Most failed executive hires were not unqualified. They were mismatched.
Three mismatches cause most of the damage. Scale, because running a 90 person plant is not a smaller version of running a 900 person plant. Ownership structure, because private equity, family owned, and publicly traded companies reward completely different behavior. And mandate, because a turnaround leader and a scale up leader are rarely the same person.
We screen for those three before we screen for anything else.
Replacing a sitting executive is delicate. Word travels fast in manufacturing, and faster still inside a single vertical.
If your VP of Operations learns you are searching, you lose leverage and possibly the person, before a replacement exists. Retained search keeps your name out of the market until a candidate is serious and under NDA. Candidates are approached individually. Nothing goes on a job board.
Reach out and we’ll give you a market read before you commit to a search.
We start by mapping the market. That means identifying every company running comparable operations in your geography and vertical, then identifying who holds the relevant seats inside them.
From that map we build a target list, usually 60 to 150 names depending on scope. Outreach is individual and confidential. Most of the strongest candidates are not looking, which is exactly why they are worth calling.
You receive a short slate of genuinely qualified finalists with written assessments, not a stack of resumes to sort. We then stay in the process through offer, counteroffer, and resignation.
Senior manufacturing leaders do not leave for a raise. They leave for scope, authority, and confidence in the plan.
Expect questions about capital budget, autonomy over hiring, the reporting line, and whether ownership is preparing to sell. If your answers are vague, candidates assume the worst. We prepare clients for these conversations before the first interview.
Most executive searches stall before they start, buried under a job description written for a posting rather than a search.
A workable brief answers a narrower set of questions: what specifically went wrong or is going right under the current leader, what the board or owner expects in the first eighteen months, and what authority actually comes with the title.
We build that brief with you in discovery, because a target list built on vague criteria wastes outreach on people who were never going to be right.
A plant floor hire gets caught quickly if the resume oversold. A misrepresented executive can run eighteen months before the damage is fully visible.
We check references before an offer, not after acceptance, and we ask pointed questions about what a candidate actually owned versus what they were near. A reference who answers in generalities is telling you something.
