VP of Research & Development – Paints and Coatings Company

IRC Global Executive Search Partner

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VP of R&D

Client/Industry

Paints & Coatings Company

Situation

The Vice President of HR retained the Ropella Group to search for the VP of R&D for her company. The candidate should have a Masters in Chemistry and have at least 8-10 years of experience in supervision of lab operations and the research and development function. Specific experience within the urethane, acrylic latex, and silicone coatings market as well was required.

Challenge

The client company is a medium size privately held organization that competes in a market dominated by 3-4 major Paints and Coatings companies. The client also has a very unique corporate culture and philosophy which made it extremely important to find an individual who could integrate into this culture. These major companies offered a number of “golden handcuffs” which made it challenging to attract talent to the smaller more innovative client. We also had to balance the client’s unique innovative culture.

Methodology/Solution

We started our search contacting the Directors, Managers, and Group Leaders of R&D at the major paints and coatings companies and the VP’s of R&D at the smaller organizations. We also contacted organizations that provided consulting services to the paints and coatings market. At the same time, we worked with our client to provide a package that would entice the more innovative talent from the major suppliers and help ease some of the loss of the perks they receive. We also developed a screening questionnaire that had key questions to draw out a candidate’s compatibility with the culture. We found a number of interested prospects but after reviewing the answers to the innovation questions and several phone interviews we were left with two final candidates. Both candidates had a vast amount of coatings experience and the leadership skills. One came from one of the major Paints and Coatings manufacturers while the other came from an organization with closely related technology.

Candidate

The selected candidate had a Chemistry background and had a vast amount of experience driving innovation and commercialization in the coatings market. The key points that made him stand out were his ability to be a thought leader in the market, promote innovation and change and really integrate himself within the client’s culture from his first face to face interview.

Post-mortem

The candidate has been fully accepted by the organization and is now recruiting some new talent within the R&D team to focus on specific markets within the coatings industry.

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