CREATIVE THINKING AND INTERNATIONAL REACH EXPAND HORIZONS

CONTINGENT SEARCH – AUDIT - RUSSIA

This Big 4 firm in Russia had an extremely aggressive growth strategy for their Audit group, with an aim to double the size of their business within a 3 year time period. The initial part of this strategy was to hire a number of partners who could each deliver new revenues to the firm in excess of $2.5 million per year, who would develop industry specific practices and assist in ensuring the highest quality of work was delivered.

The original strategy was to focus on local Russian-speaking partners in rival firms. However the Financial Services Audit market within Moscow was reasonably small at this time, hence we looked to adjacent and other international markets to identify candidates with a suitably strong Financial Services track record.

After an extensive mapping and networking exercise, we identified a potentially strong candidate who led the Financial Services Audit practice for a rival firm in an off shore location near the US.  We traveled to meet him in person and had extensive discussions on his motivations and plans for his future career.  The detailed understanding we had of our client’s future strategy meant we could offer genuine insight into this emerging market opportunity, to the extent that the candidate put himself forward for the role following our meeting.

Initial telephone interviews were followed by a visit to Moscow, where we organised visas and a 2-day interview schedule with our client that resulted in a verbal offer of Partnership.  The understanding we had of the candidate’s motivations enabled us to advise our client on how best to structure the formal offer in order to ensure an acceptance.  As a result the candidate accepted and relocated to Moscow, despite a significant buy-back offer from his employer at both local and international level.  

The Integral difference:  Our market mapping expertise and extensive international network allow us to identify candidates from an extremely wide catchment area, whilst our consultative dialogue with both clients and candidates allows us to contribute positively to offer structuring and negotiation processes.