Emerging Markets M&A Director for FTSE 100 FMCG client

Hunter Jameson has enjoyed a long and mutually beneficial partnership with a FTSE 100 consumer products company. Our client embraces autonomy, freedom and encouraging entrepreneurialism and individuality where finance arguably plays a leadership role. It also seeks out grounded individuals who communicate with passion and authenticity and who enjoy working in a collaborative manner. This recruitment exercise was particularly challenging as we were briefed to present a short-list of culturally congruent professionals who had attained an accounting qualification (preferably ACA) with strong backgrounds in M&A ideally from within the consumer products sector. When we were also asked if we could secure interest from candidates who had a cultural / heritage link with Africa or interest in this region – we knew that we were looking for a very rare individual indeed!

We are particularly proud of this piece of recruitment as we started the process by speaking with our more readily accessible pool of talent we had augmented over many years (ACA trained M&A professionals currently operating within consumer / retail businesses) and successfully networked from this community to secure access to M&A professionals operating within Investment banking and Transaction Services arms of Top 4 Accounting firms. Our proactive networking and search methodologies enabled Hunter Jameson to gain access to the African arms of investment banks as well as organisations with in-house, M&A teams focused on Africa and indeed our short-list of 4 candidates partially comprised individuals with this background. We ultimately secured a Cambridge University educated ACA who had subsequently attained some exposure to leading deals in Africa and Middle East and married to a Kenyan with a passion for African culture. What’s more his style and approach managed to combine high levels of collaboration with a directness that ensured barriers to success were removed without damaging relationships with key stake-holders. We are pleased to say that this individual is flourishing and continues to add great value.