Case Study: Equal Experts
Recruiting Equal Experts' First Chief People Officer.
Introduction
In 2021 Peeq was appointed to hire global consulting business, Equal Experts’ (EE), first Chief People Officer.
As an award winning firm, full of inspiring and passionate people, EE provided a very compelling opportunity for us to take to market.
From the outset we realised that this definitely was not about putting a ‘bum on a seat’. It was about being patient, reflecting, questioning and demonstrating an absolute commitment to finding the best talent.
Through a shared sense of calmness, a true working partnership and faith in the knowledge that it was always going to be an iterative process, Akiko Mumford was hired as EE’s first Chief People Officer in December 2021. Read on to hear more about EE’s journey and the approach that was taken to get to success.
Project Overview
Company Profile
Industry:
Consulting
Company Size:
1,001-5,000 employees
Region:
Global
About Equal Experts
Equal Experts is a global consultancy of senior practitioners. Experts in the design, delivery and scaling of customer software products and data. They work with customers to bring the change they need to sustain a culture of digital innovation.
Client Contact:
Thomas De Cad’oro Granier
Chief Executive Officer
Position being Hired:
Chief People Officer
Location: London
Salary: £200,000
Challenge
Having grown to over 1,000 people globally, EE were ready to hire a People Leader who would bring coherence to the network; their employees, contractors and alumni.
EE’s CEO, Thomas de Cad’oro Granier, was looking for a business partner to help him articulate his vision and coach him towards the right outcomes.
Thomas, and the rest of his Leadership team, are infinitely passionate about their people. However, day to day distractions and the business’s growth called for a more dedicated focus on their people objectives.
They were seeking an individual who would improve the culture every day; a person who would help them as a guide, a coach and a torch bearer. Someone who would gain the network’s trust and help move towards concrete achievements; measuring and improving psychological safety so that teams can have challenging but safe conversations to reach happy outcomes.
EE were definitely NOT looking for someone who would tell people what to do. They needed a focus on self motivation and autonomy. An individual with an alternative approach to the traditional ‘larger company’ mentality.
Thomas shares his thoughts on why 2021 was the right time to make this hire, what he hoped the individual would achieve and what the barriers would be for their CPO.
Solution
EE wasn’t a difficult opportunity to ‘sell’ to candidates. As an employer they offer autonomy, freedom and responsibility. They enable all their teams to bring the best version of themselves to work. Their ethos shines brightly and is a key differentiating factor to many larger, more corporate, organisations that are stymied by a more blinkered / traditional leadership style. Getting people to want to work for Thomas was the easy part.
What made this search challenging was uncovering and assessing against the intangible qualities that EE needed to see in their first CPO (in addition to the basic competencies you’d expect this level of HR hire to have).
They had a very clear picture of the ‘right person’ which we translated into numerous highly descriptive phrases, sentences, feelings and sentiments that everybody involved agreed upon.
We needed to demonstrate an absolute commitment to find the right person; to be there for the whole journey (irrespective of how long it took!). From the outset, our approach is always to ask searching questions to get beyond the obvious and to ensure we’re assessing against so much more than a ‘job spec’.
Alongside continuous coaching throughout the process, we also supplied deeper insight into candidates with psychometric assessment (a complimentary part of our service offering), high touch candidate care for ALL applicants, a dedicated landing page, video interviews and regular updates with key milestones.
Results
For this project, success took the form of a CPO hire (Akiko Mumford) who will positively impact the future of Equal Experts and help shape their narrative for many years to come.
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