After a successful year of growth, Aberdeen’s Hutcheon Mearns is launching an executive search offering. It’s a natural next step for the finance recruitment and business advisory firm, further solidifying its unique position as a specialist in the market.
-
Some Press and Journal online content is funded by outside parties. The revenue from this helps to sustain our independent news gathering. You will always know if you are reading paid-for material as it will be clearly labelled as “Partnership” on the site and on social media channels.
This can take two different forms.
“Presented by”
This means the content has been paid for and produced by the named advertiser.
“In partnership with”
This means the content has been paid for and approved by the named advertiser but written and edited by our own commercial content team.
And it’s an evolution that Andrew McLeod, head of resourcing at Hutcheon Mearns, is pleased to be involved with.
Andrew says: “It’s an exciting new venture, following on from our successes in contingent recruitment.
“We have already successfully placed roles at this level and it’s because of this that we now want to carve a focused, designated service line.
“I’m looking forward to it. Some of the established figures have either retired or changed their tact, and now is the right time to offer this. I previously worked in finance and a number of my peers from that time are now entering these roles, or are on their way into these roles, so I already have a relationship with those potential executive-level candidates.”
Andrew will head up Hutcheon Mearns’ executive search service, with the support of the wider team. Meanwhile, Jane Setter will step up in to a more senior role within the Aberdeen office.
Hutcheon Mearns’ executive search to go beyond CVs
So what exactly are Andrew and Hutcheon Mearns providing with the launch of this new service?
The UK wide executive search offering will focus solely on c-level positions and decision-making roles, particularly Chief Financial Officer and Finance Director, with Hutcheon Mearns working on a retainer basis to help organisations find the perfect candidates.
The fact that both Andrew and most of the wider Hutcheon Mearns teams are chartered accountants and ex-industry professionals gives them a competitive edge to do this effectively.
Andrew explains: “What we do goes beyond traditional retained search. We will map an entire space before evaluating and compiling a final shortlist of candidates for our clients, focusing on technical expertise and cultural fit.
“We have developed our own scenario based testing and financial leadership skills assessment tools which go beyond CVs, allowing us to dig deeper, giving management greater assurances around their chosen hire. We will also present our findings to the Board or Investors, allowing stakeholders the opportunity to feed into the process.
“We meet with candidates, we discuss the role, the remit and their experience in detail. And I think where we separate ourselves from our competitors is that, because we have technical backgrounds in finance, we can go a step further and really challenge and gauge the skill set a candidate claims to have.”
Finding the right finance specialists for the job
This whole process is done in collaboration with the client, working hand-in-hand with the organisation that’s recruiting to help find the right senior executive. Andrew references Deloitte’s four faces of the CFO: the steward, the operator, the strategist and the catalyst. He says: “CFOs are expected to play these roles but one ‘face’ may be more prevalent in your business, and so a candidate with strengths in this area would be better fitted to your needs.”
Ultimately, Hutcheon Mearns’ executive search can help here because, as well as technical background and expertise to draw on, Andrew and the team have a large candidate database.
Andrew says: “As our past colleagues in finance now start progressing into senior roles, we know them and how they work. We have people, we understand the market, we work with our clients to know what skills they need and it means we can make sure the hire is right.”
Taking on executive searches and other finance recruitment problems
For Hutcheon Mearns’ clients, the executive search offering complements the firm’s diverse but specialist range of services for finance recruitment, including business advisory, Elevate (a Power BI service) and specialists for interim support.
Andrew ends: “This is just another string to our bow which will allow us to help our clients solve their finance leadership problems.”
Find out more about the new Hutcheon Mearns executive search offering and other services.
