Executive Talent Insider

A recent article from Angela Ahrendts, senior vice president of Apple Retail, discusses the attributes she looks for to determine if candidates will be a good fit and able to thrive over the long term.

According to a recent EY report, organizations are placing a greater importance on connectivity and collaboration in order to navigate the more complicated business environment. EY surveyed 821 executives across 14 countries, and nine out of ten respondents believed that building effective teams is now essential for business success. Interestingly, EY’s research also demonstrates that organizations that build diverse teams tend to have higher EBITDA growth rates.

One of the biggest trends impacting organizations is the aging and shrinking workforce. In fact, according to Mercer’s new report – Aging Workforce and the Future Workplace– there will be more people leaving OECD workforces than joining them from this year onwards.

Lucy Apthorp Leske is managing partner of the higher education practice at Witt/Kieffer. In this interview, she discusses the sector’s attitude to executive search, the need for leadership assessment services, and the pressures on higher education leaders today.

This fascinating article explains why Deloitte is moving away from assessing individuals’ skills and moving towards real-time feedback. It presents an interesting debate about how best to appraise high performing executives, and describes their new “performance snapshot” which, they say, allows them more time to spend actioning the findings of their performance management, rather than measuring them.

On 27th July, AESC hosted an event in Sydney for researchers and associates at AESC member firms. In this article, Patrick Rooney, Managing Director, Asia Pacific & Middle East, AESC, describes his highlights.

AESC is building on its existing relationship with Cornell University's Industrial and Labor Relations School (ILR) to provide a six-month MBA-level virtual certificate program designed exclusively for senior-level executive search and leadership consultants. We caught up with Donna Sharp, Director of Cornell University's ILR School, to discuss the program.

Diversity matters. Most people know this inherently but introducing real and lasting change can be difficult. Issues relating to diversity are multi-layered and complex and require changes to culture, values, and decision-making processes at both the individual and organizational level. While diversity is an important business consideration for companies and political issue for governments, for individuals from underrepresented groups, it is of more personal, fundamental and lasting significance.

The combination of social media and predictive analytics could transform the way we assess leadership potential. But at what cost? 

This article was originally published in May 2015.

In an exclusive interview with AESC, Richard Dobbs, director of the McKinsey Global Institute, explains how we will have to recalibrate our thinking about leadership skills and executive careers to adapt to the economic disruption of the future.

This article was originally published in May 2015.