When an international financial services organisation was
seeking to grow and strengthen its Risk function across its Europe offices, its
leadership team knew that they needed a team of experts.

As Risk is such a dynamic industry, they recognised that a key requirement
would be to have a leadership team comprised of Risk Management experts who
could bring new and innovative ideas and perspectives to their department – and
that would mean expanding their workforce to include a more diverse range of
backgrounds and experiences.

The Challenge

Traditional hiring and recruitment
methods were not producing the desired outcome. After finding it challenging to
identify and retain the candidates they needed, the company engaged Hanover to develop
a solution for their talent acquisition goals. As experts in both the Risk
sector and in developing effective diversity and inclusion strategies, our team
knew this would be a remarkable partnership that would not only benefit our
client’s business, but also provide an incredible opportunity to those in our
network of leadership talent.

The Solution

When Hanover was engaged for this
assignment, we quickly assessed that the strongest approach would be to develop
a ‘search in reverse’, with the objective of cultivating a robust and powerful
pipeline of Risk Management professionals. Key to success was the client
acknowledging that they were able to attract top talent by focusing on creating
opportunities for potential high-quality candidates that they may not have
considered. Understanding that for the Risk function to be its most progressive
it would be necessary to be flexible with organisational structure and roles,
we proposed conducting a broad-reaching market mapping exercise to identify and
engage the top Risk Management leaders in our client’s primary locations of
operation. Once we had identified these individuals, we shared their details with
our client, who in turn could assess whether or not they had an open role that
would be a suitable match – or if they could create a new position that would
both better fit the candidate and also push their organisation in a forward
direction. 

The Outcome

Using this approach, our in-house
research division was able to conduct an extensive mapping project that
encompassed Risk Management experts across the entire sector and country.
Critical to the success of this mandate was establishing a candidate pool
aligned to our client’s aim for a truly diverse and inclusive leadership team,
ensuring individuals from underrepresented backgrounds were engaged and given
equitable consideration. Our team of industry-expert Partners conducted
in-depth informational interviews, thoroughly screened candidates to fully understand
their experience, potential, and ambitions, and assessed for fit with our
client organisation’s mission and culture. Over the course of this assignment,
we engaged with over 125 leaders in the field, and within a single quarter
supported the successful hiring of five Risk Management leaders into critical
roles.