Case Study

Search Details

Job Title: General Manager
Seniority: Executive level
Search Type: Retained search
Job Location: Napa Valley, CA, USA
Link to job description
The Prisoner Wine Co Logo Webp

Our Client

Company: The Prisoner Wine Company
Ownership: Constellation Brands
Company Industry: Wines & Spirits (Fine Wines)
Company Type: Public Company
Client contacts: President of the Wine & Spirits Division, SVP of HR, Director of Talent Acquisition

Company Description

Our client for this General Manager search was a leading publicly traded group in the wine, spirits and beer categories. This GM role was for one of their recently acquired winery, very well known in the fine wine category for being very innovative and having an unconventional and modern marketing approach.

Search Overview

The group’s vision was to premiumize their portfolio, and to achieve this, they needed not only to bring in several GMs from the fine wine and other luxury goods categories to help build those brands like luxury goods groups do, but also to transition the organization to a matrix structure to empower those new “brand owners” within the organization. We were brought in not only for our strong experience in wine & spirits but also because of our robust luxury goods practice and our experience working with groups like LVMH, L’Oreal, Estee Lauder, Richemont…

Search Challenges

The challenges in this search were to find a strong branding executive coming from luxury goods, having a strong personal interest in fine wine and available to relocate to the Napa Valley / San Francisco Bay area.

Our Executive Search Strategy

Our executive Recruiters ran a proactive search following the criteria below:

  • creative and innovation branding executive
  • full P&L management experience
  • strong previous corporate experience
  • used to matrix organization where influence and collaboration is more important than direct authority

Our Executive Search Process

Our search process:

  • Kick off call with the President of the Wine & Spirits division, as well as the HR and talent acquisition team.
  • Definition of a search strategy
  • Mapping of the large organizations involved in fine wine, prestige spirits and luxury goods
  • Identification of current and recent Sr Directors, VPs and SVPs in branding and brand portfolio management
  • Weekly progress report meeting with the client to discuss, first calibration, then presentation of candidates as well as feedback from the client.

Final Outcome

This search was combined with 2 other very similar GM searches for sister brands of the same division. The global search for the 3 GM roles provided the following results:

  • 480 candidates contacted
  • 53 candidates interviewed by ACCUR (Managing Partner and Sr Recruitment Consultants)
  • 22 candidates submitted to the client
  • 16 candidates interviewed by the client

Result: 3 candidates were hired for their respective brands corresponding to their profile and experience (more innovative or more traditional)

Contact A Recruiter

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