Case Study
Securing Transformational Leadership for a Billion-Dollar Utility Company
The Client
A multi-billion-dollar Investor-Owned Utility (IOU) serving millions of homes and businesses across eight states.
The Challenge
Our client’s Senior Vice President of Gas Operations was seeking to transform her organization to improve business performance and results in the company’s Gas business. To that end, she approached Refine Search with the goal of revamping her company’s leadership and improving overall collaboration between Engineering and Operations teams. This client sought transformational business unit leaders who could break down barriers and silos within the organization, lead change initiatives, and drive the company’s functions to improve goal attainment.
The right individuals needed to be strong leaders for their team, ones who could usher in a more efficient gas engineering and operations function through improved clarity, focus, and collaboration on the projects at hand. While locating such specialized, high-level talent always presents a difficulty, finding those individuals within that niche willing to relocate to Colorado was identified as a potential challenge.
The Solution
Refine Search relied upon and utilized extensive market knowledge and decades of experience to identify strong leaders who were skilled at change management. After diligent research and sourcing, a strategic interview process narrowed down which candidates had experience driving the type of transformation our client required.
At this juncture, the opportunity was presented to these individuals as a chance to lead true transformational change for one of the country’s most prominent utility companies. After understanding the attractive and unique qualities of the positions, each candidate became excited to relocate to Colorado to further their career as they realized the full scope of what would be such a fulfilling job prospect.
The Outcome
At its conclusion, this critical project was a significant success by placing candidates who had the depth and expertise to be key parts of the client’s succession plans and goals. A VP of Operations, Director of Engineering, and a Manager of Project Development were ideal hires for positions in the Gas group. After these hires were made, all three individuals were later promoted to SVP, VP, and Director roles, indicating that the candidates Refine Search presented not only perfectly matched what the client was seeking, but were also key components to the company’s succession plan.
Extensive change in leadership is never easy, but providing the right talent helped our client to better align itself to transformative organizational goals. Since this project’s conclusion, Refine Search was asked to backfill the promoted positions previously filled and remains a key recruiting partner for transformational leadership roles in this client.
Are you seeking transformational leaders for your business? Email Mike Whillock to hear how Refine Search can help.