BUILD February 2017

, Kensington International: Putting the Talent in Talent Management Kensington International ranks among the largest andmost successful Talent Management Firms in the U.S. and provides executive search, leadership development and outplacement services to its clients both in the US and around the globe. We caught up withManaging Partner Brian Clarke to learnmore about the company and its service offering. Founded in 1989, Kensington International expertly partners with its clients on each element of the Employment Life Cycle - from talent acquisition/ assessment through retention/ development and, as required, career transition. The firm serves organizations that range from $25 million to $130 billion in size, works across all key industry sectors and in many instances provides all three services to a single client. Process is the cornerstone of every engagement. At the start of every project, Kensington establishes an engagement- specific search strategy. This always includes face-to-face meetings with key stakeholders and hiring managers as well as Search Committees, the C-Suite, or Board – level dependent. Brian outlines the importance of this approach and given their size, a somewhat unique approach to ensure a successful outcome to for everyone involved. “Unlike many firms of our size, Kensington, because of our Leadership Development business, we can employ the use of assessment tools directly in our search process. Most often we rely on the Leadership Effectiveness Analysis™ (LEA) - developed by a long-time partner – MRG, to assess top candidates’ leadership skills around a variety of dimensions (developing and implementing strategy, influencing skills, team effectiveness, etc.). Within the first 20 days of each engagement our process also includes formally assessing key client stakeholders to gain an understanding of the competencies they feel are critical to success in the role. This “Role Expectations process”, establishes baseline expectations to measure the most critical leadership practices for the designated role.” While the client company will typically develop the initial position description, Kensington spends a great deal of time with key stakeholders to refine the position criteria both in terms of key accountabilities and leadership characteristics. They then prepare a formal Search Roadmap that contains a full position description/Opportunity Profile, a ‘go to market’ strategy, a project-specific timeline and specific company target list. Kensington considers direct research to be a hallmark in terms of the firm’s skill set. In order to offer truly global solutions Kensington International delivers its services worldwide through a partner organization - Agilium Worldwide. With offices in 30-plus countries, they have both reach and local market knowledge. Brian stated: “Outside of what we have experienced in the oil and gas markets, we see that construction activity in both the vertical and infrastructure markets firming up nicely. In the US - while coal had been clearly under pressure prior to the election, power, energy and utility markets should see additional opportunities. We also see power markets – particularly in the Asia–Pacific markets (Coal included) continuing to be active. We would also be remiss if we did not mention that with the election, we anticipate that the flow of money – both public and private – into capital expenditure programs should be increasing. Net-net and looking ahead, we see further industry recovery and perhaps opportunities specifically related to infrastructure, on the horizon.” These strong prospects bode well for Kensington, which is keen to build upon its current success and is looking forward to a prosperous future, as Brian concludes. “Overall, as a 28-year-old Talent Management firm we see a very strong future across all three lines of business – but in particular Search. The markets/ economy seem to be on solid footing and prospects are good – especially here in the U.S. Most exciting for us is the continued expansion of practice areas within Search and the continued expansion of our Leadership Development business. We are certainly looking forward to taking advantage of the opportunities impacting both businesses that should be present within the Built environment.” “Overall, as a 28-year- old Talent Management firm we see a very strong future across all three lines of business – but in particular Search.”