INSIGHTS / FOR CLIENTS & TALENT LEADERS
Make the right leadership hire.
Practical guidance for hiring country managers and building teams in Japan. Define the mandate, understand the market and run a process that earns trust.
Discuss your hiring plans →MURRAY CLARKE / FOUNDING PARTNER
Experience, applied with AI.
I’m Murray Clarke, founding partner of Aspiring Partners. I’ve spent more than 20 years in executive search in Japan, helping build four search firms. That includes years helping VMware hire its leadership team, two years internally during hypergrowth, and the executive-search joint venture I built with ManpowerGroup before selling my interest to the group.
I’ve worked as an agency recruiter, an internal recruiter and a search-firm owner. These articles draw on those perspectives to help clients define the right mandate and make sound hiring decisions.
This time, we’ve built our own platform and use AI extensively in the work. It helps me apply that experience more broadly in support of candidates, clients and the recruiters working with us. The technology supports the research and preparation; I remain accountable for the judgment and relationships.
More about Murray and Aspiring Partners →What personality assessments can and can't do in a leadership hire
Hiring managers often get stuck on vague interview feedback. A good personality assessment can help them decide, but the best tools are expensive. Here's what I've seen work, and a simpler option.
What does IBM have to do with retained search?
A client spent nine months with a global retained firm that took two thirds of its fee without closing a Country Manager search. What to check before you choose.
The Japan President Search: Why Procurement Logic is a Strategic Risk
Run as a procurement exercise, a Japan President search selects for the wrong things. This is the case for APAC leadership owning it rather than delegating it.
What Your Japan Country Manager Candidate Is Worried About, and How They Grade You
Strong candidates grade the mandate, the sponsorship and the runway before they think about money. What they are working out while you are selling to them.
The Search Was Fine. The Process Killed It.
Four client-side behaviours that lose Japan's best leaders, and why a search closing in six weeks or dying over six months has little to do with the candidate.