News Archive
News Archive
Business in Africa is on Fire – Hire Leaders to Fuel Your Momentum
Africa will soon have the fastest urbanization rate in the world and by 2034 African countries will have a larger workforce than China or India, with job creation currently outpacing growth in the labour force*. With business spending expected to grow 35% to $3.5 trillion by 2025, the six big growth opportunity areas are expected […]
Ethiopia, Land of Opportunity or Challenges? Keith Veir shares his experience
Ethiopia is a nation rich in culture, tradition, history and a remarkable mountain landscape. Rising 2,300 meters above sea level, the nation’s capital Addis Ababa, has made advancements in infrastructure, airport, rail transportation and hydroelectric dam development. Statistically, the economic and population growth of Ethiopia appears to offer significant opportunity for foreign investments in many […]
With 70% of our hires being African Nationals, is the historic reliance on expats for leadership roles coming to an end?
The historic reliance on ex-pats for leadership roles in Africa is dwindling due to the rise of both indigenous and international companies committed to developing local talent. By nurturing career development in high potential African talent which in turn breeds corporate loyalty, the best African nationals are generally well looked after and are therefore not […]
What is the Best Way to Find Scarce Skills? Read our Case Study on how we searched globally for Thermal Power expertise for a role in East Africa
Introduction: Our client, a Multinational Power Generation Solutions Provider required an experienced Sales Manager with a strong technical focus to further develop the market across multiple industries in Eastern Africa within a highly technical sub-sector. The Situation The sales strategy in the region had previously been driven by the Managing Director based in the Middle […]
How to Succeed in an Interview – Fiona Rhys shares her thoughts on how to properly prepare and beat your competition
Most people would assume that senior business leaders, by the nature of them having achieved that level in their career, know how to best present their most relevant skills in an interview. This is not necessarily true and let me demonstrate this with a situation Executives in Africa experienced a couple of years ago. We […]
The African Proverb Which Should Change the World By James Adair, Executive Search Consultant
‘If the young are not initiated in the tribe, they will burn down the village just to feel the warmth.’ This African proverb is one of the most powerful and relevant of our time given the demographics of booming youth populations in the developing world, aging populations in the developed world and all the […]
What questions should you be asking in order to select the most appropriate firm to run your Search in Africa?
As the adverse economic conditions that have affected the major African economies begin to show the ‘green shoots of recovery’ and the other smaller emerging countries continue to thrive, the competition for top managerial talent remain as intense as ever across Africa. In addition, the trend for localisation continues to gather momentum and this is […]
How to Mitigate Against ‘Failure Rate’ for Key Senior Management Hires in Africa
At Executives in Africa we believe in delivering long term value to our clients. We are proud of the fact that 99.4% of candidates we have placed, have stayed for at least a year and the majority have gone on to be promoted and deliver quantifiable results. That is a ‘failure rate’ of under 1%. […]
The Challenge of Unconscious Bias
Let’s start with a riddle. A Father and Son are involved in a car accident. The Father dies at the scene, whilst his son is taken to hospital for surgery. The surgeon comes into the operating theatre, looks at the boy and says: “I can’t operate on this boy because he is my son.” So […]
Local Contingent Recruitment vs International Search – Gary & Barbara Taylor share what they have learned since relocating from Zimbabwe to the UK
Until early 2017, Barbara and I were operating a very successful recruitment company, Oxford Recruitment, on the ground in Zimbabwe. We ran it for 17 years and delivered an excellent service to our clients, mainly locally, as well as delivering some international / pan African exclusive mandates. With a business background and having worked in […]