On the recommendation of Bob Truitt, CEO of Ash Access and good friend of Gary Lehman, CEO of Fairfield Manufacturing, Fairfield retained Kinsley Sarn to lead their search for a Chief Financial Officer. Truitt is a client of Kinsley Sarn and is a strong advocate of the firm’s capabilities. Gary wanted a strong finance leader who could “partner” with him in building strong relationships with their key external stakeholders and employees. Fairfield had recently completed a search with a large national brand-name firm for another executive position, Lehman wanted a search partner who had the willingness and capability to fully understand Fairfield’s needs and who could move quickly to find highly qualified candidates.
For Gary, finding the “perfect fit” for this role was critical. He was impressed by the Kinsley Sarn’s “holistic approach” and recognized the value their assessment skills added to the process. “Many firms just want to do the search,” Lehman explained. “Kinsley Sarn wasn’t just selling the search, but rather the ability to help with our people capability improvements. Lehman said they always treated us as “a much higher priority… due to their strong focus on the client and the size of their firm.”
Conducting a search for both passive (those not actively seeking a new position) and active candidates, Kinsley Sarn identified and presented four (4) candidates within six (6) weeks of launching the search – each of whom had undergone their extensive assessment process. Investing an average of 4.5 hours assessing each candidate, one stood out above the rest – Gary and his team concurred. According to Lehman, Fairfield had gone through some difficult financial times in their past. This required them to work even harder to successfully recruit strong candidates. Gary stated “this was a tough enough challenge for us, but we also have to sell candidates on the virtues of living in a smaller Midwest community. Despite these challenges Kinsley Sarn moved quickly to help us negotiate a package that worked for us and their assistance proved instrumental in helping us land the candidate we very much wanted.”
The search was completed in 60 days and Fairfield secured a very talented CFO who also is a strong cultural fit. The successful candidate complements the CEO and brings solid international experience as well as great relationship building skills. This candidate was immediately credible with Fairfield’s stakeholders and employees. “We were extremely happy with Kinsley Sarn’s work,” said Lehman, who strongly attested that he would use the company for another search in the future. “We could not have been more pleased.”
