the selected candidate. In this way our client can be assured that we are working entirely in their interest, and that advice on candidates who should be considered, and on the appropriate remuneration package to be offered, is not biased according to our own financial interests.

Our work is guaranteed. If for any reason a newly recruited executive does not last for longer than six months, we repeat the search for no further fees.

Off-limits

Stanford Lucerne will not recruit from organisations that have been clients during the past two years. We always inform clients of any relevant off-limits companies before we accept an assignment. As a small search firm with a limited range of client companies, this does not generally have much effect on the freedom to search wherever necessary to find the appropriate candidates. This is a great advantage over the major search firms, most of which have worldwide agreements with several important companies in most market sectors, and whose client relationships at local level need to be taken into consideration on a multi-country search, thus limiting the inclusiveness of the search.

Confidentiality

We routinely receive confidential information from both clients and candidates in the course of our work. In order to operate effectively it is essential that we have the trust of everyone involved, and we are careful to protect confidentiality in all our activities. As a small firm, it is easier for us to guarantee this than it is for the larger organisations.

Commitment

From the time we accept an assignment, we are wholly committed to working with our client to a timely and satisfactory conclusion. We will devote whatever resources are necessary to effect this.

What You See Is What You Get

We offer every client a one-to-one relationship with a consultant whose experience and judgment they know and trust. The same consultant will be representing them in the marketplace, answering the questions of potential candidates from a direct and personal knowledge of the client company. At the same time the consultant is able to feed back to the client any relevant, nonconfidential information from the marketplace, including general perceptions of the company as an employer.

Reputation

This goes two ways. The manner in which we seek and recruit candidates is designed to enhance the reputation of our clients as employers. It does, at the same time, enhance our own reputation, and the results we achieve serve as our 'advertising'. As a small firm we are entirely dependent on our reputation for future business. We never forget that.

CASE STUDIES

Case Study 1

Personal fit,   Flexibility,   Finance,  UK/City,  Our work is our Advertisement

The new CEO of an as yet unquoted life sciences company wanted to identify a Finance Director who would provide the financial input to the top team, and liaise with shareholders and the City. Since a flotation was in the plans, credibility with the City was important. We looked for a person with a strong background in one of the major Chartered Accountants' firms, plus line experience in the finance department of a company and considerable exposure to the City through working in a City-facing position in a Plc. Equally important, however, was the 'fit' with the CEO. The Finance Director was to be his second-in-command, his sounding-board and close confidant.

One of the areas covered by the researcher who worked on this assignment was companies which had recently been acquired. The researcher identified the people within those companies who might be qualified for our client's requirements, and the consultant then approached those individuals to find out more about them and discuss the opportunity. The successful candidate was the Finance Director of a public company which he had recently helped to sell to a larger company, and his role in the merged organisation was considerably less satisfying to him. It was a good opportunity for him, and he 'gelled' well with the CEO, the Chairman and the non-Executive Directors of the client company.

Since the fit issue was so vital, the CEO had wanted to take his time over the recruitment, waiting till just the right person emerged. We structured an agreement which allowed for the fee to be billed over an 8-month period. In fact the recruitment was finalised in three and a half months, at which point the balance of the fee was paid in a lump sum. But if it had taken a year or more we would have continued working at full tilt until the assignment was completed.

Some time later a Venture Capitalist, who was one of the Non-Executive Directors of this company, recommended Stanford Lucerne for an assignment to find a Commercial Director for a small, unquoted, high-tech company. That was also completed in good time and with very satisfactory results.

Case Study 2

Speed,   Flexibility,   Constant Change,   Pan-European search,  Dealing with the Personal Issues,   Marketing,   Food and Drink,   Large US client companies,   Multiculturalism.

Stanford Lucerne was appointed by a division of a very large ($31 Billion turnover) US-owned food company to find an individual to head up their European Marketing, working from their UK-based European headquarters. The divisional Human Resources Director was about to leave the company for another appointment, so speed was necessary. The brief was to find an entrepreneurial marketer with a blue chip, classical marketing background, at least one extra language and ideally not of Anglo-Saxon heritage. A couple of weeks into the search the CEO returned from meetings in the US and altered the focus of the search, to find strong Customer Relationship Marketing skills. Within four weeks of accepting the assignment the shortlist was presented, including Italian, English/Chinese, and Irish candidates, and an English candidate with classical marketing background who had moved into the travel industry and developed strong CRM skills. At this point the search was paused, and shortly later cancelled. The conglomerate had re-organised, the Divisional CEO assumed responsibility for a much-enlarged division, and the requirement for an external candidate disappeared.

A few months later, Stanford Lucerne was awarded an assignment from a very large ($30 Billion turnover) US-owned food and drinks group to find a Vice President Marketing Europe (Designate) for the Beverages division. The European headquarters was based in the UK, and once again the brief was to focus on blue-chip backgrounds, good language skills and ideally non-British candidates, and to look for the strongest and most experienced candidates possible. There was no immediate rush to fill the position – thorough trawling across Europe and careful selection were more important.

It soon emerged that some of the candidates introduced in the shortlist were more senior than candidates our client was currently interviewing for a Regional Vice President position. Consequently we were requested also to introduce candidates for that post. Our client was in discussions with one of these candidates when an entire corporate restructuring was announced from the American headquarters. The European unit headquartered in England became much smaller, and most of the large European countries were incorporated in a Central Europe Business Unit, headquartered in Hungary.

At this point the Human Resources and Staffing Director for that new unit, knowing the reputation of Stanford Lucerne for pan-European search, retained us to find a Category Marketing Director for the Central Europe Business Unit. In the event the selected candidate was British, but of Indian parentage and with plenty of international experience, including experience in that region. She was married, and the decision to move from England to Hungary meant that her husband needed to resign from his own job and start again in a new country. It was partly our understanding of the impact of such a decision, and the way it needed to be facilitated, that ultimately resulted in a successful recruitment.

Case Study 3

Publishing, Entrepreneurial,   UK client,   Flexible solution to client problem

Our client, a rapidly growing and highly profitable London based publishing group, (turnover £104 million, pre-tax profits £25.5 million), had an increasing need for commercially oriented, entrepreneurial publishers. The organisation is fast-paced with a global perspective, and remuneration for its publishers tended to be on a low base but with unlimited opportunity to grow through profit sharing based on the performance of their businesses. People who proved to be successful in the business came from many different backgrounds, although mostly they did have some knowledge of publishing. However, our client was aware that there could be candidates in a range of other publishing companies who were not reaching them through their usual recruitment methods. Stanford Lucerne designed a service for this client that allowed for limited search over a two-month period, specifically targeting an agreed range of companies for possible candidates. Two appointments resulted from this special service, and later we advised on the appointment of an internal resource to centralise some recruitment for the group.

Case Study 4

Human Resources,   Our work is our Advertisement,   US client companies,   Consumer goods,   Industrial products

A newly appointed Vice President Human Resources Europe, working for a $5 Billion US-based consumer goods company, arrived in the UK from France. An individual we had interviewed in France in the course of a pan-European assignment had referred her to Stanford Lucerne. Consequently when the need arose for a divisional Human Resources Director Europe, she appointed Stanford Lucerne to fill the post. Within eight weeks the appointment was finalised, and the candidate has performed successfully through a change of Chief Executive (his boss was promoted to a position in the US) and considerable turbulence in the market.

During the referencing process for the successful candidate, it emerged that there was no internal candidate to take his place when he left his current employer. He was at the time Management Development Manager Europe for a $4 Billion turnover US-based industrial products company. A couple of months later the Vice President Human Resources Europe for that company, who had seen the working patterns of Stanford Lucerne during our referencing conversation, appointed us to find the replacement.

Case Study 5

Global search,   Timing and structure to suit the situation,   Large UK organisation,   Leisure sector

Our client is a division of a large hospitality and leisure UK-based organisation with worldwide revenues around £4 Billion. It was seeking permission from the appropriate regulator to launch a lottery product, but the recruitment of the Commercial Director who would be needed to implement the plans could not be entirely held back until the permission was finalised. Consequently we designed a staggered process to reflect the varying levels of input needed at each stage. We were asked to seek candidates both from the lottery industry worldwide, and also from the consumer goods sector in the UK. One of the shortlisted candidates was a lottery professional from Canada, but in the event the successful candidate was a person with strong consumer goods marketing experience in the UK.