Heidrick & Struggles Expands Culture Shaping Staff
April 28, 2016 – Heidrick & Struggles‘ culture shaping firm Senn Delaney has added five new principals to expand its capability and meet increasing demand for its organizational culture transformation services. The newly appointed leaders will serve clients globally from home bases in Chicago, Huntington Beach, Boston, Los Angeles and Dallas.
Senn Delaney’s new culture consultants bring backgrounds in strategy consulting, human capital management, business transformation strategy, leader engagement, talent optimization, organizational development, HR transformation, and leadership & talent management, beckoning from Deloitte, Capgemini Consulting, Ernst & Young and Gagen MacDonald.
Here’s a closer look:
- Chad Carr brings decades of experience as a strategic advisor and senior level talent management professional. He has provided strategic consulting services to Fortune 500 clients, including major airlines, mining, high technology, professional services, hospitality and data analytics companies. Previously, Mr. Carr was managing director at boutique human capital firm St. Charles Consulting Group and chief learning design officer for audit and advisory services of Deloitte;
- Christina D’Onofrio has more than 16 years of consulting experience in business transformation strategy and implementation. She has extensive expertise in corporate culture-shaping, leader engagement, strategic change management, talent optimization, organizational design and HR transformation. Previously, Ms. D’Onofrio served as a principal and people and performance service line leader at Capgemini Consulting and was a consultant with Ernst & Young;
- Rose Gailey brings 25 years of experience in culture shaping, organizational transformation, leadership and talent development initiatives in a variety of industries. She has extensive expertise in helping leaders strengthen alignment and accelerate strategic execution. Ms. Gailey most recently served as a consultant at strategic execution firm Gagen MacDonald and early in her career was a vice president with Senn Delaney;
- Matt Herzberg has an extensive track record working with senior leadership teams to transform companies into healthy, thriving, high-performance organizations. Mr. Herzberg previously served as chief human resource officer (CHRO) at SunEdison and also led the HR team at Express Scripts;
- Barbara Porter has more than 20 years of experience developing and implementing customer experience strategies across entire organizations, along with organizational and cultural change around the customer service experience. Most recently, Ms. Porter was executive director of the global consulting practice at Ernst & Young and served as vice president of customer experience & business development for AGL Resources.
“Corporate culture is a major focus in the boardroom and a key concern for CEOs operating around the globe. Strategy that isn’t supported by culture is much more likely to fail,” said Jim Hart, president and chief executive officer of Senn Delaney. “Our newest consultants have the experience and insight to help clients develop thriving cultures aligned to the strategy.”
In Heidrick’s latest earnings announcement released earlier this week, the company said it had invested $2.2 million in new and existing leadership and client service talent for its culture shaping business, presumably to help bolster growth. Net revenue from culture shaping services increased 2.8 percent during the quarter, to $8.3 million, up from $8.1 million in the 2015 first quarter. Last year, culture shaping contributed $36 million, or roughly 6.5 percent, to Heidrick’s global business, rising 4.5 percent on the year.
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“Culture shaping is important to clients and will become even more so,” said Jon Harmon, Heidrick’s vice president of corporate communications. “We are confident that culture will be an increasingly larger part of our revenue and are determined to invest in its growth.” Mr. Harmon said the five new consultant hires will “ramp up on our platform, and contribute to the growth of this important business.”
Culture shaping is now seen as one of the most important drivers to achieve competitive advantage.
In recent poll by Hunt Scanlon Media on this emerging trend — ‘Aligning Strategy and Culture’ — respondents cited culture as the most important workplace consideration at their organization (73 percent). When asked how culture was driven as ‘a leadership priority’ at their organization, 42 percent responded ‘from the top down.’ Half of respondents said that culture at their company could be ‘significantly improved upon.’ Tellingly, when asked if culture could be ‘significantly improved upon,’ nearly half of respondents (48 percent) said yes.
Culture seems to be what attracts many employees to companies: 56 percent of respondents to the Hunt Scanlon culture poll selected it as a ‘priority’ over job satisfaction and compensation. Respondents said that culture change needed to become a ‘more significant part’ of their organization’s leadership agenda (44 percent). When asked which search firm was best identified with offering culture shaping services, Heidrick & Struggles came out on top, with 44 percent citing the recruitment company over Egon Zehnder and Spencer Stuart (each identified by 28 percent of survey respondents).
“Culture is no longer seen as an afterthought when considering the business focus of an organization,” said Noah Rabinowitz, senior partner and global head of Korn Ferry Hay Group’s leadership development practice. “Culture is the X-factor. It’s the invisible glue that holds an organization together and ultimately makes the difference between whether an organization is able to succeed in the market or not.”
Contributed by Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor, Hunt Scanlon Media
