Impact Officer | Fast Growing Electric Vehicle Company

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Asked by a progressive cleantech mobility firm to find an executive who could both measure and enhance its impact, NGS Global found a top-tier professional who is already providing significant value.

Background

India was going through a progressive shift towards adoption of electric vehicles, especially in the two-wheeler category. Our client built India’s first smart and connected electric scooter line because they believed that's where the future of personal mobility was headed. Our client was one of the few electric vehicle companies in India to have products and associated services that were an amalgamation of clean design and engineering, encompassing both hardware and software. Their product offerings included three variants of electric scooters, public and private charging infrastructure, and innovative vehicle ownership plans. They were also building a complete ecosystem for India’s electric vehicles, powered by indigenous design and manufactured locally.

The Need

Our client was seeking to bring in an Impact Officer who would not only oversee the company’s sustainability initiatives, but also evangelize the concept at industry forums. Additionally, they were expected to drive awareness around the need to build sustainability across all facets of products, vendors and the supply chain throughout every facet of the electric vehicles industry.

This went beyond just ESG, which was primarily a regulatory requirement. The role required the mindset to do more with less, and demonstrate how each activity in the business contributes to impact, with clear metrics. This role was the first of its kind in the Indian industry, on a par with European standards and requirements.

Strategy and Approach

The search was particularly challenging as our client was looking for an executive who could potentially craft their own role and assess the outcome of their work. Our client needed an executive who could potentially help them draw up future sustainability goals and KPIs. Going deep into the market, we realized that not many enterprising candidates were available who understood global sustainability norms, and had the passion to go beyond current statutory requirements. However, with our proven research capability, we were able to build a comprehensive long list of potential candidates from several mid to large industrial sector companies, particularly from those types of manufacturing activities that required robust compliance with ESG and sustainability norms. After assessing several candidates, including for their ability to visualize a holistic sustainability agenda and put it into practice, we shortlisted seven top-tier candidates who the client interviewed, of whom one was offered the position.

Our NGS Global Value-Add

• A first-principles approach to drawing up the search strategy following an in-depth study of the particular domain, and extensive research to uncover candidates with relevant capabilities.

• Close engagement with our client throughout the project enabled us to continuously refine our candidate evaluation process, thus ensuring that we presented only the most relevant candidates for the client’s consideration.

• Partner-led search execution to ensure that we were able to tap into passive job seekers

• Delivery of a strategic and captivating pitch enabling exceptional candidates to consider what was an off-beat but high-impact opportunity: this was not a large manufacturing company, but rather an up and coming electric vehicle start-up.

Contact Deepti Jethanandani (Project Lead)

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