Eurasia Group Taps DES Recruitment to Find CIO

November 9, 2016 – Executive search firm DES Recruitment has been selected by Eurasia Group to lead its chief information officer search. John Hodge, managing partner at DES Recruitment, is heading the assignment. “Our client is looking for an innovator and someone to help them create a digital transformation,” he said.

The right CIO, said Mr. Hodge, will add more value and become more strategic than historic perceptions of the role at Eurasia. The incoming leader will help to develop and execute an end-to-end innovation process in which innovations are more likely to be discovered, better assessed, and better converted into profits — what Eurasia has called the idea-to-cash process.

As a key member of the executive committee overseeing strategic business management, the CIO will create, drive and manage Eurasia Group’s digital platform as it relates to the company brand and the organization’s desire to be best-in-class in the way in which it engages customers and the market with insightful, innovative and automated products and services.

Desired Skills and Experience

Eurasia Group seeks an executive with a background as both a leader and hands-on practitioner delivering technology solutions to drive business initiatives. Candidates should have a background in senior program, product and project management with a proven track record of managing complex implementations of both packaged and custom solutions, on time and within budget, according to the job specification.

“We need a hands-on leader who wants to get his or her hands dirty and make a big impact,” said Mr. Hodge. “We are building out a world class team but we need to immediately focus on marketing automation, digital product development and a data and analytics platform.”

Political Risk Specialist

He said he is not looking for simply a product development person, “but a creative technology leader who can drive change and make a business case for increased investment in a holistic IT framework.”

Mr. Hodge noted that the interview team is focused on finding an executive with experience in IT operations, IT strategy development & execution, product development & management, “and an understanding of the business of political risk analysis.” The company needs a collaborative, credible, global minded leader with a high intellectual capacity who wants to be accountable for change, added Mr. Hodge.

Eurasia Group is the world’s largest political risk consultancy. Founded in 1998 by Ian Bremmer, it has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Stamford, London, Tokyo, São Paulo, and San Francisco, and has more than 150 full-time employees. The company employs a network of 500 experts in 90 countries in Asia, Latin America, Europe and Eurasia, and the Middle East and Africa.

CIOs In Demand

CIO hiring and recruiting information technology teams are both on the riseNearly a quarter (22 percent) of U.S. CIOs plan to expand their IT teams, according to a Robert Half Technology ‘IT Hiring Forecast Trend Report.’ It represents a three point rise from the beginning of last year and an eight percentage point jump from one year ago.

“Today’s CIO needs to innovate, build and secure. Having the ability to ‘see around the corner’ is the hard-to-find differentiation,” said Mr. Hodge. “We have seen a significant demand for CIOs because the need to deliver analytics in real time, driving new products out to the market and creating secure environments that limit enterprise risk has accelerated.”

Organizations are getting the green light on more technology projects, prompting them to make strategic hires, said John Reed, senior executive director of Robert Half Technology. “However, technology leaders continue to struggle to find highly skilled talent in a market with low unemployment. They seek IT professionals with specialized skills, especially in the areas of cloud computing, data analytics, mobile strategies and cybersecurity.”

CIO Recruitment Experts

For the past 15 years, DES Recruitment has identified and attracted senior level executives for clients nationwide. Mr. Hodge has over 20 years of experience in management consulting, business development and executive search for a broad range of clients within the technology, life sciences, manufacturing and financial services markets. The firm’s clients range from leading enterprise software firms to big four professional services companies, global agro-chemical organizations and venture capital-backed technology startups.

Just recently, the firm found a new CIO for Genex Services, a chief technology officer for Telerx, and a chief information security officer for Constellation Brands.

Contributed by Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor, Hunt Scanlon Media

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