Director EHS Water Infrastructure

The company set out to elevate its Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) function, aiming to appoint a highly skilled expert with experience in a manufacturing setting as Head of EHS to lead a team of 8 specialists located across Europe. They needed a senior-level leader with expertise in spearheading the transformation of an organization’s EHS culture, someone with a vision and personality to instigate and implement the safety culture across all company verticals.

The position was situated at the company’s European headquarters, a location that presented limitations in the availability of a suitable talent pool for the caliber of candidates we sought.

In line with our unwavering commitment to placing candidates from underrepresented groups and to fulfill our client’s pledge to foster diversity, we placed special emphasis on identifying strong and diverse profiles to complement an inclusive and dynamic senior leadership team already in place.

Pacific conducted a thorough research-led search, meticulously mapping the market to identify key talent within target organizations. Due to the seniority of the role, we recommended widening the search radius to include neighboring countries to identify high-impact individuals willing to relocate for this outstanding opportunity at a highly-regarded purpose-driven company.

As a result, the team generated a strong and diverse shortlist of highly qualified candidates who not only met the technical requirements but also aligned seamlessly with the company’s culture. Structured video interviews with pre-agreed highly technical questions probing into the candidates’ experience, achievements, and personality along with assessments played a vital role in the process mitigating bias and giving the hiring team a real insight into everyone.

Following the presentation of these exceptional candidates, the team scheduled a series of client interviews which ultimately identified two very strong candidates who exceeded the client’s expectations.

Companies frequently recognize that contingent upon the caliber of a candidate, they may make accommodations to secure the transformative talent for the organization. This was precisely the case in this instance. The search resulted in the appointment of a highly qualified and diverse Director of EHS with global responsibility for one business unit and European responsibility for the other two reporting directly to the SVP and President of Europe. A complex search closed in under 4 months.

With their expertise, the client was able to significantly reduce their Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) leading to improved safety records. The successful outcome of this project cemented Pacific’s Trusted Partner status and has led them to further search mandates since.