Head of Legal and Governance Search in the Sustainable Energy Sector
Background
Our client is a leading operator of sustainable heating and cooling networks in the UK, serving residential, commercial and public sector clients across major cities in England and Scotland. With significant backing from both UK and international investors, the company is expanding rapidly with ambitious growth plans, including £1 billion of investment over a 5 year period, to develop city-scale networks.
Following a period of strategic development and management changes, the business created a new Head of Legal and Governance position to support its expansion. The role would report directly to the Chief Commercial Officer, with additional reporting lines to the Chairman on corporate governance and company secretarial matters. The new appointment represented a critical step in the company’s maturation as it scaled up its operations across the UK energy sector.
Challenge
The primary challenge in this recruitment project was speed. Following on from a number of recent management changes, in the period leading up to our involvement, there was not only a permanent need, but some urgency to find an interim lawyer who was immediately available.
The role combined two distinct functions – Head of Legal and Governance – requiring someone who could both handle complex energy sector contracts and project finance while also managing corporate governance across multiple group companies.
The successful candidate would need to establish appropriate legal frameworks and governance structures from the ground up. They would be working in a fast-growing business with significant capital projects and complex stakeholder relationships, including international investors with rigorous reporting requirements.
The energy sector context added another potential layer of complexity to the permanent recruitment project, as the ideal candidate would need familiarity with the regulatory framework surrounding sustainable energy projects. With the business rapidly expanding its large scale networks, the Head of Legal and Governance would need to support high-value capital projects with long-term contractual risk implications.
Solution
Following a comprehensive brief from the company’s new CCO, we developed a clear picture of the technical and behavioural requirements for what was a multi-faceted role.
Our approach to filling the role involved a targeted search focusing on senior in-house lawyers with both legal and governance experience, ideally with exposure to the energy sector or similar regulated infrastructure environments. We also had to balance the client’s need for a someone to join the business quickly. This opened the role up to a number of senior interim lawyers.
Whilst engaging with a small number of interim candidates, we also conducted a thorough mapping of the market concurrently, with a view to resuming the permanent recruitment project when an interim lawyer had been appointed.
Our search extended beyond the traditional energy sector to include candidates from adjacent regulated industries who could bring transferable expertise.
Three candidates with immediate availability were presented. From this shortlist the company made an appointment on a fixed term contract basis with the prospect of appointing the individual on a permanent basis after a period of satisfactory performance.
