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EGON ZEHNDER INTERNATIONAL - EXPERTISE
Step by step
Internationalization
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The beginnings were modest. In the first four years of its existence, Egon Zehnder International operated out of a Zurich office staffed by a handful of partners and consultants. Profits were plowed back into the firm to enable new consultants to be recruited and the first two outside offices to be opened in Brussels and Paris in 1968. The firm’s geographic expansion was driven by client demand for a rapid response and competent local contacts.
Over the years this demand-led strategy, geared to customer requirements, became a reliable mirror of market developments around the world. The opening of Egon Zehnder International’s Tokyo office in 1971, the first outside Europe, reflected the opening of the Japanese market to the West. The inauguration of new offices in São Paulo (1975), Mexico City (1982), Buenos Aires (1985), and Santiago de Chile and Bogotá (1998) paralleled the advent of market economics in a large number of South American countries, a pattern repeated in the early 1990s as new offices were opened in the capital cities of former Eastern Bloc states.
Ever since, continuous expansion has been a hallmark of the firm’s history, although the pace of expansion has varied in line with overall economic trends. Because to this day the firm’s golden rules state that new offices must be financed without recourse to external funds; markets must not be accessed through acquisitions; and each new office must be managed by an experienced partner from the outset. Today, the firm’s 283 consultants serve the needs and wishes of their clients from 58 offices spread across all major continents.
According to the credo of Egon Zehnder International’s founder and partners, growth and expansion only make sense when the primary beneficiaries are the firm’s clients. In the early years, the demand for a systematic search for top executives spread gradually from one country to the next, but activities were mainly restricted to national or neighboring and closely related markets. It was only with the onset of globalization that executive search took on worldwide scope. The clearest sign of this development at Egon Zehnder International was the decision at the end of the 1980s to take the firm’s presence in the USA – the industry’s most important but also most competitive market – into a new dimension, transforming Egon Zehnder International from minor supplier to key player.
The firm’s success in the United States laid the decisive foundations for the establishment of a global network. Because only a full-scale worldwide consulting network can meet the needs of today’s clients for the most suitable candidate for a top job, irrespective of nationality and current location. That explains why the consultants concerned must not only be able to accurately assess every dimension of each commission, but also must be intimately familiar with their local environment and ready to share the full extent of their knowledge with all of their colleagues at the firm. Egon Zehnder International ensures this is the case through its uncompromising “One Firm” approach.
The key to success in each case lies in multiple excellent personal performances that all contribute to a common goal. This applies not only to the professional quality of the firm’s response to each commission, but also – and to an equal extent – to the overall economics of the business. Since no office has to demonstrate maximum profitability to justify its existence, the firm can successfully drive forward its internationalization strategy even in problematic markets and tough times. As a result, Egon Zehnder International can and will maintain a presence even in places where the economy is not currently – or nor yet – showing rapid growth. In this way, Egon Zehnder International’s perception of itself as one firm stands surety for reliable partnerships with clients and candidates – in the long term and across all national borders.
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