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We were approached by PwC to support a Partner hire for their Capital Projects & Infrastructure practice in the Middle East, owing to our track record supporting clients in the delivery of major capital programmes in the region. The Partner candidate would specialise in expert witness work, specifically within engineering delay analysis, and would be well networked with a very senior cohort of infrastructure owners across the Middle East.

The target audience for a mandate like this are renowned and successful individuals and, in most cases, their personal brand is stronger than that of their employer for delivering this type of specialist solution. Accordingly, the success of this search project would require an intuitive understanding of the right levers to pull to gain traction and candidate participation in a formal Partner process, with the candidates confident of client loyalty and their earning potential regardless of the brand that employed them.

We therefore relied heavily on leveraging our network within the major programme world to understand who they rated most and obtain soundbites and perspectives on potential personal drivers that might motivate a move. Very quickly, it was evident that the already small pool of candidates should be narrowed to a group of just 5 stand-out candidates.

This focus allowed us to apply an incredibly high-touch approach strategy to ensure engagement and trust with the candidate audience. Ultimately, and despite an on-going earn-out arrangement following a recent acquisition of High Point Rendel (HPR), we secured the hire of Kenny Linn for PwC, who was convinced that PwC represented a better home and opportunity for him and his clients than new HPR owners KPMG.