Chief Legal and Risk Officer Recruitment Project
Background
We were engaged to find a new Chief Legal Officer to report to the CEO. The project stemmed from the intended departure of the incumbent, who managed a small legal, risk and compliance team.
With its headquarters in London, our client is a global payment technology operator serving customers in more than 130 markets. It handles more than half a billion transactions for over 400,000 retailers and 100 partner banks.
Amongst other things, the client’s key requirements included:
- Qualified solicitor with at least 10 years PQE in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions in both practice and industry.
- Experience as a Chief Legal Officer or General Counsel within technology, financial services or fintech.
- High level of strategic leadership and influencing and people skills to manage and grow the legal, risk and compliance function.
Challenge
For historical reasons, the departing CLO’s notice period was shorter than one would usually expect. At the time of engagement, there was little time to undertake the usual comprehensive selection process for a permanent replacement. Most permanent Chief Legal Officer or General Counsel candidates would be likely to have a long notice period to serve, before they could start work. Board members were anxious not to disrupt the stability and continuity of what was then quite a small and comparatively junior legal, risk and compliance team in a single location. So, both interim and permanent recruitment strategies were employed.
Solution
We immediately began engaging in dialogue with our network of senior interim lawyers. The aim was to supply someone able to start a role at relatively short notice and help maintain a level of support to the board and the wider legal and compliance team at an incredibly busy time for the business.
As is often the case with interim lawyer recruitment, candidates who are available immediately often don’t all possess the full set of skills and experience required by the client for a permanent role. Therefore, we also commenced a more detailed search concurrently for a senior leader with all the qualities the client was seeking in their ideal Chief Legal and Risk Officer.
Result
The interim CLO chosen by the client to serve a 6-month contract was a candidate who had all the right credentials. They had trained as a corporate lawyer in a London Silver Circle firm and had later become GC at an AIM listed technology business after a period as Legal Director of a logistics company. The interim appointee very quickly gained the trust and respect of the Board and Senior Leadership Team and injected a steadying, supportive influence on the team.
A potential interim-to-permanent appointment can give both sides considerable practical advantages. These are not otherwise present in a standard hiring process. As a result, momentum moved still further in the interim appointee’s favour during the fixed term contract. This gave the client stability whilst the client spent time interviewing other shortlisted candidates. Ultimately, the client perceived that none of the others would match the impact our interim appointee had achieved in such a short period of time. Moreover, having 3 different people undertake the role of Chief Legal Officer level in a period of 12 months would have only served to further unsettle the team. So the appointment was made permanent after 5 months service as Interim CLO.
