Jose Ruiz

CHICAGO, Dec 12, 2011 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) — Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc., the leadership advisory firm providing executive search and leadership consulting services worldwide, announced today it has named Eric Olson to the role of Global Practice Managing Partner of Leadership Consulting. He will serve on the firm’s operating committee and report directly to CEO L. Kevin Kelly.

“Eric possesses a rare combination of functional experience, client focus and a true passion for people. Over the past decade he has successfully led several international leadership consulting firms and will have a strong business impact on both our firm and clients,” said Heidrick & Struggles’ Chief Executive Officer L. Kevin Kelly. “Under Eric’s direction, our global Leadership Consulting team will be in a solid market position for strategic growth.”

Olson joins Heidrick & Struggles from Oliver Wyman Leadership Development, where he led their European consulting operations. As an accomplished business strategist, Olson has worked closely with many Fortune 500 companies. He also served as CEO of Health Address, a UCLA-based company providing online specialty services between the US and international medical centers in the Middle East. In addition, Olson has taught several change and complexity courses at UCLA and UC Irvine Business Schools.

Olson holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the Fuller Graduate School of Psychology in Pasadena, CA, an MA in Complexity and Organizational Change from the University of Hertfordshire in England, and an MS in Counseling Psychology from Central Washington University.

About Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc.

Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc.,  is the leadership advisory firm providing executive search and leadership consulting services, including succession planning, executive assessment, talent retention management, executive development, transition consulting for newly appointed executives, and M&A human capital integration consulting. For almost 60 years, we have focused on quality service and built strong leadership teams through our relationships with clients and individuals worldwide. Today, Heidrick & Struggles’ leadership experts operate from principal business centers globally. For more information about Heidrick & Struggles, please visit www.heidrick.com .

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Forbes.com | Guest post written by Jeffrey S. Sanders

Jeffrey S. Sanders is Vice Chairman and Managing Partner of the North American CEO Practice for Heidrick & Struggles, an executive search and leadership consulting firm.

While we all know stories of legendary CEOs who seem born to the role, most CEOs are not born, they are made. People who aspire to the role have to seize the opportunity and set a path: to manage their career choices and craft their experience to make them a likely CEO candidate.

Interestingly, consulting, at four percent, ranked as the least common early career experience among CEOs. Nevertheless, some highly successful CEOs have come from that world. John Donahoe, CEO of eBay, started as an associate consultant at Bain & Co. and rose to become the firm’s Worldwide Managing Director. DirecTV’s CEO Michael White, after graduating from Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies, worked at Andersen Consulting and then spent five years at Bain. Both Jerry Storch, CEO of Toys ‘R’ Us, and Russ Fradin, CEO of SunGard, worked at McKinsey, and Indra Nooyi spent six years at The Boston Consulting Group in the beginning of her career (she was eventually appointed CEO from the CFO position).

Settle In – Eventually – and Climb the Ladder

More than three-fourths of today’s top leaders were appointed internally. When evaluating CEO candidates, companies tend to favor internal appointments, as opposed to external appointments, because internal candidates understand the company culture, are familiar with the key stakeholders, and are known to the board members and other members of the executive team. Given that internal executives know and are well-known to the company, promoting the internal executive often poses less of a risk than hiring someone from the outside.

However, while more than three-fourths of today’s top leaders were appointed internally, less than a third of CEOs were “lifers” (people who spent nearly their entire careers at the company they now lead). The average time to CEO appointment for those who rose through the ranks at
their company is 16 years, but the average age at time of appointment is 50. Therefore, when executives reach their early thirties, they begin to settle in at one particular company to rise through the ranks. While companies value executives who understand the company culture, they also recognize the importance of executives who have spent time at multiple companies. Experience at several companies provides CEOs with an outside perspective and enables them to draw best-in-class practices from a broad range of companies.

Time to CEO Appointment

While the average time to CEO appointment is 16 years, it differs from industry to industry. Not surprisingly, technology appears to offer the fastest path to the CEO chair, while industrial companies appear to offer the slowest. Technology companies make up about 10 percent of the Fortune 500, but comprise 15 percent of the CEOs appointed before age 50. Industrial companies, making up about 37 percent of the Fortune 500, have only 30 percent of the under-50 appointments. Similarly, average time to CEO appointment for internal appointments at technology companies is close to 14 years, whereas average time to CEO appointment for internal appointments at industrial companies is closer to 18 years. Also of note is the fact that technology companies appoint almost 20 percent more external CEOs than industrial companies.

Board Experience

About 45 percent of CEOs served as non-executive directors on public company boards before being named chief executive of the Fortune 500 companies they lead today. Executives typically look to join boards before becoming CEO because they view board experience as a form of professional development. Serving on a board provides them with the opportunity to learn from other high-caliber executives, see the CEO role through the board’s lens, and gain corporate governance experience. While serving on a board can often help with an executive’s professional development, there is also an opportunity cost associated with joining a board given the time commitment required. Executives who would like to become CEOs should be mindful of this and should join a high quality board where they can develop their experience, exposure to corporate governance, and visibility.

While this portrait of a CEO could shift in the coming years, most of the attributes reflected in our findings are likely to become only more pronounced with the passage of time: financial acumen will continue to be important in an increasingly globalized and economically interdependent world, companies will place a high value on organizational and cultural knowledge, and an increasing number of executives will look to board service as a way of gaining a broader perspective prior to becoming CEO.

What does that path look like? To find out, the CEO & Board Practice at Heidrick & Struggles analyzed the careers of all current Fortune 500 CEOs.

Here’s some of what the study discovered:

Develop Financial Acumen

About 30 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs spent the first few years of their careers developing a strong foundation in finance. This is by far the most common early experience of today’s CEOs. As the second-largest constituent, CEOs who started out in sales and marketing roles account for only about 20 percent of the current big company CEO population.

The prevalence of CEOs with a strong financial background points to the fact that large companies prefer CEOs who can create value for the company and who understand the company’s financial drivers. Typically, companies are looking for CEOs who can develop a strategy and understand the financial ramifications of business decisions.

A foundation in finance is an important building block for a career. However, only about five percent of these CEOs were promoted directly from the role of CFO – more than half were appointed from the role of COO or President. Though the prevalence of Fortune 500 CEOs with strong financial backgrounds underlines the importance of developing financial acumen, above all, companies value a strong operator.

For example, while Oshkosh’s Charles Szews spent the majority of his career in a variety of finance roles, prior to his appointment as CEO in 2011, he spent three years as COO. Similarly, Patricia Woertz began her career as an accountant, and then rose through the ranks in the finance departments at Gulf Oil and Chevron before she was rotated into broader operating roles and eventually appointed CEO of Archer-Daniels-Midland in 2006. At the other end of the spectrum, the CEO of Pfizer, Ian Read, began his career in the finance department, but transitioned into general management after a comparatively short 10 years in finance roles.

With a few notable exceptions, such as Marcel Smits at Sara Lee and Bill Delaney at Sysco, executives very rarely move directly from a finance role to the CEO position. Rather, over three quarters of these CEOs came from an operating role. Though they often began their careers in finance, the executives who have made it to the top are those who have successfully used their financial expertise to become excellent operators.

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3 years after graduating from college I accepted a position as a Design Engineer with a company that built custom HVAC equipment. I had been invited by an Engineering Manager who had also just joined the company but had many years of experience in the industry. 

In our first staff meeting he began talking about changes in the department. He spoke of creating design standards and changing the way we did things towards a more structured approach that would foster continuous learning and improvement. Half way through his speech one of the guys that had been there for a long time interrupted him and began to say “In my 10 years of experience…”, and that was really as far as he got before he was interrupted and harshly told “Jack (let’s just call him that), before you continue, let’s get this straight: You have one year of experience and then just 9 more doing the same thing. At some point you’ll learn the difference”. Uncomfortable silence followed and the meeting continued. 

It was a truly unforgiving statement but with a lot of truth in it. Forcing ourselves to learn continually is hard and we tend to gravitate towards our comfort zone. 

In his book Talent is Overrated, Geoff Colvin mentions Noel Tichy’s illustration of concentric learning circles. Tichy, former chief of GE’s Crotonville management development center, labels the inner circle the “comfort zone,” the middle circle the “learning zone,” and the outer one the “panic zone.” It is well documented that we acquire knowledge and experience by developing activities in the learning zone, but this is only one part of the equation. 

Getting back to the career theme, learning for the sake of learning can be a waste of time and learning as a simple reaction to what we face can lead us in the wrong direction. 

Consider every lesson, every interaction, every position and every experience as a building block of your potential. High performers build on solid foundations that allow them to focus on elements that average performers don’t even consider or notice. They begin to make decisions and execute at a higher level. 

Consider the analogy of learning to play hockey. You need to start by knowing how to skate. Understand the objective of the game, the rules and the broad strategy. As you keep learning you start to develop speed and instinct that allow you to react at a high speed and at some point, at a high level, predict.  If any of us mortals is placed in front of a hockey goal and we are asked to block a shot, it’s very likely that we will focus on the puck. A professional will be looking at the shooter’s eyes, shoulders and hip movements. He will know where the puck is going the moment it is touched by the stick.   

These same principals apply to business. To achieve a certain level in an organization or as a business owner you need to know where you want to go, how you need to “build yourself”, understand the building blocks and most importantly take continuous and persistent steps towards getting it done. 

I’ll make an emphasis on continuous and persistent because it does not happen overnight. In fact, it will not happen over a few years. Studies have shown that people on top of their game have been focused on it for more than a decade. 

If you are not paying attention and not working towards a firm goal, by the time you realize it, you may find yourself with scattered building blocks of knowledge and experience that are no where close to being aligned to where you wanted to be. 

So, do you or will you:
a) Have 10 years of experience
b) Have one year of experience, and 9 more doing the same thing
c) Have 1 year of experience in 10 unrelated things.  

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AESC, January 2011.- Optimism in the senior recruitment market continues with executive search consultants 68% positive and 30% neutral for the year ahead. The 2011 Outlook, released today by the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC), showed a peak in industry confidence since its low point at the end of 2008.

AESC President, Peter Felix, commented, “The New Year outlook by our members is most encouraging and confirms the renewed demand for executive search services that we witnessed in 2010. Our members are more confident about their pipeline of assignments and although not all markets around the world are recovering at the same pace the underlying trend is strong. This creates more positive planning support for the expansion of resources that in many cases were severely depleted in 2009.”

66% of respondents indicated that their search practices are planning to hire more consultants in 2011 – rising 18% from mid 2010 results – and 44% plan to hire more researchers.

Felix continued, “As the world economy recovers from the financial services trauma so the scarcity of executive talent in many sectors and regions of the world has become apparent again. This is most pronounced in the booming economies of China, India and Brazil where the talent gap is of critical proportions. However, the scarcity of talented general management executives persists even in the developed countries. Given these conditions the outlook for executive search consulting is bright.” Global findings revealed that the Industrial, Energy/Natural Resources and Financial Services sectors are expected to see the most growth in executive hiring in 2011. Consultants in the Americas held particular optimism (over other regions) for Financial Services, Technology/Telecoms, Energy/Natural Resources, Not-for-Profit, Private Equity/Venture Capital and Real Estate/Construction.

China, India and Latin America are expected to see the greatest scarcity of talent in the year ahead, while the functional outlook places General Managers, CEOs, Chief Operating Officers and Board Directors in strong demand in 2011 – suggesting an increase in high level search assignments as reported in the AESC’s third quarter 2010 industry report.

The 2011 Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC) Member Outlook Survey of December 2010 totaled 210 responses from AESC executive search consultants worldwide, including 52% from EMEA, 30% from the Americas and 15% from Asia Pacific. A full copy of the report is available upon request to AESC members and the press.

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The ultimate purpose is to not just focus on the finish line but also understand the best method to get there and not hope or expect, but drive to achieve our career goals in the desired time. 

If you are reading this you must have an interest in business, management, leadership and your own role in an organization. As students of these disciplines we constantly seek and find stories of success as defined by academics and executives that we identify as examples of who we want to be and what we want to achieve. 

In many cases we follow those leaders of industry, who constantly grace the cover of magazines, are in the headlines of newspapers, and become the center of discussion in academic case studies to gain from their insight and experience. You could say we are obsessed with being amazed by their success stories, as well as documented failures, going through their experiences in an attempt to learn and duplicate their success, and avoid their mistakes in our own lives and careers. We cherish those experiences and they provide us with inspiration as we attempt to climb the corporate ladder and create our own success stories.  

I remember reading about Lee Iacocca and his resurrection of Chrysler. About Roger Enricco and how he took on Coca-Cola as CEO of PepsiCo proclaiming victory in the cola wars. The magic of Michael Eisner in turning Disney into an entertainment power house. The constant feed of articles and books as Bill Gates, a Harvard drop out, built a software empire while his nemesis Steve Jobs took Apple from an icon of personal computing into a lust driven power house of digital music and iconic consumer electronics. For years I obsessed with how Jack Welsh transformed General Electric and used applied statistics to create one of the most successful operational excellence models in recent history based on Motorola born six-sigma. This week I just can’t stop reading about “Steve on leave” and the impact on Apple.  

Over time the reading has provided me with many aha moments, knowledge, and inspiration.  In many cases, some conscious, some unconscious, I have snuck knowledge tidbits and game plan pieces into more than one strategic plan or business presentation. But in the end, is it just that? Pieces of knowledge and information? Pieces of insight? How can we use that information to plan and drive our own career?  

We know who they are and we can ask ourselves how they got there. In fact, we can read most of their biographies and analyze every step of their careers. Studying their thought processes, their decisions, and the outcome can be very useful and insightful. However, in many cases reading through it can be no different than looking at a collection of solved Sudoku or cross-word puzzles. The result can be obvious and understanding how to achieve it is a challenge but executing it and getting it right is a whole different thing.  

We also tend to be selective observers. As we read through case studies and stories of success we tend to focus on the highlights of the story line, the center character and the end-result. But as Boris Groysberg points out in his book Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance, “No one works alone”. Boris challenges the notion that outstanding performance is simply the result of a combination of innate talent and good educational preparation. His research points towards additional key factors for success that are typically taken for granted as we admire profiled executives and their success stories. Groysberg identifies outstanding performance as heavily dependent on an organization’s culture, resources, networks and colleagues. In the end, tell me where you work and I’ll tell you who you are.  

As an Executive Search Consultant (as we call ourselves), or headhunter (as most people call us), I speak to hundreds of senior executives every year.  By the time we speak most executives are at a point where they are willing to consider a move or are faced with the need to find a new position. Very few have a clear understanding (or are willing to express) which elements of their achievements can be attributed to their specific experience, individual talent, competences and traits, and which are a product of the organization, the culture, their teams and the specific challenges that they faced. It’s critical in order to predict future success.  

If you have been on a commercial flight lately, and browsed the in-flight magazine you have probably come across the Chester L. Karras ad promoting his seminars to improve negotiation skills. Prominently at the top it reads “In business as in life, you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.” A bit radical, but somewhat true. While we don’t get a chance to negotiate everything and we don’t get to choose when it comes to the limitations that life throws our way, we do get to choose where we want to be, and we decide if we want to drift or drive to attempt to get there.  

Most executives will tell you that they do have goals and they do know where they want to be. But when they consider career planning most focus on climbing the ladder. Looking for the next step and working hard to perform where they are to achieve key promotions. Career planning tends to be title driven, and most often than not, little attention is paid to how each position contributes to key factors for future success. Those factors include leadership competencies and skills, that as Boris Groysberg identifies in his work on talent portability, fall into one of two categories: Transferable and Company or firm specific. What you do is just as important as when you do it and where you do it.  

Multiple factors influence the success of a career. Starting with the inevitable, ever changing definition of success. We all have one based on our goals, and those tend to change as we grow, mature, face different challenges and define our needs based on our desired work/life balance. A career plan today will likely be different a year from now. They key is to obtain and maintain a heightened awareness of how every step of this career marathon affects its outcome.  

The ultimate purpose is to not just focus on the finish line but also understand the best method to get there and not hope or expect, but drive to achieve our career goals in the desired time.  

Realted Reading: It’s Not You, It’s Not Me, It’s Just Not Meant To Be 

Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc., (Nasdaq:HSII) is the leadership advisory firm providing senior-level executive search and leadership consulting services, including succession planning, executive assessment and development, talent retention management, transition consulting for newly appointed executives, and M&A human capital integration consulting. For almost 60 years, we have focused on quality service and built strong leadership teams through our relationships with clients and individuals worldwide. Today, Heidrick & Struggles’ leadership experts operate from principal business centers in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information about Heidrick & Struggles, please visit www.heidrick.com

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The term globalization has been thrown around for decades but it has never applied as much as it has in recent years as organizations become more focused and specialized within a specific industry or product, and reach beyond their traditional regions of business. Globalization has evolved from being a commercial exchange to a multifaceted integration of many aspects of the business.  This trend has created a need for strong leaders who can manage a complex environment with a high level of interdependence.

When we looked at background of the top 100 CEOs in Mexico our analysis showed that fifty-four percent of the newest CEOs have performed assignments outside of Mexico and 53 percent hold Master’s degrees from institutions outside of Mexico. But Robert Grosse, Dean of EGADE Business School, cautions: “overseas experience is not the same as overseas business experience…Mexican executives could still benefit from more overseas experience in business activities”.

Executives who have been successful in international assignments have usually excelled in understanding the environment, leading visionary change and results, as well as mastering complex business problems. These competencies, coupled with already acquired industry expertise, translate into a small learning curve and quick results.

According to research performed by William W. Maddux, Adam D. Galinsky, and Carmit T. Tadmor (Harvard Business Review, September 2010, p24) people who have international experience or identify with more than one nationality are better problem solvers and display more creativity. This based on measuring the ability of these managers to see and integrate multiple perspectives on different issues. In these studies bicultural managers scored higher than monoculturals. Their research also suggests that people with international experience are more likely to create new businesses and products and to be promoted.

Senior executives of successful organizations are a more diverse group than ever before and the impact goes beyond the leadership teams. Middle managers and staff members are being exposed to global management techniques, metric-driven environments and matrix organizations that are preparing them to be the next generation of leaders.

Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc., (Nasdaq:HSII) is the leadership advisory firm providing senior-level executive search and leadership consulting services, including succession planning, executive assessment and development, talent retention management, transition consulting for newly appointed executives, and M&A human capital integration consulting. For almost 60 years, we have focused on quality service and built strong leadership teams through our relationships with clients and individuals worldwide. Today, Heidrick & Struggles’ leadership experts operate from principal business centers in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information about Heidrick & Struggles, please visit www.heidrick.com

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The manufacturing index published by the Institute for Supply Chain Management provided a positive surprise today. The index increased to 56.3 for August. A modest 0.8 point jump when it was expected to drop.

The news comes as the Peso continues to weaken against the Dollar and key indicators still point towards a slow recovery.

Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc., (Nasdaq:HSII) is the leadership advisory firm providing senior-level executive search and leadership consulting services, including succession planning, executive assessment and development, talent retention management, transition consulting for newly appointed executives, and M&A human capital integration consulting. For almost 60 years, we have focused on quality service and built strong leadership teams through our relationships with clients and individuals worldwide. Today, Heidrick & Struggles’ leadership experts operate from principal business centers in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information about Heidrick & Struggles, please visit www.heidrick.com

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Q:

I understand the importance of branding and social networking; however, what I find difficult to understand is that any recruiter or C-level hiring manger can fully grasp a candidate’s brand through online presence. I could be wrong, but in my opinion it’s the recruiters who need to fall in love with a candidate’s brand because the hiring companies have their trust. How do we build our brand with recruiters?

JR:

There are three key things that must be considered:

1. Branding, by definition, is the creation of an identity for a specific product. You build your product and your brand through every element of your personal and professional experience. What you do with social media is present and promote the brand, but the key lies with you – your product.
2. What you do online and with social media will help attract the attention of executive recruiters. It is part of the initial selling point that should get you in the door. By no means will an online profile replace the evaluation process that will help a recruiter identify if you are the right fit for a specific position or a specific organization.
3. In direct response to the question, it starts with having an online profile that will provide visibility for executive recruiters to find you, but you will need to build a relationship in order to build your brand WITH them. Nothing can take the place of the relationship. Going back to the brand-product analogy: The recruiter needs to know, understand and, as you say, love the product to help you brand it for a specific client and a specific position. You don’t achieve this by just sending a résumé, selling yourself and calling every month to see if a position is available. It is built on valuable interaction regarding trends and issues that affect the disciplines and industries that you work in helping the recruiter stay on top of what is happening in that space. This level of interaction helps you and the recruiter build knowledge and expertise making the relationship valuable for both beyond the specific transaction of a single job opportunity.

ExecuNet.com

Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc., (Nasdaq:HSII) is the leadership advisory firm providing senior-level executive search and leadership consulting services, including succession planning, executive assessment and development, talent retention management, transition consulting for newly appointed executives, and M&A human capital integration consulting. For almost 60 years, we have focused on quality service and built strong leadership teams through our relationships with clients and individuals worldwide. Today, Heidrick & Struggles’ leadership experts operate from principal business centers in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information about Heidrick & Struggles, please visit www.heidrick.com

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The internal market remains sluggish due to high unemployment and uncertainty but that can change as industrial production continues to rise on surging demand in the U.S. which accounts to about 80 percent of Mexico’s total exports.

Industrial production in March rose the most in almost four years as output climbed to almost 8 percent from a year ago according the most recent report of the national statistics institute. The number is an unexpected but positive surprise over the 5.9 percent that had been predicted by the median of 17 forecasts compiled by Bloomberg.

The increase is directly linked to an 85 percent jump in automotive industry production as the sector in Mexico continues to recover.

This will most likely have a cascading effect boosting internal demand in the second half of the year as manufacturing drives employment, brings back purchasing power and consumer confidence.

  Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc., (Nasdaq:HSII) is the leadership advisory firm providing senior-level executive search and leadership consulting services, including succession planning, executive assessment and development, talent retention management, transition consulting for newly appointed executives, and M&A human capital integration consulting. For almost 60 years, we have focused on quality service and built strong leadership teams through our relationships with clients and individuals worldwide. Today, Heidrick & Struggles’ leadership experts operate from principal business centers in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information about Heidrick & Struggles, please visit www.heidrick.com

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