Chairman's Report For 2010

January 2011 | Edition 1

Kenneth Clark

KCI has completed its 14th year in the executive search industry.  It was, a very good year. 

We completed just over 200 projects and opened approximately 180 new ones.  Our mix has moved to 50% North America and 50% International including Europe.

Today, we are all very excited about the growth and development of our “3rd leg” – our Rest of World business.  When I started the firm 14 years ago, our mission was to become the finest global, specialty executive search firm in the world.  We wanted to serve clients wherever they needed us. Specialty meant expertise in just 5 industries – Life Sciences; Healthcare and Medical Services; Scientific and Laboratory; Consumer; and Industrial, Chemical and Agriculture products and services. Understandably, North America and Europe became the focus of our investment and became our anchors. They still are.

This year, Asia and the Middle East/Africa have begun to occupy equal positioning. We expanded our offices in Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo and Dubai.  We opened offices in Hong Kong and Delhi. We added specific recruiting capability for North Africa. Country Manager search projects were done in China, Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Algeria and South Africa.  As important, has been the number of regional president, marketing, finance and human resources search projects that we have done for Asia and Middle Eastern organizations. Finally, almost ½ of the Talent Mapping projects that we have done have been for positions and executives in these 2 regions.

This year, was also highlighted by the number and breadth of our Global Agreements with large, multi-national corporations.  At the heart of KCI’s strategy is to work only for 1 or 2 clients in each region in a specific industry segment. Clients know that recruiting top talent is, in part, a function of having access to them. We don’t recruit people from our clients and so we must be very diligent about not having too many clients and not enough recruiting targets.  With this in mind, as we have been chosen by large multi-national corporations as preferred suppliers, we have also chosen large multi-national corporations with whom to partner.  At KCI, we strike a delicate and effective balance between both.

In all 5 of our focused industries, 2010 saw the continuation of mergers and acquisitions.  It also saw the continued growth of our Executive Assessment service.  Often 2 executives compete for 1 position.  Even more prevalent is the question about the suitability of executives working in new and different organization cultures.  In 2010, senior consultants at KCI continued to provide clients with support in these areas.

Going forward, we have put in place a number of specific activities to further improve what we do and how we do it.

  • Passive Candidates – we will get even better at motivating people who are not looking for a         new position to, at least, participate initially in a search project that we contact them about.
  • Assessment – we will get even better at evaluating potential candidates on the basis of their skills, abilities and knowledge; past performance and leadership competencies stacked against the “key selection factors” detailed in each search plan by our clients.
  • Western Experience – we have begun to identify Asian, Arab, Indian and Japanese nationals who have had some kind of “western” experience – education and/or early career assignment in the United States or Europe.  We are also doing the same for those currently outside their country of birth and who might want to return.  
  • Recruiting – our experience is clear.  Great candidates choose new employment opportunities based on how they feel about the new coach/mentor.  They compare what it will be like in the new organization with what it feels like in the old organization.  Money, position, location are all important but in the final analysis what seems most important is “who will I work for and with and will I grow doing so”.  We will get better at counseling our clients about how to land top talent most of the time.

KCI was founded in July 1996.  Since then we have completed over 3,000 searches for over 500 companies in as many as 60 different countries.  Our mission remains to recruit the top talent for our clients throughout the world.  KCI employees start everyday dedicated to providing the services and results to accomplish this mission.  They join me in wishing you the best, personally and professionally in 2011!

Ken Clark
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Ken Clark International

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