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European Pharmaceutical Company - Japan General Manager Replacement (Retained Search)
With the existing General Manager completing his tenor in Japan, a European pharmaceutical company needed to identify a replacement who could understand global and local marketing perspectives.
The client was a privately owned European Pharmaceutical company which co-promotes with three Japanese Pharmaceutical companies.
The current French General Manager was returning home after four trying years in Japan and the company wanted to hire a local Japanese executive. The challenge was to find a bilingual Japanese marketing executive with international pharmaceutical experience. The client’s office in Japan had only two people, the General Manager and the secretary.
Optia was tasked with identifying an internationally minded candidate who wanted to work independently away from the security of Mega Pharma to work closely with the three Japanese companies to implement their international marketing strategy.
The team met with the French GM to fully understand the challenges faced by a foreign company trying to influence a domestic on how to market its products. We then questioned the president about the role and examined what needed to be achieved in the first 12 months. We asked the president to fast forward 12 months and ask ‘What has the candidate achieved? What has he changed? How does the organization look today? What new relationships or alliances have been formed?”
This process enabled Optia Partners to have the requirements of the position written as quantifiable objectives.
Once we had a clear vision of the candidate we were looking for, we searched our data base, and asked key marketing executives for referrals. The search on the data base provided a short list of 6 candidates with 3 being chosen for interview, however our gut feeling was something was missing with these candidates either with their past accomplishments or passion for the new company. We continued to search in the market. Through a referral we met the candidate who would finally be offered the position.
Initially he did not appear to be suitable on paper. His background was clinical, not sales. He had a varied marketing background of OTC and ethical products. However, once we analyzed his past achievement vs. the desired objectives of the new company, it was clear that we had found a match. His varied background actually proved to be an advantage, as he would have to influence managers at three different companies with varied cultures and products. His American education and strong understanding of the principles of marketing while having had quantifiable achievements made him the ideal candidate.
The president met 4 candidates and two of the candidates twice. The final candidate was selected from the two and flown to Paris. After some negotiating regarding starting date and salary the candidate was happy to change from Mega Pharma to a two person company with the challenging goal of implementing the international marketing strategy.
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