The Challenge
Our Client is a well-known leader in the quick service restaurant (QSR) industry, employing over 4,000 employees with almost 400 restaurants and stores globally and continues to grow through acquisition and development. Our Client is also deeply committed to making a difference in peoples’ lives, their opportunities and their communities through great tasting food and coffee.
Due to a planned retirement, scaling the business, and expansion of the leadership team, we partnered with our Client to source and place an SVP Construction & Development for their Canadian operations. Although there was a senior leader holding similar responsibilities, the incumbent was gradually transitioning out of their role into retirement.
Our Client was looking for someone to take on broader responsibilities and build and mentor the team to help drive growth. The new role is responsible for leading the Construction and Development teams to deliver the end-to-end asset growth and asset revitalization strategy across all brands within Canada. Specifically, this role is responsible for new site acquisition, new site construction, site maintenance as well as the construction, development, and enhancement of the existing restaurant portfolio.
Over the next three years, our Client has committed to building approximately 40 new sites and renovating 90+ existing sites. This is an ambitious goal so getting the right technical and leadership skills as well as the right cultural fit was extremely important.
In this industry, speed to market of new site opportunities is paramount. Therefore, it was necessary for this new executive to have a deep network of industry contacts and connections. As our Client is undergoing scaling and transformation, they also wanted to review their existing partnership arrangements in consideration of bringing new energy as well as a fresh perspective. Once again, a deep network would be vital.
The Solution
The search would not be easy. Our client was looking for combined development and construction expertise. These two functions are commonly split out in many organizations. Our task was to find candidates who had both areas of technical expertise and had ideally held successful, progressive roles—this limited the candidate pool significantly.
Having completed senior leadership searches in this industry before, we had a good idea of where to find relevant talent. We leveraged the B. Riley Farber team’s network and completed an in-depth market map.
After consideration and review of over 140 profiles, we arrived at a strong shortlist of five exceptional candidates.
The Outcome
The finalist candidate had all the skills the hiring organization was seeking and the candidate saw the role as an excellent career development opportunity. She had 15+ years of prior career experience, specific to the client industry. She loved the industry and welcomed the opportunity to take on this exciting mandate. She knew and admired our client’s franchised brand and was quite familiar with the incumbent, team and organization from prior networking. She had also heard about the collaborative, friendly and supportive culture they had built as well as their commitment to employee well-being.
She was delighted to accept the offer and they were equally delighted to have her join their senior leadership team. It was a win-win.
Quotes from our client:
“Thanks for all your support in landing our new SVP. We are super excited for her to come on board.”
“Partnering with the team at B. Riley Farber was awesome, really felt like they are part of my team, communication was first-class, and they took the time to get to know our Co. culture and growth needs to ensure the candidates put forward were all a potential match for us.”
Post placement, the new SVP has effectively integrated with the executive team and has already started taking responsibilities off their plates and adding value. Her fresh perspective and ideas have been a game changer for our client.
“She is an excellent hire and making great impact.”