$12M in nine months: a dual engineering and business development leader a prior agency could not find
A $50M automation and robotics integrator had gone more than 180 days without a Director of Engineering and Business Development. A previous agency spent six months on the search and delivered nothing, while an Engineering Project Manager covered a seat that required both departmental leadership and a commercial engine.
The challenge
The role asked for two skill sets that rarely live in the same person, which is precisely why the prior search failed. Six months of agency work produced no hire and left the department without a leader. A stand-in Engineering Project Manager was covering a director-level seat that required strategic oversight and commercial drive. The integration side of the business had no one whose job was to bring in new contracts, and the absence of senior attention had allowed a relationship with a major existing client to deteriorate significantly. The hire needed real business development capability paired with deep working knowledge of controls engineering and automation. Most candidates had one or the other.
Our approach
We ran a competitor-focused headhunting strategy rather than waiting on applicants. We mapped the local and sector-specific landscape to identify high performers inside similar integration firms, then executed a high-touch outreach campaign using direct calls, text, and personalized storytelling built around the scope and the upside of the role. Screening ran on both tracks at once: candidates had to demonstrate a genuine command of controls and automation and show a documented history of winning new integration work. When the initial front-runner accepted a counter-offer from his employer, we did not restart. We traded up, moving immediately to a stronger candidate already in the pipeline, working through his objections methodically and building enough trust to secure a long-term commitment rather than a quick yes.
The outcome
Filled in 90 days, half the time a prior agency spent producing nothing. The placement closed $12,000,000 in new deals within the first nine months in the seat, won several new client opportunities with no prior relationship to the business, rebuilt and stabilized the deteriorating major account, and restructured the engineering organization to improve output and scalability.