A CEO mandated to lead Hilti to its next phase of development into a world-class, high-performing, integrated hub with production, R&D, testing and sourcing, as part of the global Supply Chain.

Hilti Manufacturing India, one of the strategic production facilities in the global operations network for Hilti, was looking to bring on board an experienced and dynamic professional who can execute the India strategy over the next decade, to take upon increasingly complex and high value products.

Details about position

Client: Hilti Manufacturing India

Mandate Position: Chief Executive Officer

Background

Hilti Corporation is a global leader in providing technology-leading products, systems and services to the worldwide construction industry. It employs nearly 25,000 people in more than 120 countries around the world.  Hilti India started its direct operations in 1997, offering wide ranging solutions – from products and tools, repairs & consultancy and software for design.

Challenge

• Setting up a new/larger facility to meet the ambitious goals, with an intention to shift the existing product portfolio to the new facility and also start producing new products.
• Carry the responsibility to deliver the best quality products in time to its clients across the globe
• Develop the leadership pipeline for meeting the domestic as well as global talent requirements
• Develop strategies, roadmaps, goals, and operating KPI’s to drive optimal manufacturing performance
• Align with & establish a sustainable network with the global production organization to ensure best-practices, methods, and technologies are integrated
• Demonstrate and drive financial productivity, looking at the key levers while managing the P&L

Our approach

• Role definition and strategy creation: Keeping the client’s objective in mind, along with the challenges of the unique nature of the role, a team led by Suresh Raina narrowed the search field to include senior professionals from the industrial, engineering, automotive and consulting sectors, preferably with an MNC background, for the sourcing strategy. We made sure that every potential candidate had prior experience of world class manufacturing operations, along with an ability to build large-scale and efficient systems and processes, using the best practices of quality and productivity systems.
• Leveraging our network: With the role requirements clearly defined, we tapped into our wide networks, while scouring the entire market for potential candidates. With the partner leading every step of the execution it was a difficult search and finally, shortlisted candidates, across companies/functions, were presented to the client, along with relevant and timely business insights on leadership and functional assessment, personality profiling, motivations and more.

It was a difficult search, and we were able to close it successfully-Because of a focused research effort, strong stakeholder management, ability to pivot quickly to adapt to the changes in the search strategy and last but not the least, perseverance. 

We placed Giridhar Jambunathan, an accomplished and highly experienced manufacturing leader, with significant exposure to global best practices at Bosch, and TVS Group, having worked in Europe, South America, China and India in various leadership roles.