House of Commons

Client Profile

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) engaged Miles Advisory to lead the search for a new Chief Operating Officer, recognising our deep expertise in senior leadership appointments and our track record within complex, highly regulated environments. The brief required a candidate with exceptional operational leadership capability, strong stakeholder management skills, and a proven ability to drive performance and transformation across diverse functions.

Client Requirement

The ORR was/is facing significant changes as a result of both legislative change and regulatory reform. This was a key factor in determining the profile of the ideal candidate as not only did they need to demonstrate a significant track record of executive leadership of core/corporate functions, but it was also vital that they could prove both their transformation credentials and the depth of their understanding of the macro- regulatory and political context.

Our Approach & Methodology

As part of an extensive consultation exercise, we met with the outgoing Executive Director, their Chief Executive, the Chair of the People & Culture Committee (and Board Member), their Assistant Director of HR and the Civil Service Commissioner. From these briefing meetings we were able to get a detailed picture of what they were looking for, both in terms of skills/experience and cultural fit. We were tasked with focusing on individuals who had previous experience of working within the public sector, gained in organisations of similar scale and complexity and those which  had gone through significant structural and cultural change.

During the course of the search, we reached out to in excess of 150 individuals across local and central government, regulation and housing. As a result of our outreach, we were able to secure the interest of 14 search candidates. Whilst the total number of applicants reached 152, the long-list of 13 candidates was 70% search (30% via advert).

Outcome

Following our preliminary interviews, 5 were short-listed – all of whom were search candidates. The shortlist was 80% female and 40% ethnoculturally diverse. Following a staff engagement exercise, psychometric testing and a final panel interview, the chosen candidate was a c-suite female who had a strong transformation background gained in a variety of public sector organisations (government agencies, regulators and non-profits).