The engagement described below is unique yet the core company challenges and the desired outcome is consistent with the types of situations we run across in clients of all sizes, industry areas and stages of existence. The need for the services outlined below is often stimulated by management transitions which have been mandated by a significant change in business strategy or are a more "natural" result of a company evolving from one stage to another.

In 1999, the Company was a high-growth wireless telecom service provider still managed by its founders. It was acquired that year by two private equity firms with the goal of fueling its rapid growth. Immediately, Hamilton Partners was engaged to recruit a CFO having the potential to become CEO if needed. Given the Company’s doubling in its subscriber base and employee population that year, as well as the setting of aggressive milestones for 2001, the then-CFO assumed the role of CEO late in 2000, meeting the Board’s requirement for more sophisticated leadership. Having made a significant contribution to that successful leadership transition, HP was then enlisted to address the next wave of critical leadership and talent issues.

The project began as all HP projects do - with an up-front diagnostic to establish an in-depth understanding of the client company’s strategy, competitive context and culture. After gaining a thorough understanding in these areas, HP focused on working with the Leadership Team — from the CEO to two levels down in the Company — to identify the Leadership Competencies required for the organization to meet its objectives and to then Assess the Leadership Team in each of these competency areas. This activity created the framework to build the Leadership Team and the foundation for Professional Development activities to be undertaken by the Management Team.

Concurrent to these activities, Hamilton Partners undertook Talent Acquisition (Executive Search) projects for two critical senior level Executives for the Company: a new CFO and a Vice President of Marketing; and assisted in the final selection of a new CTO. The foundation for each of these searches was established by the creation of specific expectations for these new hires including the definition of key "Must Achieves" (metrics) for their respective roles and a complete understanding of the Company’s strategy, competitive context and culture. HP created and conveyed a thoughtful and in-depth client "story" to ensure the hiring of highly talented executives in a particularly tight labor market.

These new Executives came into an environment where their ability to contribute in a timely fashion was absolutely critical. Through New Executive Transition workshops with each of the CFO, VP of Marketing, and VP of Human Resources and the members of their respective teams, these leaders were able to establish an immediately strong rapport with their teams and a mutual understanding of operating styles and expectations. Each Leader was able to quickly share his or her vision for their team’s role in meeting the Company’s objectives and to mitigate anxiety as concerns and questions were voiced, discussed, and answered. Thus, the Leaders were able to hit the ground running with a fully-engaged and supportive team. HP continues to act as an external sounding board to those executives in their respective team members when needed.

Our client activity begins and ends with business strategy, and we take great pride in helping our clients achieve desired outcomes and competitive advantage. The client relationship described above clearly benefited from our intimate knowledge of their business strategy and the leadership changes needed to achieve it.  As a result of its stronger organization and leadership team, this client accomplished the growth needed to successfully merge with a similarly sized company in its industry, the essence of the Board’s investment strategy.

As specific testimony, our client’s CEO states:

"Hamilton Partners’ commitment to understanding our strategy and our culture was invaluable throughout all of the activities we undertook together — the impact of the firm’s in-depth, highly thoughtful approach was significant.

"This intimate knowledge of our Company helped throughout the recruitment process of our new leaders — both in cycle time (both projects were completed in less than 60 days) and in HP’s ability to tell our story from an insider’s perspective.

"The integration activities allowed for a much faster ramp-up for these Executives — what would have been a three to six month transition wound up taking only about one month.

"In sum, I would never work with anyone else."