With your newly crafted executive resume in hand, it’s time to get to work on getting the right people to see it and invite you for an interview. Again, the goal of the resume is just that: to open doors to a conversation about new opportunities for you as a professional. But as we climb the latter into executive roles (VP and above), fewer and fewer positions avail themselves (as math dictates). In addition, many of these roles are not advertised in public forums.
Here is my advice on how to network yourself into a new role.
Moving on
For the sake of this article, let’s just assume that you have made up your mind to seek a new professional home. Maybe your commute stinks, your company has flatlined in growth, you have a new boss, or that side project you just completed really got you excited about using a different skill set. Whatever the reason, it is time for a change. Most professionals at this juncture reach out to the three or four executive recruiters they know to see what is happening. There is nothing wrong with this approach, but there are better ways to take charge of your search.
The brainstorm
The first step in this process is getting out a pen and paper (or a spreadsheet) and writing down a list of the most influential people you know. These are people who would return a call or email and who would be willing to make some time for you. But they are also people who are in a position to make introductions that matter. This list should include investors, board members, CEOs, professors, MBA classmates, peers in other companies you work or compete with, etc. These are folks who are in a position to introduce you to other people in charge of executive hiring.
Note: That list does not include executive recruiters. Think broadly while scribbling your list, and include some stretch goal people. Get at least 50 names down, and shoot for 100. Take a few days and retrace your career. Find lost contacts. LinkedIn is a great resource.
Top 10
Once you have your long list, study it, and rank the top 10 people on the list. Your goal now is to arrange one-on-one meetings with those 10 people. Your ranking should be a weighted combination of how influential the contact is and your ability to get a meeting with the person. Be realistic and just a bit idealistic. You want wins (getting a meeting), but you do not want to set yourself up for disappointment by aiming too high. This is a game and a sport, and if you approach it as such, it can be fun, stimulating and ultimately rewarding.
Getting the meeting
Narrowing your list to the top 10 makes the networking game more realistic for a working professional. These meetings are hard to get and hard to schedule since everyone is busy. You are asking for time on an executive calendar, so be realistic and persistent and respectful. If you can get two meetings a month, that would be a win. Three would be fantastic. In my experience, if you get 10 meetings in a few months, new opportunities will present themselves, either directly through these contacts or through their network. In a world full of noise, interruption and email bombardment, you need to be top of mind.
Being crystal clear
So what to do when you get the meeting? This is where the elevator pitch is key. You may only get a few minutes with these influential people, so it is really important to be clear about why you are there and what you have to offer. You should have your personal elevator pitch down to three or four sentences with an easily understood takeaway (e.g., how your skills and experience can help transform an organization). This elevator pitch should be repeated in the summary of your resume to reinforce your message. You should also be in a position to offer help to the executive you are meeting with, so be sure the conversation is a give and take.
Be respectful of this person’s time, and don’t go over the allotted schedule. Follow up with a thank-you email and an offer to be a resource for this person in their line of work. Reiterate your goals and skills. Be brief and to the point. Set a reminder to follow up with this person in 30 days via email.
In my experience, establishing a plan like this makes the likelihood of introductions to new opportunities very high. It takes work and dedication, thoughtfulness and persistence. But it works. As for the recruiters I left out of your “influential” people list, I mean no disrespect. But we are tasked with finding very specific people for our clients, and while we play an important role in building a career, don’t stop there.
The work I do finding exceptional CFO and Board Members for my tech and life sciences clients is not exactly steeped in numbers. It is more about communication and networking. Sure, there are metrics that I use to measure my business, but they are not nearly as important as the metrics that CFOs live by as they contribute to the companies where they work, e.g. increase in company value through driving innovation and efficiencies in all aspects of the business. But as we come to the close of 2019, it struck me that there are many important numbers that reflect the work of Arnold Partners and I’d like to share them here.
10
10 solid years Arnold Partners has been in business! Pretty cool. In that time, we have placed 70 CFOs for technology companies who have helped their companies increase in value by over $15B. I am probably undercounting that contribution because it only is a calculation of IPOs (Market Cap) and the M&A exits that have taken place with my placed CFOs. Of the 70 CFOs I have placed 11 lead IPOs and another 18 lead M&A exits. Pretty sure the other 41 have increased the value of their companies through further fund raising or just top line growth but it is more difficult to measure. What does all of this mean? For one, the focus of placing CFOs for me is on creating value—for the enterprise that hires me, for the CEO I so closely work with, for the investors behind the enterprise, and for the CFOs themselves. 10 years also means that we have made a name for ourselves in the technology marketplace as a leading resource for top CFO talent. I am confident we will be repeating this blog on our 15th and 20th anniversaries.
96.5%
That is our completion rate for the searches we have taken on in the last ten years. Why is that important? The retained search industry reports from publicly traded firms indicate their completion rate ranges from 70 to 80%. No one is in the 90% range, let alone almost 97%. This means that we complete our commitments to our clients. The large search firms charge 100% of their fees but only fill 75% of their engagements. Not here. We are in it to win it AND finish it for our clients. A related number is the “stick-rate” of our placements. Just finishing is not enough, we want to make sure the CFO we place is still on the job 1, 2, 3 years after accepting the role. And they are. Of our 70 placements, only in one case did the CFO not last. So that is a 99% stick rate.
9
Is it simply the economy or are we getting better? Or word of success getting around? We completed 9 CFO searches this year up from an average of 7 in years past. Our time from inception of search to completion is also improving, from 115 days in 2018 to 103 days in 2019. I suppose if the economy tanks the demand may not be as robust for search services, but we lived through big downturns before. We are going into the new year with an active search and one more agreed to kick off in January, so maybe 2010 will bring us to 10 completed searches!
30
On a personal note, I celebrated my 30th wedding anniversary with my wife this year. If you want to put a strain on your marriage, triple your mortgage and then tell your spouse you want to start your own business! The truth is I could not have done this without her. She is the silent partner in Arnold Partners. Well, not silent with me. She kicks my butt and keeps me going and keeps me measuring the business. If we are not getting better and faster and keeping clients happy she will let me know about it. I am blessed to have her unyielding support. She is my CFO!
3,371
That is how many people this blog is being sent to via LinkedIn. Thank you all for your support over these last few years. I could not make my world turn without all of you! I wish you all a very happy Holiday season and an exceptional 2020!
If you are looking for exception CFO or Board Members in 2020, please shoot me an email at moc.srentrapdlonra@evad.
Last week I had the privilege of attending a panel discussion about Corporate Board recruitment and strategies for securing a Board seat put on by the Bay Area HR Executives Council, a SHRM affiliate. The event was well attended and the panel, comprised of two CHROs and an executive search consultant, was lively and informative. Here are some of my takeaways for those CFOs wanting to gain a Board seat and for companies thinking about recruiting Board members.
Considerations for Board Seat Seekers
First off, it was pointed out that there is a great deal of information available in the public domain about corporate governance and educating oneself on what it means to serve on a Board. I meet a lot of CFOs who want to be on Boards, but the panel wisely pointed out that careful consideration should be taken before committing oneself to a Board whether it be public or private. Basic questions to consider: Why do you want to be on a Board? What are the liabilities? What is the time commitment? What do you stand to gain? What do you have to offer? How long of a commitment are you signing up for?
A couple of resources were mentioned by the panel to help address these questions; shoot me an email at moc.srentrapdlonra@evad and I will share them with you.
Trends in Board Composition
One of the interesting trends taking place within public company Board recruitment is not only gender diversification (I wrote about this topic in a previous blog, “Gender Diversity on your Board of Directors and California SB826“), but also the diversification of professional backgrounds making up public Board seats. It used to be that Boards were made up almost entirely of current and former CEOs, but this is no longer the case. According to a report issued by Spencer Stuart, former and current CFOs made up just 12% of Board composition in 2017. The need for gender diversification today is hand-in-hand with the recruitment of more CFOs, CIOs, CMOs, and CHROs on to Boards as the issues public companies face become more complex and nuanced. The need for experts in a variety of subjects is now more important than ever before. One of the most talked about issues at Board meetings was the topic of “financial talent succession planning.”
So, this sounds like good news if you are a CFO wanting to join a Board, right? Well, the truth is, it is not easy. For one, there are only about half the number of public companies in the US today as there were in 1996. (According to the WSJ, in 1996 there were 7,322 domestic public companies and in 2017 there were only 3,671). Also, as the Baby Boomers go from being active C-suite employees to wanting to sit on Boards, the sheer size of that generation has created the largest number of competitors for those fewer seats. People currently sitting on Boards are generally loath to leave them for better or worse, making turnover rare. While some strategic and legislated elements are creating more demand for diversity of Board membership, clearly the demographic winds are not in a first-time Board member’s favor.
Are Companies Seeking a Purple Squirrel?
From the viewpoint of a consultative executive recruiter and Board of Directors recruitment firm, there is also more at play. When we partner with a Board and CEO to help attract a new member, the diligence process is very deep. We really need to understand the Board dynamics and what are the missing pieces to complement existing members. From there we reconcile with the Board and strategize on industry factors, competitors, foreseeable changes in the technical landscape in terms of bringing in fresh perspectives. We collaborate and determine a list of possible target executives on whom we should concentrate our efforts. Many times, this brings into play a “Moonshot” approach to attracting / recruiting Board members. My point is when we conduct a Board search, while there may be many prospective people who “want to be on a Board,” there are typically very few candidates who will meet all the criteria the client and I have laid out for the role. We are not, in the words of one panelist, seeking a “Purple Squirrel” but rather a candidate that meets a bar that is just high, specific, and written with purpose and thought, which limits the number of appropriate candidates.
Suggestions for Board Seekers
I am not trying to douse your dreams of being on a Board. The panel had some very good advice and insights on some practical ways to make yourself more attractive. One thing you can do is to seek an unpaid ‘Board Advisory” role. An incubator would be a good place to look for these roles. If you can land some Advisory roles they may grow into a more full-time Board role if the company is able to get off the ground. Another idea is to be an Angel investor; nascent stage companies might add you as a Board member/investor. Finally, look for those companies that may be a bit damaged or lacking in some key element where your skills and knowledge could help them turn things around. Just like anything in life, one rarely starts their journey at the top. You may need to take the “B” or even “C” role to get your first seat.
Finally, the panelists pointed out some of the qualities they look for when evaluating a potential Board member. First and most important was the ability to receive a tremendous amount of input from management and to be able to sort through it all and ask incisive questions. Second, they agreed that a high degree of business acumen in the domain of the business was key. They left us thinking about the role of the Board when it comes to social responsibility, which is becoming more of a conversation at the top than ever before. That is good news and certainly something for all of us to think about.
If your company is seeking a strategic Board member, particularly someone with a CFO background, Arnold Partners’ network is the one to tap for tech and life science companies. I welcome your comments and questions; contact me at moc.srentrapdlonra@evad.
New Year’s resolution: diversify? No, it is a mandate. California SB826 demands your attention now to attract a diverse Board of Directors in 2019. New Year’s resolution: get help? Yes, Arnold Partners has the experience and the relationships to help you achieve a successful transition to a more effective, inclusive, and compliant Board.
The new law of the land
The California legislature passed SB826 in Oct 2017 with the requirement that public companies include at least one female director by the end of 2019. If your Board has more than five members, two will need to be female. One report indicates that 377 companies need to add at least one female director in 2019. Follow this Link to Read the bill.
Is the law merited?
Some say it is a shame to have to legislate this (agree), others say hooray it is long overdue (agree), and there are those who say it will put female members into a compromised role on the board because they are there only because of the mandate (disagree). To this last point I argue that there are many, many more highly qualified female candidates than needed to fill those 377+ openings. And given the high-quality nature of these professionals there is no way they will not make immediate and positive contributions to the companies they will serve.
However, finding the right female candidates for your Board is the key: a professional who can contribute from day one to numerous key strategic and operational issues.
Finding qualified candidates
Okay, so qualified candidates are out there, but how do you find them? This is where Arnold Partners is uniquely qualified to help your Board identify, assess, and ultimately attract excellent candidates for you. The proof? Just in the last year alone, half of the CFOs we placed are female, and in every search we delivered a high quality and gender-diverse slate of candidates.
The easiest way to gain gender diversity on your Board is to look to the financial community—CFOs, CAOs and the like—to find top tier talent who will make important contributions right out of the gate for your company. While female CFOs are still in a large minority in total, there are many current public sector and retired female CFOs to consider. Arnold Partners has a unique relationship with this community. These financial experts can adeptly serve on the Audit Committee, the Governance Committee, or the Compensation Committee while concurrently make contributions to the larger issues facing any company.
Do quotas work?
Forbes magazine contributor Kim Elsesser wrote about California SB826 in her October 2, 2018 article, “California Mandates Women on Boards, but Do Quotas Work?”:
“The quota law is not going to solve all gender issues in organizations in California, but it doesn’t have to. The quotas will certainly increase the number of female directors, and that’s good enough for me. It may not bring greater corporate profits or shrink the gender pay gap, but that’s okay. It makes a clear statement that organizations that don’t take gender equity seriously are not welcome in California, and that alone makes it valuable.”
I agree with Kim. I would add that the quality of new Directors you want to attract to your Board is of the greatest importance. Partnering with a firm that can help you get the right candidates to the table with a sense of urgency and accuracy is also key. To talk about how Arnold Partners can help, contact me at moc.srentrapdlonra@evad or call 408-205-7373.
Very interesting conversation with a current board audit committee Director and a former Big4 partner last week. He currently sits on three boards: two public, one private. We had a far-reaching conversation on the role of an independent director, and his thoughts on how to get on a board of directors. Given his long career in public accounting and having faced many challenges, I was surprised to hear him say that landing his first director role was “the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my professional life.” Wow. What are the implications of this if you are a sitting CFO with board aspirations? Or a retiring partner from an accounting firm?
Landing a CFO Position vs Your First Seat on a Board
Making the leap to CFO is one thing; it can happen for a variety of reasons, either by planning your career very carefully, working hard and proving yourself. Or, as in many cases, it can be a battlefield promotion because of a business change or departure of an incumbent. It’s not a slam dunk to land your first CFO role, but getting your first director role is a degree more difficult for a number of reasons: the battlefield promotion is probably out. The role is not a natural extension of your current day to day duties. The dynamics of a board are completely different than that of an executive team. So just what’s the ticket for landing a seat on a board?
Strategy for Making the Leap
For frequent readers of my blog the answer won’t surprise you. The strategy for making a big leap in your career, whether you are planning out how to get on a board of directors or land your first CFO role for that matter, is really very much the same. You need to create a game plan to get in front of “people of influence” and consider taking a bit of a risk. (hint: executive recruiters are not the people of influence!)
When No One is Calling
In the case of this former partner, the aha moment was acknowledging that the likes of Apple and Google weren’t calling for him to join their boards. In fact, nobody was. He had been in a relatively strong position of influence, helping major public technology companies on important business strategies. As a sought after opinion leader, he was accustomed to getting calls from CEOs and investors. Once retired from that position, it came as a shock to him that no one came seeking his council any more. This turn of events could be disconcerting and even depressing for some in this position.
Putting Together a Plan… Who Ya Gonna Call?
So he put together a plan for how to get on a board, which sounds simple, but requires a certain amount of discipline and confidence to undertake. He began by identifying people in his former sphere of influence, including investors, board members, CEOs, and former partners. He then started reaching out to these folks to make his intention clear about joining a board. The initial response wasn’t what he wanted: he was invited to join a public company with business complications and a strategy that was not all that exciting. As he said, “It certainly was not an “A” company.” But by trusting his source who led him to this opportunity, he ultimately joined the board. As with anything in life, things suddenly become more attractive once you are involved! A second directorship followed after a couple of years at the invitation of a fellow director. Once his second seat with a more attractive company was secure, his phone starting ringing more often, and he was able work out of the initial seat.
Ready, Set, Go Boarding
So put your most influential and trusted professionals in a cohesive spreadsheet. Select the top10. With persistence, patience and professionalism, get a face-to-face meeting with those 10 influencers. Make clear what your goals are and why you are a compelling asset. Have your elevator pitch down to three or four concise sentences. Ask each of the 10 people for specific referrals within their network. Also, very importantly, offer your assistance to help them solve a problem on their desk.
Next up, a bit about the Audit Chair role as independent director and the relationship to the CFO and other members of the Board.
As always, happy to chat about the next steps in your career or to give more tips on how to get on a board of directors. Visit our site for more information on how we can help CFOs or, if you would like to discuss the ideas in this blog further, please contact me at: moc.srentrapdlonra@evaD.
There are many qualities that my clients look for in a CFO. Obviously, significant experience and domain expertise in all things financial are high on the list. Some clients may focus on public company CFO experience or a specific industry may be more important at times. However, one quality EVERY company should demand in their executive leadership is gravitas. But how do you go about determining if a candidate has it?
Gravitas Defined
Last week I attended a workshop on personal branding sponsored by the San Jose Business Journal and led by Karen Leland, principal of the Sterling Marketing Group. (Please see her contact information below.) Karen laid out six specific attributes that make up gravitas. Here’s how I describe it: gravitas in the corporate world is like statesmanship in the political world. It’s having the confidence and consistent performance that commands respect, and inspires others to move forward together. Some people have it, some don’t, and others can develop it.
Who’s Got It?
CEOs may say that they feel the gravitas of a person on an instinctual level. I have heard the phrase: so and so fills up the room with his or her presence. But it is much more than just presence; it entails several distinct attributes that can and should be evaluated in detail throughout the hiring process.
In a recent study by the Center for Talent Innovation, author Sylvia Ann Hewlett presents some fascinating findings on executive presence. Almost 70% of those surveyed respondents hold gravitas as the top quality they are looking for in their leaders. This calls out for a deep dive into understanding what it is, and what one do to strengthen this intangible and somewhat nebulous quality. If you are a CEO, CFO or aspiring C-suite professional, not only should you read Hewlett’s report, I recommend you take a personal inventory of the three key qualities identified in the study which lead to ideal executive presence: Communications, Appearance, and Gravitas.
Finding Gravitas
I believe what holds back most people from the C-suite is oftentimes the lack of gravitas – not technical ability or political acumen. It can be evaluated by an expert interviewer if he or she knows what to look for, and what questions to ask.
I welcome your comments: what’s your take on gravitas if you are thinking about how to hire a CFO? I would love to converse on this capital topic.
To find out more about the process I use to evaluate a candidate’s gravitas and other qualities that constitute idea executive presence, please contact me, Dave Arnold at 408-205-7373 or moc.srentrapdlonra@evad. You can also learn some great interviewing tips from my blog post How to Interview a CFO Candidate
Also, please look for a guest blog by Karen in the weeks to come here at Arnold Partners.
