Solving a Niche Leadership Search for a Fortune 500 Resilience Program

CHALLENGE

A Fortune 500, publicly traded multinational conglomerate faced a critical hiring need for a Senior Manager of Global Risk & Resilience, a strategic individual contributor role responsible for leading a large division’s resilience program based in North Carolina. The ideal candidate needed a rare blend of expertise across Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, Crisis Management, Supplier Resiliency, and Risk Management. In addition to this functional depth, the role required someone with global program ownership experience, strong stakeholder engagement skills, and the ability to thrive in a large, matrixed enterprise.

Despite having a well-resourced internal recruiting function, the company spent four months posting the role and sourcing candidates via LinkedIn and other standard channels. Unfortunately, these efforts failed to yield a candidate who met the full set of criteria outlined by the hiring panel. The unique combination of cross-functional expertise, industry sector alignment, and executive polish proved too niche for traditional methods.

SOLUTION

After being re-engaged by the client, who had partnered with our firm on past resiliency searches, we held a detailed kickoff meeting with the hiring manager. It was immediately clear that this would not be a simple search. The ideal candidate profile was extremely specific, requiring not only deep technical and functional expertise but also hands-on experience managing a global program as an individual contributor within a complex corporate structure.

Recognizing that passive sourcing would not suffice, we launched a highly targeted and proactive recruitment campaign. This included:

• Manually reviewing our proprietary database for every resilience professional who was locally based and who matched the technical and leadership profile.

• Personally reaching out to over 100 contacts with known experience across the five target disciplines.

• Avoiding reliance on job board applicants or passive interest through our BCM Job Alerts, this search required direct outreach to uncover hidden talent.

Within one week of launching the campaign, we had qualified 11 strong candidates and submitted the top 3 to the client for review. All three were interviewed, and one candidate stood out: a seasoned resilience leader with global program responsibility, cross-disciplinary depth, and a polished executive presence.

Beyond sourcing, we provided end-to-end hiring support, including coordination of reference checks, offer negotiation assistance, and onboarding guidance. We also maintained touchpoints with both the client and the candidate at 30, 60, and 90 days post-hire to ensure long-term alignment.

RESULT

Within one month of candidate submission, the client successfully extended and secured an offer that met both their expectations and the candidate’s career goals. The hiring manager was thrilled to finally land the right-fit professional after months of stalled internal search efforts. The internal recruiter shared that they wished they had engaged us earlier, acknowledging the value of our domain-specific expertise and consultative recruiting approach.

This case highlights how strategic, specialized recruitment in resilience management can turn a long-standing challenge into a successful, timely placement, bringing peace of mind and program leadership stability to a critical business function.