Role: Vice President of Engineering
Industry: CleanTech; Energy storage
Client: Manufacturer of electrical energy storage systems
 
CHALLENGE
Our well-funded client backed by leading venture firms is creating a novel approach to battery technology.   They sought an engineering leader with prior start-up company experience and a proven track-record of managing engineering teams bringing multiple new products to market under highly-iterative product development cycles. Additionally, the candidate needed to have a firmware/software background and experience managing outsourced manufacturing and development in Asia. In addition to these critical hard skills, the successful candidate would need to possess an ability to create and develop a culture that would support an appreciation and facility for multi-disciplinary development domain expertise.
 
Our client was introduced to a large subset of senior engineers with software/firmware backgrounds and start-up experience through their investor relationships and networks but was not able to identify anyone with the kind of leadership skills and hands-on management style they felt would be able to foster a culture and galvanize a team to support the scalability of a complex and multi-disciplinary solution set for a emerging market. The organization, in a nascent stage of development, was looking for this critical blend of skill set, experience, and leadership.
 
ILM & PARTNERS APPROACH
ILM & Partners sat down with senior management and current engineering management to develop a detailed profile of the needed experience and unique leadership qualities required for the role. Knowing that the successful candidate would need to be technically-solid, experienced with rapid product iteration and be culturally-sensitive, we leveraged our deep technology domain expertise and broad networks to bring a universe of candidates from less obvious environments. As with all ILM & Partners searches, the search was partner-led and executed throughout each stage of the process.

ILM & PARTNERS RESULTS
Within three weeks we gathered the requisite clarity of candidate profile by introducing several individuals with distinctly different backgrounds and leadership styles. The successful candidate was identified in 10 weeks from the launch of the assignment. Collectively with our client, ILM & Partners recruited a seasoned engineering executive with experience launching novel, disruptive technology solutions with large companies and start-ups characterized by a leadership style of collaboration and mentorship.

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