Board Director Search

A multi-billion dollar privately held company and leader in the global direct-selling industry came to N2Growth recently to find a new independent Board Director. Our client sells its health and beauty products in more than 80 countries globally, and over 80 percent of the company’s sales come from outside North America, primarily within the Asian Pacific region. Their products are sold almost exclusively through a vast network of small business owners who distribute and market these products inside of their own local communities. The overwhelming majority of these business owners (over 75 percent) are women, and our client was seeking to develop a more diverse board that was a better representation of its constituents.

New competitors were entering the market daily, and consumer behavior was rapidly evolving as customers increasingly shopped and bought competitive products online. Fierce competition contributed to a considerable amount of price and market share erosion, and our client was experiencing declining revenues for a significant period. At the time of our hiring, our client maintained a predominantly white/male Board of Directors and, to their credit, realized they needed much more diversity in thinking and representation. Also, our client needed to hire a Director with the experience and technical competency required to guide their organization in establishing itself as an e-commerce leader. Specifically, to attract small business owners to their brand and to shape the strategy behind achieving growth in one of the most challenging markets in the world. 

Our client requested their next Director meet precise diversity requirements, who also boasted prior experience growing a large brand in Asia. As is the case with most of the clients we work with, they weren’t looking to check a diversity box with their next hire. Instead, they wanted us to find, recruit and place a talented and capable executive leader that was both technically qualified in e-commerce but also capable of representing the majority of their small business owners with the knowledge of operating and growing a business in Asia.

Because of the specific attributes, our client was looking for in a candidate, they were naturally drawn to N2Growth’s rigorous and methodical approach in first engineering the perfect-fit candidate.  We then went to market with the speed and urgency that our brand is famous for, and with 3-4 times the number of resources that our competitors in the industry typically use to recruit and assess candidates. Our team sourced, screened, and evaluated over 200 female candidates for the role and presented a total of 15 highly qualified and thoroughly vetted candidates to our client.

Our client remarked, “I can’t believe the level of talent you have access to. We love these candidates. Thank you for making this an incredibly difficult decision for us.” 

All candidates were sourced, screened, and presented inside of just 30 days from kickoff. N2Growth was subsequently retained for additional executive search assignments with this client as a consequence of stellar performance.