Case Study #1 – Media/Publishing Client
Challenge:
The media and publishing sectors have been experiencing advertising revenue declines as customers shift their media consumption from offline to online media sources. While most media/publishing companies have “custom publishing” business units, several have begun aggressively expanding these units to compete directly against advertising agencies for CRM, loyalty, and other direct and digital “agency of record” assignments as a means of building new sources of advertising revenues and profits.
Actions:
As a specialized, “boutique” firm with significant knowledge and connections in the direct, CRM, and digital agency sectors, we were retained by a major, publicly-owned media/publishing client to recruit a President, Integrated Marketing Services. Subsequently, we continued to assist this client in other C-level strategic hires as they built this business organically over the first 2-3 years.
Also, as part of this process, we provided significant “best practice” research to our client on the strengths and weaknesses of the top 2-3 executives who lead the strongest 5-10 direct and digital agencies in the competitive sector. We also introduced our client to several specialized M&A advisory firms that could identify potential acquisitions to accelerate scaling their business to a $250 million+ level within 3-4 years.
Results:
Our media/publishing client successfully hired a President, Integrated Marketing Services and 2-3 other key executive team leaders with our assistance, and we provided our unique “blended solutions” approach of assisting with the transition support over the first 6-12 months to assure each of these executives was successful.
Our client successfully completed four acquisitions of digital, database, and mobile marketing agencies and integrated these to create a business, which was recently recognized by Advertising Age as one of the A-list agencies to watch.
Case Study #2 – Direct Response Insurance Client
Challenge:
We were contacted by a major consumer packaged goods client that owned an infant nutrition division containing a direct response juvenile life insurance business. This client needed to recruit a new President as part of a succession plan to replace the outgoing CEO who was approaching retirement. Since this was not a “core business” for our client, they depended upon our knowledge and connections within the direct response insurance sector to assist them in identifying and vetting candidates with the potential to take over as President and ultimately rise to become CEO of this business.
Actions:
As a specialized, “boutique” firm with significant knowledge and connections in the direct response insurance business, we were retained to assist our CPG client to recruit a President for this specialty unit. Subsequently, we continued to assist in building a “best in class” marketing department, including key placements of several marketing executives to help transform this business from an old-line direct mail acquisition model to an integrated, multi-channel business model.
Also, as part of this long-term relationship, we provided significant “best practice” research to our client on key marketing areas related to growing their business, including consumer marketing, call center, and digital marketing strategies, practices, and processes. We also recruited “best in class” talent from leading credit card and financial services organizations outside of insurance to contribute leading-edge marketing and direct selling know-how.
Results:
We were successful in recruiting the President of this direct response insurance unit and providing our unique transition support coaching services to help this executive get promoted to CEO within the first three years. This CEO has continued to run the business successfully over the past 8-9 years, during which time he has doubled the size of this business unit while maintaining the highest profit margins within this CPG division.
Subsequently, we continued to assist this CEO in building a “best in class” marketing department, including key placements of the VP – New Product & Business Development, VP – Consumer Marketing, and VP – Digital Marketing.
We are now assisting the CEO as he leads his succession planning process to select a new President within the next 18 months prior to his transitioning out of this business unit. We continued to provide executive coaching services to the CEO over his entire tenure running this business.
Case Study #3 – Association Client
Challenge:
We were contacted by a large non-profit association which was reorganizing its “for-profit” business unit as a result of a strategic consulting engagement with one of the major business strategy consulting firms. The President of the “for-profit” business unit was an existing executive coaching client of our firm, and he engaged us to assist in defining the marketing organization structure, developing key position descriptions for the SVP- and VP-level marketing roles, and recruiting for SVP- and VP-level marketing positions for this revitalized business unit.
Actions:
As a specialized, “boutique” firm with significant knowledge in the affinity marketing and direct response sectors, we partnered with our association client to finalize the marketing organization structure, develop written position descriptions for all marketing roles, and recruit 3 SVP-level roles: SVP – Marketing, SVP – Product Management, and SVP – New Business Development. Subsequently, we continued to help build their “best in class” marketing department and transform this business unit, including key placements of 7-8 VP-level marketing executives (including VP – Marketing, VP – E-Commerce, VP – Product Management, VP – Business Development).
Simultaneously, our client was launching a top-down executive coaching initiative geared to improve accountability as part of the leadership provided by a new CEO. We personally coached 3-4 members of the association’s the C-level team and also provided our transition support coaching to the 10+ executives we placed at this client over a 2-year period.
Also, as part of this long-term relationship, we provided significant “best practice” research to our client for key marketing areas related to growing their business, including consumer marketing, call center, and digital marketing strategies, practices, and processes. We assisted our client with introductions to key industry suppliers who became their strategic resource partners.
Results:
We successfully completed an initial engagement to assist the President of this “for-profit” unit to develop written position descriptions for all SVP-level and VP-level marketing positions. We also provided outside compensation benchmarks to assist the President in getting each of these positions “graded” at an appropriate compensation level to attract top talent from the corporate side.
We were successful in recruiting three SVP-level executives who drove positive change within the organization. These executives were so effective, they were later named Chief Branding Officer of the non-profit side of the association and Chief Operating Officer of the for-profit subsidiary.
We were also successful in recruiting seven VP-level executives in key marketing, e-commerce, new product development, and new business positions. Most of these executives have remained with this for-profit unit for 5+ years and have contributed significantly to the continued growth of the for-profit unit.