Cornerstone International Group Opens Offices in Zurich and Brussels

December 18, 2018 – Executive search consultants are seeing an increase in hiring mandates from around the world. To meet demand, they continue to develop new practices, hire new recruiters and open new locations.

Global recruiting consortiums, meanwhile, are taking advantage of a resurgence in certain geographic areas.

Cornerstone International Group, a global executive search and leadership development firm, recently opened new offices in Brussels and Zurich.

Peter Buytaert returns from several years in China to manage Cornerstone Brussels. He has more than 25 years of international executive management, human resources leadership and executive search experience, of which 12 years were spent in China and 14 years in locations such as Hong Kong, Tokyo, Manila, Kuala Lumpur and Seoul.

Brussels Market

Belgium’s strongly globalized economy and its transport infrastructure are integrated with the rest of Europe. Serving as the center of administration for Belgium and Europe, the city’s economy is largely service-oriented. It is dominated by: regional and world headquarters of multinationals, European institutions, various local and federal administrations and related services companies (though it does have a number of notable craft industries).

Some 50,000 businesses are located in Brussels. About 2,200 of those are foreign owned. Brussels is rated as the seventh most important financial center in the world. The Brussels Stock Exchange is part of the European stock exchange Euronext.

Cornerstone’s Zurich office is led by Christian Ulricht, owner and manager of Ulrich Associates AG. Prior to his career in executive search, Dr. Ulricht worked as project manager for a consulting firm, then in a client advisory capacity for large companies, including one of the leading Swiss banks.

Zurich Market

Zurich has a stable, prosperous and high-tech economy and in multiple rankings is listed as the wealthiest country in the world per capita. It is home to several large multinational corporations. The largest Swiss companies by revenue are Glencore, Gunvor, Nestlé, Novartis, Hoffmann-La Roche, ABB, Mercuria Energy Group and Adecco. Switzerland’s most important economic sector is manufacturing, which consists largely of the production of specialist chemicals, health and pharmaceutical goods, scientific and precision measuring instruments and musical instruments.

“We are delighted to welcome Peter and Christian to Cornerstone,” said Simon Wan, chairman of Cornerstone. “We are proud to offer the highest quality of executive search and leadership development now in 16 of the 27 countries in the EU.”

Global Search Provider

Cornerstone International Group provides executive search and leadership development services to global roster of clients. Both before (with psychometric assessment) and after (onboarding) its search process, the organization said it ensures the highest possible chance of success in filling talent needs. Cornerstone has 66 experienced member firms in both developed and emerging markets worldwide.

Recently, Cornerstone added Recluta Talenthunter as a member firm in Costa Rica. The firm becomes Cornerstone Costa Rica and is the 56th member office and fifth in Latin America offering retained executive search and leadership development services. Recluta was founded six years ago by Miguel Lopez. The firm specializes in placing top professionals in all areas of business, ranging from IT, pharma, health, marketing, call center, BPO, IT, financial, industrial and customer service.

This spring, the U.K. government formally appointed board and executive recruitment firm Cornerstone London as a preferred search and leadership development partner in a trade initiative aimed at Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The program involves face-to-face meetings in the U.K. and planned trade missions supported by a high-quality database of 3,000 screened businesses in the U.K. and 2,000 in Africa.

“SSA is hardly the Wild West, but it is definitely an environment where everything gets done from scratch,” said Justin Mills, managing director of Cornerstone London. “This contributes to mesmerizing profit opportunities which have moved SSA from being the eighth most interesting place to invest to the second, in just three years.”

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor; and Andrew W. Mitchell, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media

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