Sourcing A Head of Legal for A Boutique International Bank

Opportunity

This boutique international investment bank was seeking to appoint an experienced new Head of Legal for their small London based legal function. They needed someone with a strong equities background with the right cultural approach to enable them to hit the ground running and establish effective working relationships across the senior leadership team. While the bank was long established overseas, it’s London function was relatively new which presented a recruitment challenge of finding a seasoned head of legal who was willing to take the risk of joining a less well-established banking entity.

Approach

Barclay Simpson was appointed as the sole recruiter for this role which enabled us to invest an increased amount of time getting to know the business, its culture, the people within it and the business’ long-term plans and goals. It was important, in this instance, to gain a more nuanced understanding of the business to support the search process and the pitching of the opportunity to potential candidates. A hybrid sourcing strategy was employed, involving a search of our database, established networks and advertising the position on the appropriate platforms. A lot of documentation was developed to support the Head of Legal role and person specification to ensure that the position was effectively marketed.

Outcome

The search produced a promising number of potential candidates, and we then took the time to provide detailed verbal and written briefings to each candidate so that we presented a clear and compelling proposition to make sure that all the facets of the opportunity were fully understood. A shortlist of 5 candidates was presented and accepted by the client and we then supported the recruitment process through a number of phases to ensure that both the client and candidates were comfortable that both sides had a clear understanding of each other. A preferred candidate from a much larger bank was selected and accept an offer. The successful candidate was attracted to the Head of Legal role by the people and the opportunity to be closely involved in the development of the bank’s UK and European operations.