Situation
A highly regarded industry association faced an urgent leadership crisis requiring immediate CEO replacement. With the Board temporarily filling executive responsibilities, critical organizational tasks were falling behind schedule, creating significant risk of membership dissatisfaction. The role demanded rapid filling while maintaining a robust selection process.
The challenge was compounded by multiple influential stakeholders within the membership, each holding different agendas and diverse opinions about selection criteria. Despite these complexities, the organization required a new CEO within a tight 10-week timeframe.
The association engaged PeopleScout’s Apex professional search solution to deliver a collaborative, consensus-driven recruitment process under extreme time pressure.
Solution
The Apex team implemented a comprehensive four-pillar strategy designed to balance speed, quality and stakeholder alignment:
Speed-to-Market Strategy: Accelerated the entire process from initial conversation to live advertising campaign deployment, ensuring maximum market exposure within the compressed timeline.
Volume Generation: Targeted 100+ candidates through PeopleScout’s extensive professional networks and LinkedIn outreach, with advertising copy specifically crafted to maximize response rates across multiple channels.
Quality Assurance: Conducted thorough post-application review to tailor the screening strategy, followed by detailed candidate profiling to ensure only the highest-caliber applicants progressed through the process.
Stakeholder Consensus Building: Shared candidate longlists with multiple stakeholders to secure agreement on the final interview shortlist, implementing a structured panel interview process with formalized feedback mechanisms to ensure all voices were heard and considered.
Results
The strategic approach delivered exceptional outcomes within the demanding timeframe:
- Rapid deployment: From initial brief to live job advertisements in just 8 days
- Extensive reach: Research team leveraged LinkedIn and multiple sources to generate a candidate pool of 200+ qualified professionals
- Efficient process: Panel interviews and stakeholder feedback completed on the same day to maintain momentum
- Successful placement: Written acceptance from the preferred candidate received just 9 weeks after the initial brief
- Stakeholder alignment: All key stakeholders achieved consensus on the final selection despite initial differing views
The collaborative approach not only delivered a successful CEO appointment within the critical timeframe but also strengthened stakeholder relationships through the transparent, inclusive selection process.
