Mining our contacts to find a one-of-a-kind

Our client is one of the world’s fastest growing copper mining companies, with over 20,000 employees across four continents. With offices from the UK to South Africa, and projects from Latin America to Australia, it is an incredibly diverse business, both in terms of locations and in the type of people it employs.

The Challenge

To find its workforce can be challenging, explains one of the company’s HR Partners. “Whenever we hire someone, mining experience is important. Our projects are complex, with a huge variety of variables, so everyone we bring in has to have a certain level of expertise to help deliver our work.”

However, not only is relevant industry experience important, but a cultural fit is crucial. The client has a unique way of going about its business and is known for its ability to get things done. “Our teams are incredibly diverse. We’ll have a mix of local employees and expatriates, so we need people that can get along whether they’re from down the road or the other side of the world. Languages are also critical. When you’re working in high risk environments, you need people to understand you, particularly when you’re in a decision-making role.”

Because of this mix of cultural fit and industry expertise, the company handles the majority of its recruitment in-house. “We bring in external recruitment firms when we have a very specific role or unique skills requirement, usually at a senior level.”

The Brief

One such role was for the position of Group Treasurer, reporting to the Chief Financial Officer. “We had a very specific profile for our Group Treasurer. They needed to be someone who was used to working in a multinational organisation in a regulated environment, dealing with colleagues with a variety of backgrounds across the world, and had experience in dealing with the risks and challenges on a senior level within such an organisation. We knew from the beginning that the pool of talent was going to be very small for what we were looking for.”

Furthermore, the role had been vacant for about two years. “We had tried a variety of solutions, both internal and external. Our best fit was an interim consultant, but they were retiring. Our CFO was very clear – we needed to find a permanent solution.”

As it turned out, the interim consultant was able to provide some support in the hunt for a replacement, recommending Alex Hyde, a director in BIE’s finance team, as the ideal person to lead the search.

The Service

“Alex was exactly the right person to help us find our candidate. He really interrogated the brief and made sure he understood not just what we were looking for, but who we were as a business and the sort of person the CFO was looking for."

The result was a search that resulted in a successful candidate being appointed and who has already made an impact. “Our new Group Treasurer has only been in place for a few months, but they already feel like they had been with us for much longer. They’ve developed strong relationships with people across the business, including the CFO, and despite coming from a completely different industry, have really embraced working for both our company and in the mining industry.”

The Results

The success of the appointment goes far beyond how much one individual can do, however. “We’re now in a position to start building up a proper team to support the Group Treasurer, and we’re excited to see how much more of an impact this can have, both in finance and across the business as a whole.”

Perhaps the most notable marker of success is the fact that “we will definitely be calling on Alex and BIE the next time we have a specialist senior vacancy that requires a targeted approach.”