Hiring operators

October 08, 2024

by a searcher in Philadelphia, PA, USA

For those who have hired,. After acquiring a service based company or a company in the trades, what past titles or background do you look for in the hiring of a new operator or GM?

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Reply by a searcher
from University of Virginia in Los Angeles, CA, USA

Look for a "serial" background. In an acquisition, you need a person who has proven capable of learning the business quickly but who will not rely on the existing personnel to teach them the ropes, because when you are in to turn around and transform a business, you don't want your team to blindly copy the existing ways. Which is also why I recommend hiring your own c-suite - unless you are buying a business where no changes are needed. Bad examples I have from the past are hiring one exec who was overwhelmed by the gang of old execs. Look at all key functions and see if you are content with their leadership or need someone who is more in tune with you. My best team was when I was COO in a turnaround situation and hired CMO and VP HR. Kept the CTO who knew their stack very well and was a trustworthy person. HR was a real win because then I knew everything that was going on in the company. CMO helped because the marketing was disfunctional and needed a new perspective. But in other circumstances, if marketing wasn't broken, I wouldn't dare touch it. You don't want to shake a functional marketing boat.

Reply by a professional
from University of Richmond in Boston, MA, USA

To some degree it depends on the size of the business & whether you want someone with a sales background or an operations background. We've had a lot of success hiring with the following titles: CEO, President, COO, or GM. If it's a smaller business, you can look at Regional VP, Regional Director,, Regional Manager, VP of Operations, VP of Field Service, VP of Field Operations & I'm sure I'm missing others

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