Finding the perfect balance

Before we had even started working for itsu, we had a series of fascinating discussions with the MD and HRD discussing the challenges and opportunities for what ultimately became a Chief Customer Officer search.

In this discovery period before and immediately after engagement, we acted as mini-management consultants; listening to the client’s needs, explaining how their requirements were not unique and talking them at a more granular level about different cultural types, background and experience of people in the market.

This mental model of a management consultancy approach is important to the way we do business as a digital leadership headhunter. As we work across the D2C digital/customer sector we get better and better with each assignment. We can triage a set of business case challenges quickly, recommend best practice and tailor this to a client’s specific needs. Obviously we produce a tangible solution to these problems – one person or a team (rather than a platitudinous report!)

For itsu, this a completely new role and function and reflected the company’s ambitions to be a global digital leader in the food retail sector. The remit runs across customer proposition, brand management and digital transformation. First round interviews were an education; conversations with real candidates highlight the relative values placed by the client on certain attributes and also opens their eyes to new possibilities and ways of conceptualising the role and its aims. With a deft course-correction we had the successful candidate in final stage interviews within two weeks.