This year, the head hunting firm celebrates three decades in Chile

Thirty years ago, when Max Vicuña decided to enter the world of executive and director searches for Latin American companies, this was almost unexplored territory. It was a time when companies turned to family and friends for recommendations for senior management positions, considerably limiting the sample of candidates.

“This service caused curiosity, and not so positive. Many years ago, corporate paternalism was very high. The business community believed itself to be responsible, not the owner, and expected loyalty from the executives. They saw us [the headhunters ] as someone who could come to alter the balance of the company and they did not know how to react to a consultancy proposal. On the executive side, there was embarrassment about finding out that they were going through a selection process and they felt that they were falling into an act of disloyalty. There was a lot of hesitation and a lack of decision to move forward. The market was very sluggish ,” recalls Max Vicuña, founder of Amrop Chile , the first executive headhunting firm in the Andean country.

Little by little, the executives' initial shyness began to fade and they began to evaluate which of the alternatives on the market was the best. "This caused businessmen to start taking care of their executives because they began to understand the dynamics. Today, they don't even get upset about the person who left, but rather they say 'what's wrong with me that I'm not retaining my good executives?'" Vicuña explains.  

Likewise, some key factors in the profile of candidates have changed over time. Thus, if years ago an executive had been in a company for 20 or 25 years and if it was a good one, he automatically had points in his favor for hiring. “Today I would say that they are points against him because this can indicate that the only reality that this executive knows is that company. I want a person who has had various experiences in different companies and situations and is assigned a significant value. We are talking about reasonable periods of involvement in a company and obtaining results, sufficient, around five years, because if the person is in each part for two years, things clearly are not going well there,” says the executive.

TECHNOLOGICAL PROFILE?

Technology is permeating different industries and professionals are needed to lead these digital transformation processes.

According to Vicuña, the evolution of markets is faster than that of the executives themselves. In this sense, he explains, if there are a hundred companies that require a leader in the world of digital transformation, there are not a hundred expert executives for that reason. “This will generate some gaps where these executives will be worth a lot until the market becomes more balanced, but as it is not static, there will always be areas where there will be a greater supply or demand for executives,” he affirms.

And this can be seen in various sectors such as retail , where the search for executives is now focused on profiles with a high technological component, given the advance of e-commerce in this sector, leaving aside the shopping experience in physical stores. The same happens in banking and in most industries where technology prevails.

In terms of soft skills, leadership is the most important. “If before they wanted a brilliant executive, today they want a complete executive. Companies must ask themselves if they have a great leader who will form a team and if that team will make up for any weakness that the leader himself may have. An executive with egocentric tendencies does not go far. Today the perfect combination is experience, knowledge, ability and leadership. These are the four legs that make the table much more balanced. Before, with only one or two legs the table would fall over. In addition, before the owner of the company had much more influence in the management of the company and today it is the president of the board and it works at that level,” says the executive of Amrop Chile.

DIRECTORIES IN TRANSFORMATION

However, where the profile needs to be updated with a technological component is at the board level, an area in which Amrop is also developing.

According to Max Vicuña, there is an age issue, since company directors are generally older and belong to a generation that is not digital or technologically native. “There is still a long way to go before the board of directors think technologically and digitally, before they think about how to grow their business through all the changes that are on the table. Boards of directors are aware [of the digital transformation], they know that something important is happening and that it can positively or negatively affect their business, but they don’t know how it will happen.”

This phenomenon can also be replicated at the level of general management of companies, taking into account that many executives who occupy these positions may be over 55 years old. In this regard, Vicuña points out that many rely on consulting.

“If they have to carry out a digital transformation of the business, they hire - if it is a large company - McKinsey, Boston Consulting, to offer alternatives on how to rethink the business model. And these consulting firms must have internal interlocutors with whom to talk. If the board of directors is not only not native, but also does not understand and, therefore, does not know the benefits and the threat, there is a problem,” he says.

Another pending issue is the inclusion of more women on boards of directors. According to Amrop data, in Chile the percentage of female directors in listed companies fluctuated between 6% and 7% years ago, although it was a group of women linked to the ownership of the company. Today the percentage has risen to 24% and with a lot of effort.

“This is a difficult issue. We do a lot of searches for directors for pension funds and they ask us for diversity because they want to incorporate more women, and we have had to say - all things being equal - there is 100 to 1. This is because that woman who is 60 years old today, 35 years ago, was getting married, studying too, but combining that professional world with the domestic one. She even worked with some guilt. It is not that women are different, but that they have taken on a different profile due to a generational issue, where today the market demands them, but they are few. There is no one to blame for this, it is a cultural issue in our countries. Today we see a change and gradually, within 5 or 10 years, we will see that companies are run, I don't know if equally, but in a significant proportion by women who will stand out and who, therefore, will be excellent candidates for a board of directors,” concludes Max Vicuña.