How businesses should recruit a digital director

I was asked recently as part of my digital role for one of Europes leading brands to help them recruit a new head of digital, and here are my thoughts:

As digital technology continues to shape Europeans’ daily lives, corporate Steercos have taken notice of the undeniable shift in how consumers interact with both businesses and one another.

To get a sense of the impact that digital and mobile technologies and social media are having on business, the business will need to consider the following:

• Nine out of 10 European Internet users now visit a social networking site each month.
• Online retail sales are growing at five times the pace of traditional retail and are projected to overtake traditional retail sales in less than 10 years.
• Global e-commerce sales are growing at 19.4 percent a year and are expected to reach nearly $1 trillion by 2013.

The implications of these trends for business strategy, distribution, the competitive landscape, customer relationships and the type of talent and leadership companies need are profound, and the stakes are highest for consumer-driven businesses.  Digital has simply become a priority at the very highest levels of corporate leadership.

Global brands has an important role to play in ensuring that the management team is examining the threats and opportunities digital presents — and devoting appropriate resources to digital initiatives. Consequently, the demand for directors with an in-depth understanding of the trends and technologies shaping the digital landscape has risen substantially in the past 12 months.

While demand for directors with digital expertise is on the rise, the supply of qualified candidates is very small and those candidates are more likely to have non-traditional backgrounds. This can make recruiting directors with these profiles especially challenging and may require the business to reconsider their perceptions about what an ideal Head of Digital looks like. While recruiting digital knowledge to the Steerco is a worthwhile undertaking for any company, there are a number of realities brands must consider before tapping into this increasingly in-demand talent pool.

The following model will help you to successfully recruit directors with digital expertise and think through the trade-offs that may be required to attract a recruit with the right set of experiences.

Define digital for the company

The first step in recruiting a Head of Digital with digital expertise is to clearly articulate the ways digital is affecting the business. To do this, the Steerco and management team should understand how customers and employees interact with digital technologies and set a forward-looking digital strategy, which could involve improving worker productivity, enhancing the company’s sales and marketing presence or better leveraging social media channels.

Once the company’s specific strategic digital opportunities and challenges are identified, directors can consider the type of digital expertise that would add the most value to the Steerco. A director who brings the right digital expertise will help the Steerco and CEO frame the strategic and organizational issues by asking detailed questions about the opportunities and risks, the company’s digital capabilities and whether the organisation is being as aggressive as it should be in this area.

Understand the talent trade-offs

In addition to identifying the areas of digital expertise that would be most valuable to add, Steerco need to develop a comprehensive understanding of the digital talent landscape before they recruit. Whether through independent research or partnering with a recruitment agency, Marketing comms teams should know what the top talent in these fields looks like and how it differs from more traditional Steerco candidate pools.

Recruitment from the digital, consumer Internet or technology fields may mean compromising on conventional benchmarks, such as prior experience or international expertise, in favor of more contemporary skill-sets, for example, experience with social media platforms or digital advertising.

Additionally, Marketing Comms teams should understand that Head of Digital with digital expertise may not have achieved the same stature as candidates from more traditional fields. These young, ambitious and, oftentimes, time-starved executives can be more transient than more established executives, and they may be less familiar with the customs of a corporate environment.

As part of the recruiting process, you should consider the potential trade-offs and determine which ones they are willing to make. They can do this by exploring several questions:

• Is public or private company experience critical?
• Which areas of the consumer Internet are most critical to the future of the business?
• What are the expectations of candidates with digital expertise about their role on the Steerco?
• What are the core competencies the Steerco requires?
• Is prior governance experience required?
• How important is experience with the hot technology of the day (i.e., social networking) versus a broad and seasoned perspective on digital issues?

Answering each of these questions will allow the Steerco to focus their search on those candidates that will be most in line with the company’s immediate needs and long-term strategy.

Position the digital director for success

A critical next-step in recruiting A head of digital is planning for their long-term success on the Steerco. As previously noted, many of these candidates are likely to have little or no Steerco type experience.

Therefore, it is essential that the Steerco carefully define the role that the new position is expected to play within the team. Is the new director expected to contribute in the same manner as other members of the team, or is there a digital-specific function he or she is expected to fill? Is the new position expected to chair a committee?

Answering these questions is important when recruiting any new head of digital, but especially so when dealing with a new position who lacks Steerco room experience but may be expected to play a unique role in leading the Steerco’s discussions around digital.

It also is important that the Steerco identify gaps in the new head of digitals understanding of governance or the business, which can be addressed through Steerco education or assimilation programs.

The digital difference

Successfully recruiting a digital director can seem as complicated as understanding the very technologies these individuals embrace, but doing so will reap substantial rewards for the business if it is serious about its commitment to digital. While some industries, such as retail and hospitality, have enthusiastically embraced the digital age in their business strategies and business composition, others have been slower to move into digital.

While digital is perhaps most applicable to consumer-facing businesses, other industries should not overlook the opportunities these technologies offer. If recent trends are any indication, digital e-commerce and social media will soon touch all aspects of European’ lives, and nearly every industry — even those that today seem well outside the scope of the consumer Internet — will have to respond or risk becoming obsolete.