Company Secretary & General Counsel Recruitment
Background
As is often the case, this client was recommended to Florit Legal by the Chair of another public company. The other business had undertaken a successful search for a new Company Secretary, with ourselves, in another part of the UK.
The company was unfortunately losing its then and company secretary and general counsel. So, following a competitive tender, we were exclusively instructed to undertake a retained search to find and appoint a replacement.
In addition to all the wider personal qualities a role like this demands, the ideal candidate profile was to be a qualified solicitor with:
- Corporate and commercial legal experience;
- Commercial law firm training and a significant amount of post qualification experience in practice;
- At least 5 years’ subsequent experience of working in-house; and
- Prior experience as a PLC company secretary.
In addition, candidates needed to work in a part of the UK with fewer law firms or in-house legal and compliance teams than other parts of England and Wales. Candidates also needed to have experience in the leisure or hospitality sector and/or another retail or regulated B2C industry. This was necessary for a smooth transition if nobody could be attracted with an exact, like-for-like background.
Challenges
A considerable challenge was presented on this search, by 3 limiting factors.
Firstly the location, but also the requirements for candidates to ideally have both industry experience and successful time served as a PLC company secretary. There are undeniably excellent commercial law firms with a presence in this particular part of the country, giving rise to no shortage of individuals looking to work in-house. However, the in-house lawyer market locally was and is much smaller than London or other large regional cities like Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.
An experienced PLC company secretary with all the other attributes sought was most likely to come from another part of the country. Additionally, very few retail, travel or B2C companies are located in the region.
Solution
Following a full brief from the CEO and HR Director, we commenced a confidential search project on the client’s behalf. An initial long list of over 80 candidates produced a shortlist of 8 people. Initial interviews were held with the top 4. Then second interviews, OPQs and presentations to board members rounded off the project. References were taken from other industry contacts of ours, before a successful group company secretary appointment was made.
