EMBARKING ON THE NEW ASIAN CENTURY As the 19th century was led by Europe and the 20th century was led by North America, in the 21st century the question is no longer how quickly Asia will rise but how it will lead. Oliver Tonby is Asia Chairman at McKinsey & Company, and co-author of Future of Asia, which is built around a series of reports by the McKinsey Global Institute.“ The center of gravity is shifting towards Asia in many ways,” Tonby says. “Asia is increasingly central in the growth of global consumption that is happening in the world. It is increasingly central in the trade flows that are happening. It’s increasingly central in the innovation and technology development that is happening.” To illustrate his point, Tonby references some of the conclusions from McKinsey’s analysis: By 2040 more than 50% of the world’s GDP is going to be in Asia. Between now and 2040 more than 50% of the incremental growth in consumption is going to be in Asia. More than 40% of venture capital investments are in Asia. Asian entities own more than 65% of the world's patents. More than 36% of unicorns today are Asian. Some of the [...]

The value of inclusion is irrefutable, from innovation and business outcomes to thriving communities. And still, genuine inclusion has yet to be achieved at a broad scale. In the recently released book INdivisible, authors Alison Maitland and Rebekah Steele introduce a new, whole-system approach to bringing measurable inclusion into the strategy and operations of organizations. With concrete action for people at all levels—senior leadership, middle managers, teams and individual employees, Maitland and Steele present a foundation for building more inclusive, higher-performing organizations. Q. Diversity and inclusion have been prioritized for years, yet we don’t seem to be making much progress. Why? ALISON MAITLAND I think we can say that there has been some advancement in some areas, but also worryingly little in others, and many organizations are really frustrated about the lack of progress. We see several reasons why this has happened. The first one is that diversity and inclusion are very often disconnected from business goals, priorities and the outcomes that the organization is trying to achieve. So that means that they don’t receive the kind of focus, resources and accountability that other business drivers do, like marketing or finance or strategic workforce planning or safety. Inclusion is absolutely [...]

Andy Shapiro, CEO of executive search software provider The Cluen Corporation, sat down with AESC’s Chief Marketing Officer, Joe Chappell, to share insights on how Cluen’s clients are managing technology, relationship management and business development during the COVID era. JOE CHAPPELL: Andy, thank you for speaking with us. Cluen is a long-standing partner of AESC, spanning two decades. In your words, how do you feel the missions of both AESC and Cluen align? ANDY SHAPIRO: One of the things that we love about our partnership with AESC is, like AESC, we’re so focused on advancing the needs of the retained executive search industry. Cluen is hyper-focused on having the best tools and technologies for retained executive search. And it is really rare to find a similar organization dedicated just to executive search. There are plenty of organizations in the world that focus on recruiting, but that’s very different from what executive search is all about. So we’ve been able to prove our dedication to executive search over this time span, not only in our continued partnership with AESC but also in our actions for our clients and for the industry. We’ve really been able to prove our focus here, just [...]

Organizations driving change,managing through crisis, or holding course during a vacancy will often turn to the agility and expertise of an interim executive. It’s a career for the bold professional with deep skill and experience. BlueSteps is the executive career management service of the AESC. Glenda Brown, Managing Director of BlueSteps and Kathy Simmons, Executive Director of BlueSteps Career Services provide clarity, counsel and resources for BlueSteps members considering an interim executive career DEFINING THE INTERIM EXECUTIVE Just what is an interim executive? It’s a C-level professional who takes on a high-level mission in an organization and upon completion, moves to the next mission. “Think of the career as a serial executive,” Simmons says. Interim executives can have specialized strengths—turnarounds, mergers, launches, crisis management, diagnostics. They can take over leadership of a vacant role—a business unit, function or team—with little to no learning curve, while an organization completes a search for a permanent hire. “When there is upheaval in an organization it is imperative that the organization have superior talent to lead through its challenges,” Brown explains. “Often the solution for those types of situations is an interim executive who has the agility and ability to come in, boots on [...]

Corporations, non-profit organizations, public and private entities worldwide are beginning to explore the idea of the interim executive, and they are turning to AESC members for counsel and candidates. “The view of the interim role was once just about filling in a line role until the permanent person was hired, or helping clients cover a business-critical gap in their infrastructure. Now, it is very much about enabling transformation.” Tom Forrest, Managing Director, SH Consulting, Sheffield Haworth What’s Trending? Executive search and leadership consulting firms register growing interest in interim executive leadership from their clients and from candidates. Susan O’Hare, based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is National Practice Leader at Gallagher Executive Search and Leadership Advisors, a US-based firm where she focuses on the healthcare sector. “We have already placed more interims in 2020 through the 1st of May than we did in all of 2019. So anecdotally, absolutely we see growth in the interim role. I participated in an AESC Boutique and Independent Firm Forum about a month ago, and there was interest among more firms in offering interim services because they have clients who are asking about it.” Research by executive search firm Ccentric Group confirms growing candidate interest. Sydney-based [...]

More and more frequently, our clients are asking us to go beyond the public domain when conducting background checks on executive and board candidates. While the intelligent search and analysis of public information is the foundation of background checking, some past controversies can only be found through interviews, especially interviews of former colleagues, who often have unique knowledge of a candidate’s personality, performance and character. We find these interviews helpful in identifying red flags — a valuable supplement to traditional searches such as criminal records, regulatory filings and social media. It can be useful to think of background checking as having two parts: searching the public record and interviewing. Each part is important, as even the most basic online checks can raise questions about a candidate. Here are a few recent examples from part one, public records and social media checks: Identity verification: The seemingly basic but critical step of confirming someone’s identity is not as easy as it may appear, and it should not be taken for granted. In one case, through comparative analysis of public filings, we found that a financial officer had conveniently borrowed an old friend’s date of birth on his job application; under his true [...]