Case Study

Senior Management Team, Islamic Bank, UAE

The Challenge

Our client was a fast growing Islamic Bank in the Middle East directly owned by the leading sovereign wealth fund in the region.  The chairman, board of directors and the CEO wanted to ensure that the bank would continue to grow after a stronger than expected two years of operations.

In order to achieve this growth it was decided that several changes needed to be made on the senior management team (CFO and CRO). The challenge for the bank was to achieve this by maintaining their brand image and to achieve this in a confidential manner given the fact the current incumbents were not aware of the decision to replace them.

Our remit was to conduct an international executive search to identify exceptional CFO's and CRO's form leading conventional and Islamic banks.  We were asked to specifically target the Middle East, Malaysia, London and New York.  Our challenge was to source extremely experienced, well qualified and competent individuals who were working for large established organisations who would be able to relocate to this region and who had the ambition to assist a new bank in realising their growth strategy.

The Approach

Working closely with our client, we defined the technical and behavioural characteristics that were required of the ideal candidate.  A full research mapping was initiated to identify the key individuals at the leading competitor business across the various regions.  After discussing with the chairman and the CEO the result of our research we agreed on a target list of individuals to approach.  These individuals were then approached extremely confidentially given the sensitivity that was required.

The Outcome

The initial research for the CFO position generated over 80 individuals; this was reduced to 40 after discussions with the client.  A final shortlist of five candidates was presented to the client whilst still maintaining confidentiality.  After confirmation from the client that they wanted to meet all five candidates we then revealed the client's name and full details to these candidates.  The  candidates were met with over a period of a week and an offer was made to one individual the following week.