Insights for companies while hiring CFOs in India

Written by Abhishek on Jul 31, 2018

The role of a CFO is driven by market trends and their skill sets have only been evolving over the years. So has been the demand for CFOs. More CFOs are holding non-executive roles than ever before. A CFO’s unique combination of financial and strategic capabilities puts them in a better position in the present day. As a result, they become natural choices for many companies to run their critical business units. 

One such company had been in the market in search of a CFO for one of their strategic business units. This role would lead one of the largest business units for a global financial giant. The ideal candidate would be responsible for overseeing the company operations across multiple regions. This role would be internal function reporting to the global CFO and dotted line reporting to the Country Head. 

For about two to three weeks, the company tried to source candidates directly. After facing few hiring challenges, the company chose Han Digital. The primary purpose of choosing us was to understand talent available for this role across locations in India. Han Digital Talent Research team mapped close to 400 candidates across industries. This mapping served as a first level filtering criteria based on the job description shared by the client. From this list, we identified around 30 candidates whose profile matched with the client requirement. 

The above exercise which was completed in about a week’s time involved multiple rounds of discussion with our team and client hiring managers. Now two choices lay ahead for the client – use their internal team and proceed with the 30 odd candidates or continue working with Han Digital in engaging with the candidates through the interview process until successful onboarding of one resource. 

The client chose the latter and offered Han Digital the mandate to engage with candidates on behalf of the client and help close the position. We started engaging with the candidates on multiple parameters. Our consultants created the story that captured the essence of the role and the reasons why candidates should consider this opportunity. At the beginning of this engagement, our pipeline had 12 candidates. At the end of the week, we had 5 shortlisted candidates. 

We submitted 5 candidates to our client. The client interviewed 4 of them and made 1 offer who later joined them onboard. The entire process was completed in a month’s time. This was the first time the client had tried anything like this. Having experienced this success, they retained Han Digital for all their senior level hiring. 

Want to know more about effective leadership hiring strategies? We are here to help. Please drop a message to Saran - saran@handigital.com