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n The Talent Challenge
“We needed to build a world class team and selected Odgers Berndtson for the breadth
and depth of their experience in both the public and the private sector. Having helped
us secure a brilliant CEO, they are now helping us to build an equally impressive senior
management team”
– Sir Keith Mills, Vice-Chair, Locog
The Olympics talent challenge was one of
vast scale and complexity. It required a large
organisation, with a huge budget and farreaching
objectives, to be established from
scratch in order to deliver a programme for
which there was no modern UK precedent.
The hiring challenge was to identify
individuals with the skills, experience and
teamworking skills to start delivering from
day one – the carved-in-stone nature of
the Olympics deadline allowed little time
for people to ‘grow into’ their roles. At
the same time, those appointed needed to
demonstrate the ‘stickability’ to see the
project through. All of this in the face of
intense political and media scrutiny.
Odgers Berndtson was entrusted with
search assignments across numerous
disciplines, including senior leadership,
finance, media, government relations,
marketing, risk, education and other diverse
operational roles. Where to look for people
with the right qualities?
Identifying individuals with prior
experience is an obvious starting point in
any search. For example, Odgers Berndtson
supported the appointment of Doug Arnot
as Director of Games Operations. With a
record that includes running operations
for the 1994 World Cup as well as the 1996
Atlanta Olympics, 2002 Winter Olympics
and the 2016 Chicago Olympic bid, Doug
Arnot offered proven know-how.
But staging an Olympic games is far from
a commonplace experience, and the team
could hardly be staffed by those who had
done it before. The challenge for Odgers
Berndtson was to identify individuals
with relevant, transferable experience in
different fields.
Take the role of Chief Executive of Locog.
The position called for exceptional
management and leadership skills, firstclass
financial understanding, an ability
to work under enormous pressure, and
the right personality and style to serve a
complex and demanding stakeholder base.
The successful candidate, Paul Deighton,
had proved himself in one of the most
demanding work environments to be
found anywhere. As Chief Operating Officer
of Goldman Sachs International, he had
demonstrated his ability to lead teams of
skilled professionals in an environment
of exacting client expectations. The
highly regulated and scrutinised world of
investment banking also made him familiar
with the outward-facing nature of the Locog
role.
The imperative of looking for relevant –
rather than direct – experience was at the
heart of much of Odgers Berndtson’s work
as we searched for those whose past roles
would ‘read across’ successfully into the
unique demands of Locog. At the same
time, the personal qualities of applicants
The hiring
challenge was
to identify
individuals
with the skills,
experience and
teamworking
skills to start
delivering
from day one
– the carved-instone
nature of
the Olympics
deadline allowed
little time for
people to ‘grow
into’ their roles
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