The client
A new alliance with a national mandate and no leader yet.
NECCUS, pronounced nexus, is an alliance of industry, government and academic experts formed to drive down carbon emissions from industrial sources in Scotland and beyond. It brings together the organisations responsible for the majority of Scotland's industrial emissions alongside the people who can help abate them, championing carbon capture, hydrogen and the wider technologies Scotland needs to hit net zero.
At its inception the alliance needed one thing above all else: a figurehead Chief Executive Officer. Someone who could stand in front of ministers, plant directors and professors in the same week and be credible with all three. I was engaged to design and deliver the search.
The challenge
You cannot recruit against a role that does not exist yet.
Because the organisation was brand new, there was no role description to work from, no articulated vision and no defined values. This was as much an HR build as a search: every people foundation had to be created before a single approach could be made. There was an added complication in that shaping the long term vision was deliberately part of the incoming CEO's job. The materials I created had to set enough direction to attract serious candidates without closing down the space the new leader would need to make the role their own.
The hiring panel needed building too. A board drawn from multiple member organisations had never selected together, had no shared assessment framework, and would be forming views from recorded video before meeting anyone in person. Without structure, that is exactly the environment where unconscious bias decides a hire.
The candidate pool was equally undefined. A credible figurehead could plausibly come from the public sector, the private sector, direct industry or an industry adjacent field. Nobody had mapped which, so the go to market had to cover all four.
What I delivered
Three strands running together: HR design, hiring team coaching and executive search.
Role design, vision and values from a blank sheet
I led and supported the board in creating the role description and values, and framed a working vision honest enough to acknowledge that the appointed CEO would shape its final form. Proper role design before any search activity, not a job advert reverse engineered from a wish list.
Balanced scorecards, scored 1 to 4
I designed the interview questions and a balanced scorecard rating every candidate 1 to 4 against the same criteria. A four point scale with no middle ground: every assessor had to commit to a view and evidence it, on every criterion, for every candidate.
Hiring team coaching
I coached the panel before the formal stages: how to run a structured interview, how to use the scorecard, where unconscious bias creeps in and how to challenge it in themselves and each other. The questions were shared in advance so every candidate faced the same test.
Four pool go to market
A mapped search across public sector, private sector, direct industry and industry adjacent candidates, so the board chose from the whole market rather than the obvious corner of it.
Every approach met personally
Circa ten direct approaches, every one met by me. Six in person, four by video. No CV was presented on paper alone.
Recorded one-to-one videos, then two stages to offer
A recorded one-to-one video interview with each candidate, shared with the executive board. Four candidates presented, a two stage panel process, and an accepted offer. Design to offer in six weeks.
A fair process by design
The video round worked. It also created a risk I had to manage head on.
The recorded one-to-one interviews were well received by the board, and for good reason: they gave every panel member the same first hand evidence rather than a second hand summary. But watching recordings before meeting candidates creates fertile ground for unconscious bias. First impressions form early, and they form differently on video.
I worked hard to counter that, and the balanced scorecard was the main instrument. Every candidate was rated 1 to 4 against identical criteria drawn from the role design, so there was no neutral midpoint to hide behind and no room for a gut feel hire dressed up as a decision. Ratings had to be backed by evidence from the interviews, not impressions from the recordings.
Around the scorecard sat the coaching. Before the formal stages I took the hiring team through structured interviewing, consistent use of the questions, and how bias forms and how to challenge it, in themselves and in each other. Calibrated debriefs after each stage tested every opinion against the scorecard evidence. The result was a process the board could defend as fair to every candidate in it, from any of the four talent pools.
Six weeks, start to offer
From design, through definition and rollout, interviews to offer.
Design and definition
Role description, values and working vision created with the board. Balanced 1 to 4 scorecard and interview questions designed from the role criteria. Search strategy and four pool market map agreed. Go to market launched.
Approach and meet
Circa ten direct approaches, each met personally, six in person and four by video. Recorded one-to-one video interviews completed with each candidate and shared with the executive board.
Coaching and panel stages
Hiring team coached on structured interviewing, scorecard use and bias before the formal stages. Four candidates presented. Two stage panel process run against shared questions and 1 to 4 scorecards, with calibrated debriefs after each stage.
Offer and acceptance
Preferred candidate identified, offer made and accepted. NECCUS had its figurehead CEO.
The outcome
A figurehead CEO in post, and a hiring capability left behind.
NECCUS appointed its first Chief Executive Officer six weeks after the search was designed, from a shortlist drawn across four distinct talent pools. Just as valuable was what stayed behind: a properly designed role description and values framework, interview questions and a balanced 1 to 4 scorecard the board could reuse, and a hiring team coached in structured, bias aware, evidence led selection. The search filled one role. The HR work made the organisation better at every hire after it.
This was an executive search, but the reason it worked was the HR craft underneath it. Design the role properly, build a scorecard that forces evidence over instinct, and coach the panel before they ever meet a candidate. Do that, and six weeks from blank sheet to accepted offer is not a rush job. It is what a well designed process makes possible.