Companies look outside for senior execs

The Flow of Senior Executives* report says external sourcing of senior executives increased by 133% over the past two years, while there has been a 35% increase in the number of directors leaving boards. Board-level recruitment has risen nearly 40% in the same time.

A senior board member of a leading telecoms company said: "The continued success of our company in a highly-competitive European landscape is increasingly and inextricably linked with our ability to identify, attract and retain the best-fit international board-level executives."

Although the report shows three-quarters of senior appointments still occur from within an organisation, Andrew Simpson, European president of TMP Worldwide Executive Search, feels shortages of top managers can be avoided if companies focus on developing and retaining key staff.

The financial services sector was found to have the highest level of external executive recruitment (38%) in 2001, while the consumer sector, which traditionally has low levels of external recruitment, was the lowest at 15%.

* Carried out for TMP Worldwide by Euromonitor, which looked at 60 of Europe's largest multinationals.