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Country Manager Japan for a Global Biopharmaceutical Company

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1. The Brief

A European Pharmaceutical company was entering the Japan market and they were seeking a country manager. The company was launching a breakthrough medicine in rare diseases. The candidate needed to have strong experience in rare diseases and had previously worked as a country manager. The candidate needed to be Japanese with fluent English.

2. Execution

We met with the head of international business and the head of talent acquisition who were based in England and examined the needs of the company in the short and long term. The head of international business also set meetings with the CFO and COO and the head of productions.This enabled Morunda to have a deep insight into the company’s strategy for Japan.

The market in Japan for candidates who were experienced bilingual business leaders was mapped. The focus on the evaluation was what the candidate was to achieve within their first 14 months. It was important that the candidate had several similar achievements in their career. The greatest predictor of future performance is past results.

  • Number of candidates identified – 27
  • Short listed – 6
  • Weeks to complete the search – 11

The client moved through the process quickly, they were able to sell and present their firm in great detail and paint a clear picture of what success for the candidate would look like.

3. Result

Within 6 weeks the EU company had screened the short list of candidates and they worked cohesively and quickly and offered the candidate who signed immediately. The client had done an amazing job of being able to coordinate multiple meetings in multiple time zones with numerous stakeholders. Their talent acquisition team is the best in the business.

4. Impact

The company is well on the way to having their product launched and have hired their executive team.  The business leaders were over the moon about the successful hire.

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