Architectural Practice

Director

Our client was a relatively young and fast growing architectural practice with four offices in the UK and overseas.

The firm had recently had a number of successes in the hospitality sector and wanted to recruit an experienced director to lead on delivery and build the hospitality business. Intrinsic within the brief was to find someone who was highly creative, but also understood how to make highly designed hotels profitable for the client.

This presented us with a number of challenges. Hospitality is a niche sector, with only a handful of real specialists. Furthermore, whilst the practice was very successful, it was not yet widely known and would therefore not be immediately recognisable to people.

Our approach centred on a targeted headhunt, focusing on key players in the hospitality sector in the UK. We also researched the middle-eastern markets, where there is an increasing demand for individual or themed hotels, resorts and complexes. In order to effectively “sell” the practice to people we spent a great deal of time learning about and understanding our client and the characters of the key people in the organisation. Once we had sourced candidates, we worked closely with them to establish cultural fit to the practice. We also remained in contact throughout the offer process, advising both client and candidate to ensure both sides were happy with the outcome. The assignment took 8 weeks from commencement to offer stage and the candidate is now a successful part of the practice.