Heidrick & Struggles Taps Business Talent Group’s Pool of Independent Professionals

January 16, 2019 – Executive search, leadership consulting and culture shaping services provider Heidrick & Struggles has entered into an exclusive agreement with Business Talent Group (BTG) to offer its clients access to the high-end online job platform’s pool of independent business professionals, on demand, for critical, project-based assignments.

“Once reserved for temporary backfill work or emergency support, independent professionals and consultants are now an essential strategic resource for many of today’s leading companies and executives,” said Chicago-based Heidrick & Struggles.

The BTG marketplace connects Fortune 1000 companies – including more than 40 percent of the Fortune 100 – with vetted, top-tier executives, subject matter experts and independent management consultants on high-priority business initiatives.

“Executives are increasingly looking for flexible, agile workforce solutions to help them manage complex interim projects, such as conducting a market assessment or overhauling a core supply chain process,” said Krishnan Rajagopalan, president and CEO of Heidrick & Struggles. “BTG is a leader and an innovator when it comes to sourcing highly experienced independent professionals and, much like Heidrick, BTG is focused on delivering those talent solutions to senior executives and the C-suite.”

Independent Talent

“With this collaboration, we are creating yet another way to help the companies we work with, as well as the permanent candidates we place, be more successful by providing high-end talent solutions that can help them fulfill their most pressing business needs,” said Mr. Rajagopalan.

BTG’s pool of independent talent consists of top business professionals and consultants who are experts in their fields and have deep experience and knowledge in distinct industry and functional practice areas. The Pacific Palisades, CA-based company’s model blends proprietary technology and talent data – including its private and secure First Look project-bidding platform – with a dedicated in-house client service team.

“BTG has pioneered new models and platforms that seamlessly connect highly specialized independent talent with top global companies,” said Jody Miller, BTG co-founder and CEO. “Our high-end talent-sourcing marketplace perfectly complements Heidrick & Struggles’ world-class executive search and consulting capabilities.”

“Together, we will empower Heidrick clients to identify, access and integrate the right talent at the right time to help them execute critical, project-based work,” she said. “In today’s ever-changing business environment, our new collaboration further validates the evolving models of talent deployment that are becoming more and more prevalent and demonstrates Heidrick’s and BTG’s leadership in enabling innovative companies to capitalize on them.”

Cutting-Edge Skills

An increasing number of Fortune 1000 companies are tapping independent talent to help close critical gaps across their existing internal resources, according to BTG’s “2019 High-End Independent Talent Report.” Leading companies are turning to independent professionals for cutting-edge skills to supplement their internal resources, pursue new business opportunities and execute a range of specialized mission-critical projects, said BTG. The greatest need for top-tier independent talent was in market analysis, growth strategy and project leadership and management.

This is consistent with new research from the Association of Talent Development showing that 83 percent of organizations report skills gaps that threaten their organization’s ability to prepare for the future. The gaps are particularly acute in high-demand fields such as biotech, IT and marketing, where independent professionals have emerged as a solution to this problem.

In another effort, Heidrick & Struggles last year launched a unique cross-industry corporate innovation network known as the Game-Changer Collaborative (GCC). The collaborative enables members to collaborate around emerging technologies, external innovation opportunities, and approaches to accelerating innovation in their organizations, said the search firm. The GCC includes several live and virtual working sessions as well as research and knowledge-sharing platforms.

Ecosystem partners that interact with the GCC include: the University of Pennsylvania, including Penn Medicine, Penn Engineering, Pennovation and Wharton/Mack Institute; Exploit Technologies, an industry-government technological incubator in Singapore; Foundry.ai, a technology studio focused on data science; Swift Labs, a product design team specializing in the Internet of Things; Tsinghua Holdings, the venture capital investment arm of the Tsinghua University in China; and ICONYC Labs, a platform for Israeli ventures expanding to the U.S.

Plans to Expand

Members in the proprietary network already include a leading global retailer, two global pharmaceutical companies, a global financial services company and a leading university and its medical system—with plans to expand the GCC in both industries and geographies represented, said Heidrick & Struggles.

“The GCC provides a much needed forum for enterprise leaders to look outside of their traditional industries to identify new innovation opportunities and accelerate their learning through networking around emerging technologies, use cases and innovation models,” said Andrew LeSueur, managing partner for Heidrick Consulting.

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