Powering the Future

Our client is a government-owned Australian electricity retailer who have been operating within the Northern Territory since 2014. They play a central role in providing electricity, primarily to residential and small business customers, as well as to commercial and industrial users. In addition to supplying electricity, they also provide behind-the-meter solutions.

THE CHALLENGE

Our client’s former CEO decided to relocate from Darwin to Melbourne for personal reasons, and therefore had to resign their position at the end of their term. This left our client with a huge gap to fill in their most senior role, facing the enormous task of replacing their leader. While finding the candidate for the CEO role presented some challenges in its own right, the unique location added a layer of complexity in attracting interest from potential leaders. Additionally, given its status as a government-owned organisation, the role demanded a sophisticated approach to stakeholder management, reflecting the distinctive dynamics of public sector relationships. With a focused team of around 75 employees, the company offers a tight-knit, impactful environment which can be appealing to the right candidate, though naturally requires a specific leadership mindset. Finally, the industry itself is highly regulated, meaning that candidates would be required to have worked in a similarly regulated environment (such as banks, water companies, electricity providers etc.), ruling out those who may have the necessary skills to take over the role, but perhaps with insufficient experience in a similar field.

OUR APPROACH

One of the challenges that comes with recruitment for government-owned companies, is that we were mandated to follow the instruction of the client as part of the Northern Territory governmental process. This meant that the role had to be advertised on relevant NT government websites, as well as the primary independent platform in Australia, Seek. We also ran an extensive headhunt campaign alongside the job adverts, targeting C-Suite candidates in other smaller retailers, EGM or GM-level candidates in larger electricity retailers, and relevant candidates in adjacent regulated sectors, such as water and banking. In doing so, we had to ensure that candidates based in the NT were assessed and approached and subsequently provide reasoning as to why no local candidates were eventually suitable (which was part of the recruitment recommendation submission to the NT Government). The ultimately successful candidate had prior experience working as a MD/CEO in an electricity retailer in Western Australia, and relocated with their family to Darwin.

WHY 6 GROUP MADE THE DIFFERENCE

Despite the successful candidate coming from outside the company and the Northern Territory, we were specifically asked to assess an internal candidate who was put forward, providing an unbiased opinion of their suitability to the role. The internal candidate was shortlisted, but ultimately fell short and was unsuccessful.

As an external 3^rd party executive search firm, we were able to better inform of the candidate’s status and our final decision. We knew all about the candidate’s competition, and we were able to discuss it with them. They stayed with the company despite missing out on the role, and have remained an integral part of the leadership group within the organisation. As part of our search process, we made recommendations to both the successful, external candidate in support of their incoming role as the new CEO, and the unsuccessful, internal candidate on how to proceed following the unfortunate decision not to be selected for the role. For the unsuccessful candidate, we were able to dissipate any immediate disappointment and turn the negative decision into a positive career step, keeping the door open to putting them forward for future roles that may come into fruition while maintaining a positive relationship with the company.