Services VP Manager - Oil & Gas Company

IRC Global Executive Search Partner

Inquest Chile, IRC Global Executive Search Partners - Chile

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Vice President

Client/Industry

Oil & Gas Company

Situation

The Corporative HR Manager requested Inquest to search for the Corporative Services Manager for his company. The company services area is in charge of providing and hiring all the materials, resources and services required for the normal function of the company in Chile, besides having under its responsibility the IT area. The candidate should come from a Civil Engineer background, and have among other features, vast experience as a manager in big private/public companies or institutions, experience in negotiation and management of commercial agreements, capacity to lead change processes and excellent leadership and communication skills. Other important feature needed is to have been in charge of systems or IT area in big companies.

Challenge

Since the client’s company is from the industrial productive area and has productive installations in three different regions of the country, the candidate’s experience should preferably come from this type of industry. One of the industries with biggest development and best practices in the field of contract acquisition and management is mining; the industry from which the client would ideally like the candidate to come from. Locally, this industry pays the highest salaries in the country, besides providing a series of important benefits, especially at the executive level, making it hard to “seduce” or try to move one executive to a local company and even more if it was from the public sector; the latter becoming the other big challenge. Our client in its majority is a public company that has a board and CEO who have the trust of the government in power. The search occurred before the change of government that in Chile also coincided with the change of the governing coalition party. The position should have been completed before the new President of the Republic had assumed, which implied that eventually the CEO and also the HR Manager, could have been separated from the company after the new President assumed, adding an additional risk element for the candidates.

Methodology/Solution

We started our search contacting many executives from the mining industry linked to the field of services and acquisition, plus from companies providing services to mining industry. At the same time, we worked with the company to obtain a sufficiently attractive package in order to compensate the “risky” issue of leaving a position for a public company, given the circumstances of the moment. Due to the company characteristics and the position level, not a lot of professionals were interested at the beginning. They also faced the added risk of entering a company that could change its orientation soon after starting the new position and putting the nomination at risk. We also contacted executives from productive companies from different type of industries, but keeping as key element that they have experience in using ERP systems practices at an international level and relation with international companies. Finally we came to three final candidates with vast management experience. Two of them came from the mining sector, one in a similar position, the second one as former manager of an international mining company. The third one came from an important steel mining local company. The three of them were highly motivated by the position and challenge presented.

Candidate

The selected candidate comes from a Civil Engineer background, has an MBA and vast management experience in Systems and IT, as well as in Acquisitions in the international mining sector. Among his main features we found as notable his achievement capacity, innovating and proactive skills as well as his leadership and good image before his clients and supervising team, enforcing high working standards and demand for clients and suppliers as well. He also showed personality and presence to be a leader, was highly committed and had vast experience in promoting change.

Candidate

The candidate has been fully accepted by the organization, and within a short period of time has restructured the area focus and is now recruiting a new management team.

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