Executive Search – People Advisory, Associate Director

About Teneo People Advisory

Teneo People Advisory is a global boutique offering executive search, board recruitment and advisory services. Our clients value our work because of the exclusivity of the relationship, our responsiveness, our discretion, and our track record of successful completion of assignments.

Teneo People Advisory was formed through the acquisition of Ridgeway Partners in the UK, and combined with Teneo Talent in the US, now includes more than 60 professionals across the globe under the leadership of Chris Wearing, Chair of Teneo International.

Toby Crosthwaite leads the UK business as part of the global People Advisory leadership team, which also includes Diane McIntyre, who leads the US business.

The Role

An Associate Director (AD) at Teneo People Advisory will play an important role in supporting the growth of the UK business as part of a global people advisory business. An AD is responsible for supporting their practice, through exceptional execution, BD support, and helping to develop the more junior members of the team. They are expected to leverage the MD/SMD as much as possible.

An AD supports the business with consistent and deep expertise, and in developing this through experience they increasingly demonstrate a deeper understanding of business success and business leaders’ agendas.

They play a crucial role in building the UK People Advisory business, both culturally and commercially whilst being part of a global community of likeminded ambitious and authentic professionals using the Teneo platform, and global best practice thinking in People Advisory.

The Practice

The Corporate Functions practice is one of the leading practices in Teneo People Advisory, covering C-suite appointments across Human Resources and Communications/Corporate Affairs. The team is led by Jack Biddulph, Senior Managing Director, and consists of three other members who work dynamically to execute each critical assignment.

During the last seven years, this practice has grown at a rapid pace, advising Chief Executive Officers on the appointment of their Chief People Officer and Chief Communications Officer, namely across the FTSE100, FTSE250, and in large private equity backed businesses.

As the team continues to grow from strength to strength, Teneo People Advisory are looking to appoint someone to support on assignment execution, whilst driving business development activities, expanding the network in both fields and generating deeper relationships with existing ones. This is an exciting time to join a growing business, established in the market as a leading advisor in this practice area to some of the world’s largest and most dynamic businesses.

Responsibilities

Executive search:

• Co-leads the execution of individual assignments through the full search process, supporting and managing the candidate and client experience, with SMD support
• Demonstrates expertise in the research process to ensure an outcome of a well-developed and curated list of candidates for each assignment
• Contributes to, and participates in, the pitch process
• Discovers innovative ways to identify high potential talent within a given market, in addition to staying abreast of market trends, business intelligence, and competitive information
• Supports new business development and client relationship management to enable delivery of strategic goals and financial plans, contributing to ongoing, successful development of new and existing client relationships, evolving contacts to clients
• Demonstrates a commercial mindset, with the ability to articulate a client’s critical issues and challenges, and capable of anticipating their evolving needs
• Leverages points of the process for additional BD opportunities (source calls, candidate approaches and referencing etc)
• Ensures that our commitment to diversity is embedded throughout our processes and is evident in our outcomes
• Accountable for writing, editing, and formatting of client-ready correspondence, including reports and proposals using appropriate, nuanced, and concise language
• Able to draw on a candidate brief to thoroughly assess candidates against the requirements of the role
• Anticipates the needs of the end user client (and internal clients) and communicates accordingly

Brand ambassador/business development:

• Identifies an area of specialism, enabling then to build their candidate network and develop ideas for IP and BD events
• Constantly monitors news, trends, and candidate movements. Is recognised as insightful and knowledgeable, communicates industry news and relevant market activity for possible business development opportunities to colleagues
• With high intellectual curiosity, inspires and generates new thinking, insights, and proactively shares knowledge across the firm
• Evidences potential to develop into a trusted advisor, with deep knowledge of their clients’ business needs
• Builds and leverages internal and external networks to bring the most relevant expertise and insights to clients and team, identifying opportunities for collaboration across the business and wider group
• Is an internal and external ambassador for the business and all it has to offer. Positively engages in initiatives that enhance our employee and our client value proposition
• Contributes to networking events and forums
• Manages and enriches data accurately and comprehensively across assignment, client and candidate records

Additional tasks:

• Ensure all contact/information is logged on the database in a timely and accurate manner through all stages of assignment/business development
• Ensure thorough and accurate coding on the database
• Work effectively with the support team to maximise efficiency and accuracy
• Drive a significant number of general interviews
• Ensure that the best practice principles of the firm are adhered to and standards are maintained
• Assists with training and mentoring

Key Skills & Experience

• Executive search/senior hiring experience in professional services, and/or client-side experience
• Proactive candidate search and talent mapping
• Candidate report writing
• High-level conceptual and analytical skills, evident business acumen, and exceptional verbal and written communication capability
• Strong organisational skills, including a demonstrated ability to plan and manage time and resources and an ability to juggle multiple projects effectively
• Demonstrative potential to develop into a trusted advisor, with deep knowledge of their clients’ business needs
• Bring a genuine commitment to excellence, with high attention to detail and pride in high-performance
• A naturally non-hierarchical and collaborative colleague, demonstrating energy and contribution companywide and leading by example
• Demonstrates discretion, sound judgement, and high EQ
• Demonstrates flexibility, adaptability, and proactivity as part of the Teneo People Advisory team
• Supports creating an inclusive environment
• Understands their role in the process and also where they need to seek guidance from others.

What we can offer

New joiners are supported by an induction programs and continuous development is a key focus of life at Teneo. We have an environment and culture that is focused on supporting your development and career progression. We support this with a dedicated Learning Team who provide a range of learning opportunities and personal development support. 

Our face-to-face learning is supported by some 100 modules of e-learning available on our internal knowledge management system.

Given our client base, you’ll be working on career-defining work that is exciting, rewarding and where you can make a real impact to high profile projects.

Company Benefits

As well as this we offer a whole host of benefits and reward including:

• Competitive salary (depending on experience)
• 28 days holiday
• Discretionary bonus
• Annual salary review
• Pension (with company contribution: 5% of annual salary)
• Enhanced maternity and paternity leave (depending on length of service) and shared parental leave
• Private medical insurance
• Group Income protection
• Life assurance
• Cycle to work schemes
• Season ticket loans
• Regular social, cultural and charitable activities
• Flexible working with office laptop and phone provided

About Teneo

Teneo is the global CEO advisory firm. We partner with our clients globally to do great things for a better future. Drawing upon our global team and expansive network of senior advisors, we provide advisory services across our five business segments on a stand-alone or fully integrated basis to help our clients solve complex business challenges. Our clients include a significant number of the Fortune 100 and FTSE 100, as well as other corporations, financial institutions, and organizations.

Our full range of advisory services includes strategic communications, investor relations, financial transactions and restructuring, management consulting, physical and cyber risk, organizational design, board and executive search, geopolitics and government affairs, corporate governance, ESG and DE&I. The firm has more than 1,500 employees located in 40+ offices around the world.