The head-hunting business is now good enough for Heidrick & Struggles to establish a permanent presence in Bangkok within a few months.

"There's a lot of work in Thailand right now. Therefore, we're going to set up an operation here, where there's exciting talent," Kelvin Thompson, chief strategy and development officer for the executive search firm, said last week.

Though the Chicago, Illinois-based company has contacts with 400 recruitment partners worldwide, it has not yet posted anyone here. "We have supported our business in Thailand from Singapore and China," he said.

The main demand for senior-level hiring is from the energy, science and consumer industries.

"I think more Western companies look to Thailand [these days] for a hub for their operations in Asia. So, you're going to find a search firm, in particular, a firm which has a reputation," he said.

As Heidrick & Struggles focuses on the top tier of executives, many clients are global Fortune 500 companies across all industries.

"We got 8,363 executives globally in the last three years. There are a lot of executives and more of those looking for far more powerful services across Asia," he said.

Thailand is considered one of three main hubs in Asia for Heidrick & Struggles where Western clients have had key operations for three years. The other two are Japan and China.

Bangkok would be the 12th Heidrick & Struggles office in Australasia. Others include India, South Korea, Singapore, Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei and Australia.

After the Bangkok operation is up and running, it will have local partners, but Thompson declined to give more details.

The company is working on assignments from major multinationals with operations in the region, such as US corporations Pepsi and Coca-Cola.

The search team performs two services. First, it looks for someone to work in the country, usually a country manager or regional manager.

Second, it sets up practices in the client's industry. The company provides three functional practices - supply chain, technology and marketing. The assignments are mainly in the energy and consumer sectors.

The exact services provided by the company depend on client demand and strategies will also vary across clients.

Before joining Heidrick & Struggles in 2000 as a senior partner in the San Francisco office, Thompson was president of the American operations of Norman Broadbent and chairman of its global new media, entertainment and technology practice in Europe from 1995 to 1997.

Thompson was in Bangkok last week to join the World Marketing Conference and talk about the effect of global demographic change on market opportunities.

From his perspective, executives should be those who understand local needs on a global

platform. Even if there is technology change, they can run their company.

"We want a global player. What we do is search for talents globally for these culture areas then we can provide a global platform of diversity to clients to understand working globally and operating locally," Thompson said to his targeted clients.

Looking for the best-of-the-best executives seems to be a necessity for any large-scale global company and an executive search firm tends to be the answer.

"It's great to say let's have Chinese, Russians, Indians, Brazilians and Thais on our board. How do you get them to work together?

"What we do is a lot of work to get them the best practices. This firm manages to work together on specs and how they are done to apply the same kind of methodology and operations in meetings," Thompson said.

The coming of head-hunters to a country means that there will be high competition in the market, he said.

"If someone looks for the best job, we look for clients (companies) in that area and if the best company wants to head-hunt someone else, that starts a cycle. This increases competition," he said.

For more than 50 years, Heidrick & Struggles has provided executive search and leadership consulting services, serving clients from locations in principal cities around the world. It has 57 locations and about 1,300 employees.

The company earned US$39.22 million (Bt1.5 billion) in net income on $432.85 million of revenue last year.

Sasithorn Ongdee

The Nation