Welcome to my personal and professional website devoted to all things related to talent acquisition, human capital management and leadership within the closely interwined economies of the United States and Mexico.
You may also find that I post blog content related to another relevant topic – economic development and the creation of jobs between the interdependent economies of North America and how the global economy impacts all of us.
Who Am I?
The self-employment phase of my career got it’s start when I founded the boutique executive search practice –
QualiFind Executive Search in February 1999. I was motivated by an opportunity to create a talent acquisition service that could better serve the growing NAFTA marketplace which has always involved a broad and diverse range of commerce.
At that time, our primary client base was the maquiladora (manufacturing) operations in Mexico and their parent companies in the US or elsewhere in the world. However, as we evolved, so did our ability to provide a broader array of services to meet our client's needs.
QualiFind has grown into a full service executive search practice focused on senior management and executive leadership roles, diversity recruitment services (with extensive expertise in the Hispanic market of North America); research services for talent mapping, compensation surveys; leadership coaching, training and executive assessment alongside of our three-pronged approach to talent acquisition - contingent, engaged and retained search models.
While globalization has advanced, international business remains a complex web of cultural differentiation, economies and political systems. That aspect of cultural differentiation made me realize that QualiFind needed more dimension and depth to grow, so I partnered with Fernando Espinosa in 2000.
Fernando and I actually created the first truly bi-cultural recruiting firm to serve the growing business interchange between the US and Mexico. He and I have provided a distinctly unique cultural foundation for recruiting bi-cultural technical, management and leadership expertise for our clients.
The growth and the ride have been personally and professionally enriching and rewarding. We have always strived to learn, improve and innovate through being early adopters of Technology and Best Practices within talent acquisition.
Fernando and I have mentored and developed an exceptional team of recruiting and executive search professionals that have allowed us to expand the value and scope of our resources to our client base. However we have also understood that technology and Best Practices alone mean nothing if trusted relationships and integrity are not part of our core values. A lengthy track record of successful client and candidate relationships throughout both countries have given us a competitive record of achievement.
Over the years, we have observed increased demand in two key sectors that we have key internal expertise and resources to serve – agribusiness and Mexico’s maquiladora industry. That led us to create two specialty practices with separate leadership and staff to provide focused recruiting expertise in those areas. AgriFind Executive Search focuses on the agribusiness industry in North America and MaquilaFind, LLC is focused on Mexico’s maquiladora industry. The AgriFind practice is led by Sam McCorkle and the MaquilaFind practice is led by partner – Carlos Acosta.
Another contributor to our success has been our membership in IRC Global Executive Search Partners. In 2008, after an extensive review of search firms that had the capacity and resources to work in Mexico, QualiFind was selected by IRC Global Executive Search Partners to be their exclusive partner in Mexico. QualiFind and it’s subsidiary practices are also partner firms within IRC for the US as well. IRC membership has provided QualiFind with the ability to draw upon the cultural resources of other partner firms from 34 countries around the world making us locally (US and Mexico) committed and globally connected.
I invite you to enjoy and contribute to my blog and to visit the websites of QualiFind Executive Search, our agribusiness search practice - AgriFind Executive Search and our Mexico industrial practice – MaquilaFind, LLC.
Posted on 31-10-2011
Category : Executive Search
Posted in QualiFind’s website
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Two of the most established names in Mexico relative to the executive search and recruiting industry are proud to announce that they have joined forces to launch a new industrial recruiting practice under the brand name – MaquilaFind. |
| Qualifind Executive Search (US) and Bilingual Professional Search International or BPS (Mexico), have partnered to produce the maquiladora industry’s most robust recruiting practice. While MaquilaFind is a new venture, it’s foundation is rich in experience in that QualiFind has a 13 year track record in Mexico and BPS brings 10 years of experience in Mexico’s maquiladora industry to the new practice.
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Posted on 22-08-2011
Category : Executive Search
Posted by Thomas Despres in Blog, Thought Leadership with no comments, in QualiFind’s website
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As a search firm, when we’re engaged to find a functional leader for almost any role, it’s virtually guaranteed that collaboration will be a key necessary ingredient they need to see in a successful leadership hire. Can you call your leadership style collaborative? Maybe you should consider the question, “How do I coach on collaboration?” |
- First and foremost as with all positive workplace behaviors, you must walk the talk. Employees mirror what you do in meetings and pay particular attention to how you act after meetings, in private when only your team is around. If you sound collaborative in a meeting, and then are spiteful or resentful in private, don’t expect much from your team. You may need coaching on integrity more than the team needs it on collaboration!
- Test for “collaboration-speak”. Collaboration sounds real, genuine, helpful, concerned, empathetic, and unselfish. Terms and tone that support these traits are collaborative. An occasional comment to the converse is human; consistent words to the contrary present an urgent need for coaching, asking, “Bill, I’m not sure if you realize this, but did you see the body language when you said such and such in today’s meeting with Sales?” Give Bill a chance to self-indict first, and help him get to that conclusion with more questions, rather than telling him.
- Check-in with your team’s workload. Everybody is swamped, particularly in today’s “do more with less” economy. However, is the team fully loaded with important and urgent tasks, rather than with work that masquerades as either urgent or important? If so, then there is a finite amount of assistance it can give to other departments time-wise, and should collaborate with cooperation, understanding, and flexibility rather than with taking on loads of work. However, we find that most teams have more time for active collaboration (which always includes time and strategic thought) than they think. Test for this.
What are your thoughts and experiences?
Our next series will focus on “managing what we measure”, a frank discussion on goal setting, aligning goals with strategic direction, and putting in place pragmatic management approaches to stay on track. |
Posted on 14-08-2011
Category : Executive Search
Posted by Thomas Despres in Blog, Thought Leadership with no comments, in QualiFind’s website
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In part one last week, I mentioned strategic thinking, acting and influencing. This week I want to emphasize that setting strategy is not an event followed by implementation. It is a learning process that includes five elements: |
- Assess where you are. What’s the competitive climate facing your organization? Are you clear-eyed about your internal situation? Do you regularly and realistically assess your organizational strengths and weaknesses?
- Know who you are and where you want to go. Strategic leaders need to understand the spoken and unspoken culture of the organization and its leadership. Imagine the company 10 or 20 years into the future — then look at the distance and direction you must travel to succeed.
- Learn how to get there. Business strategy should be based on an understanding of key strategic drivers: the relatively few but critical determinants of long-term success. It’s also important to develop a leadership strategy for addressing the human and organizational capabilities that are needed to make the business strategy work.
- Make the journey. How does strategy translate into action? What are the tactics needed to implement strategy? How does strategy seep into the lifeblood of the organization? Are decisions and behaviors throughout the organization consistent with the strategy?
- Check your progress. Continue to assess your organization’s effectiveness. Do your key metrics keep your organization focused on the two or three top priorities for strategic success? Are adequate investments being made now to ensure your organization’s sustainable competitive advantage in the future?
Strategy is not only acting. It is also learning. Taking action enables the learning process to move forward. Time to get out there and make it happen |
Posted on 06-08-2011
Category : Executive Search
Posted by Thomas Despres in Blog, Thought Leadership with no comments, in QualiFind’s website
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Setting strategy isn’t the same as leading strategy. Even the best strategist can falter when it comes to implementing and sustaining the right direction for the business. And it’s not just about the planning. It’s also about the doing.According to the Center for Creative Leadership, statistics indicate that only from 4 to 7 percent of leaders exhibit strategic skills, a woefully inadequate amount given the demands of organizations in today’s environment, notes Kate Beatty, coauthor of Becoming a Strategic Leader: Your Role in Your Organization’s Enduring Success. |
“Leaders today face tremendous pressure to make short-term numbers and show immediate wins,” Beatty says. “Operational leadership rules the day.”But the pressure to meet short-term targets and solve functional problems is creating a leadership pipeline with limited strategic leadership capacity.So, how do we lead in ways that position the business for the future while also meeting current demands? It requires developing the following three skills, according to Beatty.Strategic thinking is grounded in a strong understanding of the complex relationship between the organization and its environment. Strategic thinkers take a broad view; ask probing questions; and identify connections, patterns and key issues. To boost the level of strategic thinking as you or your team work on a challenge, pose these questions:
- Why do we need to be successful in this challenge?
- How does this issue (and our approach) relate to issues and challenges elsewhere in the organization?
- Who are the key stakeholders? What information and insight do they have that is relevant to the challenge and to our response?
- In what ways are my own experiences and biases limiting my view of the situation?
- How can I reframe my challenge and see it from different angles?
- What factor, if acted on, would create the greatest leverage on the result?
Strategic acting. A strategic plan is only a plan — an organization’s actual strategies lie in the decisions and choices that people make. Questions to help you and your team evaluate the strategic consistency of your actions include:
- Is my response consistent with the overall direction of the organization?
- What, if anything, is keeping me from settling on a solution or approach?
- What are the risks of this solution? What contingency plans can I put in place?
- What are the most critical priority areas for us to focus on? Am I sending any mixed signals about those priorities?
Strategic influencing is about building commitment to the organization’s strategic direction by inviting others into the strategic process, forging relationships inside and outside the organization and navigating the political landscape. To apply strategic influencing skills to a challenge, ask yourself:
- What will the result look like if I succeed? What is my vision?
- Who else needs to be on board to make this successful? How does this approach relate to their goals?
- Are there other organizational systems, processes or structures that need to be in alignment for us to succeed? How can I help create that alignment?
- How willing am I to let my vision be shaped by others’ visions?
- Who might help me champion my efforts? How can I get them on board?
- What political realities might impact our success? How might I navigate those realities?
- How can I influence “up” and “across” effectively?
Finally, the “job of strategy” is not limited to a few top executives. Strategic leaders are needed throughout our organizations if they are to adapt, innovate and succeed well into the future. The most successful organizations have strategic leaders at all levels.
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