Gaps appearing in an organization's leadership pipeline are nothing new. But combined with an accelerating Baby Boomer retirement trend, the issue becomes urgent. When a Europe-headquartered global business called on us to help, our executive search and leadership consultants in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, France, central Eastern Europe, Russia and Turkey worked to close the gaps. We helped to segment the business by job families and define the required selection criteria. External hires were targeted to fill immediate needs, as well as pools of talent and individuals for future acquisition. We also helped the company with internal recruiting tools and ways of developing leaders-in-waiting.

When a government infrastructure services company was privatized, it had to change from a silo organization consuming talent to a more integrated group in order to compete aggressively in a wider market. We helped the company to understand the new competencies required and to map both internal and external leadership talent pools. Interviewing skills were standardized across the company. In addition, the business was able to communicate clear career pathways to its leaders. Performance reviews also sharpened the focus. The company is now known as an “employer of choice” in the infrastructure sector.

An alternative energy pioneer had spent some years developing its products and now needed to move from startup/operational to high growth in order to survive and prosper in a fiercely competitive global arena.

But the culture needed to change to support a transformational leader. With the founders still present in the business, we adopted a multi-phased approach over several years.

New board members and executives were brought on board to help change the legacy mindset. We mapped leadership competencies that would reflect new business goals. We identified internal roadblocks and worked to bring about cultural change in a collegiate manner.

Once the path had been smoothed, an internationally respected chief executive with 15 years' experience in a global business was brought in.

Revenue increased by 110 percent in the first year, with profitability also improving over each quarter. A strong leadership bench is in place, fully integrated into the new high-performance culture.

One of our biggest continuous learning programs is taking place around the world with a global technology brand. The company is reviewing its skill base and ensuring it has a high-performance culture in order to remain competitive in an industry which is subject to constant change. We have completed global benchmarking and people reviews on more than 750 vice-presidents and 3,600 directors in the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific. We have held team workshops and other interventions around global leadership skills and designed a competency framework and development actions which are taking place over a multi-year time frame. The company is also creating strategic rotational opportunities to support career development.

Operating in a competitive environment, a global financial group had a major challenge in holding on to key professionals.

We conducted a survey of best practices in the wider market, looking at compensation and non-monetary incentives. We also looked at the compensation of the 21 key executive positions in the organization, and advised on the plan of action.

We helped implement ongoing executive development and retention strategies.

We worked with a leading United States energy company to match people performance with the business strategy of expanding electricity sales and power plant maintenance services.

Working with senior vice-presidents and selected leaders, we selected a division as a pilot for group-level projects and addressed key gaps in leadership performance.

We were able to help bring on board a successor to the retiring human resources director and to complete a new people development vision that was clearly aligned with the strategic roadmap.

A regional financial services group was split off from its global parent to run standalone businesses in seven countries. General managers of the old subsidiaries are becoming chief executives in their own right, moving from sales-oriented "agency roles" to driving the strategic growth, running the financials and developing new markets.

We looked at what it takes to be an effective chief executive in the new environment, reviewed the current general managers against that model and then closed the gaps with coaching, role-changing strategies and team-building.

Some global searches have been undertaken by our executive search consultants, but the main work has been conducted by our leadership consulting team to develop existing high-performance individuals to re-position their skills for new circumstances.

We also developed more than 340 people from vice-president level upwards to help the business fulfill its goal of being the world leader in its sector.

When the board of the world's biggest company in a major industrial sector asked us to assist with an unexpected CEO succession challenge, we began a two-year program of assessment and coaching for the eight senior executives, together with a parallel global search.

The result was the successful appointment of an internal candidate. We were then asked to work with the executive team in the review and development of the top 250 executives globally, utilizing a team of our senior partners from the United States, Asia Pacific and Europe.

Following that process, ongoing succession planning is in place and we have also completed the chairman succession.

We are often called in after the event, when a senior executive “retires” but ends up consulting for a competitor company. This is almost always because the executive no longer feels valued and has been allowed to slip out with nothing more than a farewell dinner and a gift.

We advise companies to put in place a strong alumni network which will keep the executives engaged with the business.

We also advise that, if possible, some part-time work is offered, with fees for bringing in business. There is also an obvious mentoring role for the seniors, who may alert you to issues within the culture. They should also be encouraged to participate in company events and business development pitches.