The challenge
Despite weathering the COVID crisis successfully, Nautic Partners was struggling to transition the investment back to growth mode, which warranted a reset of the leadership team.
The firm had concerns about the planned CEO succession, doubting its compatibility with the current president’s leadership approach. The president encountered challenges in effectively managing new talent, prompting worries about the company’s future as employees returned to office.
In tandem, they needed a new external chairman that could both lead the board, but also provide mentoring to the president, while providing a transition to CEO. Lastly, a new CFO was needed to professionalize the finance function, find opportunistic M&A, and act as a strategic partner to the new CEO, focused on revenue-driving activity throughout the hold period.
The solution
Evaluate executives and embark upon a critical, multi-search partnership.
- Leadership assessment
- Chairman search
- CEO search
- CFO search
Evaluate the president and the senior leadership team to identify any apparent leadership deficiencies that could be addressed through coaching, aiming to enhance the team’s overall effectiveness and ability to drive growth as a cohesive unit.
The diagnostic consisted of a team effectiveness interview conducted with seven members of the executive team, the board, and eight next-level managers.
Our findings pointed to issues in micromanagement, overlapping responsibilities, and poor decision-making processes. An implementation plan was designed with the president and board, and was implemented with the top team.
The impact
Post leadership evaluation, it was clear that the team needed a strategic overhaul to catapult AKAM Living Services on a consistent growth track, capitalize on market positioning, and drive towards a successful exit.
All three positions were successfully filled within a span of three months. This strategic realignment led to a significant transformation in leadership and operations, bolstering the investment thesis and laying the groundwork for talent attraction, recruitment, and development to facilitate organizational scalability.
$200M
Revenue
AKAM Living Services now has revenues north of $200M and EBITDA in the mid-teens.
91
Days
Avg. time to completion of all three roles.
100%
Retention rate
In the year since the latter two roles were placed, Acertitude has exhibited a 100% retention rate.
Other firms mostly have a canned process that doesn’t flex with client needs. The Acertitude process got shaped to our needs.Ken Greene, CEO, AKAM Living Services
