THE CHALLENGE
Miramar was retained by our client, a global petrochemical major to appoint a Senior Technology Manager within their newly formed Carbon Capture & Hydrogen Business Unit. Focused heavily on polyethylene and polypropylene production, the client has committed to being carbon neutral by 2030. This position was created to assist their CCS Hydrogen team from a technical and commercial perspective in the development and implementation of decarbonization roadmaps across their sites. The role was situated in the client’s R&D organization and would be reporting to the Director of Sustainability and Chemistry. The challenge was to find a candidate who was a technologist with tangible CCS & Hydrogen project experience, and who also possessed the commercial acumen and the “stakeholder management skills required to ensure the creation of CCS/Hydrogen roadmaps as well as their adoption and implementation.
THE SOLUTION
CCS & Hydrogen are relatively nascent technologies being adopted by industry in their decarbonization initiatives. This is especially true in the European markets, where this position was to be based. We therefore began by executing a comprehensive analysis of the market to determine what the target talent pool was, and where this was clustered. We determined this was large multinational manufacturers, similar to our client, where they were leading decarbonization initiatives. Whilst technical expertise was fundamental to the role, it was paramount to our client that the candidate had successful experience navigating complex, matrixed organizations. As such, we targeted candidates in the latter group.
THE RESULT
We were able to identify 84 relevant profiles, primarily based in continental Europe. We assessed candidates on our client’s criteria and were able to produce a shortlist of 6 diverse candidates. From this, the client deemed three as strong potential candidates and moved swiftly to offer their first choice. The first choice was an international candidate, and we assisted the client with the unique challenges that accompany recruiting internationally. The candidate accepted the offer and has since joined the organization, where she has been highly successful in achieving real progress in their decarbonization roadmaps. Additionally, the market research collected by Miramar over the course of the search has been used by the client as they determine when and how to expand their CCS & Hydrogen teams.
