ART Brochure

ABOUT OUR FIRM AND OUR EXECUTIVE SEARCH RECRUITMENT PROCESS

ART is an American executive search firm, founded in 1987, that uses "best in class" methods to identify the best possible candidates for our client companies' senior management executive searches worldwide. ART relies on headhunting - the direct approach method - by which candidates at the client's competitors or near-competitors are solicited directly by our recruiters.

Our searches typically rely heavily on our own long-standing, well-established candidate and industry contacts within the client's sector. Because of these trusted industry contacts, we often can readily tap into the personal networks of industry colleagues to identify the best possible qualified candidates. Our strategy here is to use good candidates to identify even better, more suitable, candidates for our clients.

ART has never used advertising to find candidates, as recruitment by advertising is a luck based strategy . Our clients do not hire us to be lucky! They hire us because we are professional headhunters trained to seek out, evaluate and present the best possible candidates for our clients' most important business missions.

Most ART searches are completed in 3-4 weeks, regardless of title, location or industry. This is because we focus on search assignments in which we start with a high competence level. During this time, employers are given weekly progress reports during the search, providing opportunities for the employer and recruiter to fine-tune the search parameters if needed. We are in continuous operation, 24/7/365, for the convenience of our global clients, so our clients can easily keep in touch with their ART Account Manager.

ART only accepts searches that we believe we have a very reasonable chance of filling successfully. While this might seem like a logical policy for a recruitment firm, often retainer-focused firms accept the search and payment first, and then they try to figure out how they could fill that vacancy.

ART handles all searches internally, and we never outsource any client search to any other firm, thereby maintaining ART’s consistent quality, care, and timeliness globally.

Our results-only flat fees are based on the specific parameters of the client search, not on a percent of the salary that a candidate is offered. Our fees, stated at the beginning of the search, are clear and final. The client can always be assured that if we advise that they need to raise a candidate’s offer during a negotiation phase, such advice would be in the client’s interest, never our own.

ART is the first search firm in the world organized to be both global and “virtually local,” so we can conduct local, regional, national, or worldwide searches with little or no extra effort on our part. By contrast, most of our competitors barely know their immediate city, and if a larger search needs to be done, their process would be delayed or halted. ART can be invaluable for continent-wide searches in Asia, Europe, the Americas, Africa, or the Middle East, because few search firms besides ART truly know countries other than their home markets.

ART uses U.S.-style executive search methods. In much of the world, recruitment companies employ untrained, unfocused people who only know how to collect retainers from clients, place advertisements, and then hope that candidates magically appear. They are what would be called in the U.S., “employment agencies,” not executive search firms, and they should never be permitted to conduct senior management searches. ART clients hire ART headhunters to target the most successful candidates now employed at the most strategically attractive companies in the client's industry. ART's targeted approach to recruitment is what real headhunting is about.

w w w . a t l a n t i c r e s e a r c h . c o m ART Executive Search Specialty: Managing Change

LET ART FIND SKILLED EXECUTIVES TO SET YOUR FIRM ON THE RIGHT PATH. Here's a familiar pattern in business: a few people got together and formed a company. Often the founders came from the same company or from a small circle of companies. Everyone knew one another well, and after a few years of hard work, they made a great company.

In the early stages of a company, having key managers from similar corporate experiences could be helpful. However, sometimes when growth occurs, efficiency drops, and there seems to be no solution internally, because the founding managers need different solutions from people with different industry experiences.

ART is often brought in to help identify candidates who might help our clients manage their growth with new ideas, new contacts, or new experiences. Some questions asked by companies and solved by ART candidates:

*** How to bring new markets and new verticals to our product offerings? *** How to finance key expansions with our existing investment contacts? *** How to improve the efficiency of our operations and supply chain? *** How to find trustworthy general managers, sales directors, and finance heads in other regions or countries? *** How to manage a newly acquired company?

*** How to create a unified corporate style across different acquired companies or across different regions?

TRUSTED MANAGERS FOR FAMILY RUN OR CLOSELY HELD PRIVATE COMPANIES. Sometimes the founder or principals of a good business simply want to do other things in their lives, and they need a President, General Manager or CEO who can build the business while respecting the company that took years to build.

HELPING GOOD COMPANIES MANAGE CHANGE. ART offers Turnaround Specialists and Change-Agents, primarily for full-time, long term roles. If a company's customer base and contacts have been oriented to a few market sectors, regions or industries that are not currently "buying," then perhaps we could help bring in new managers who could attract valuable sectors or markets that have been ignored.

ART normally works to place its candidates with highly successful, profitable and forward-thinking firms. There are some candidates, however, who request and desire the challenges of making previously flawed or struggling companies into tomorrow's highly successful, profitable and progressive firms. Sometimes even the best and most respected firms experience large or small problems, due to a key official's departure or due to flawed or antiquated processes or management styles. ART is happy to bring together talented turnaround specialists and companies that need fixing.

PEOPLE WHO CAN MAKE START UPS SUCCESSFUL PUBLIC COMPANIES. It can take a long time to make a startup profitable, build market share and survive. These are difficult hurdles to overcome. At some point a privately held startup might want to become a public company and accomplishing that goal will take at least a few people with solid track records in launching public companies.

EXIT STRATEGIES.

Sometimes the management of a firm decides that their best next move is to seek being acquired by a larger firm. ART senior executive candidates might be considered as CEO's, COO's, SVP's, Presidents or CFO's to assist in this transition.

w w w . a t l a n t i c r e s e a r c h . c o m ART Executive Search Specialty: Confidential Recruitment

We at ART are discreet in the conduct of our searches. Our client-companies know that when they call us in to assist them, we not only are capable of easily absorbing the job specifications, but we are more than able to get to the crux of their true need. Sometimes that process of investigation requires that we discuss issues more delicate than "experience required." All information told to us or discovered in the course of the search is intended to be kept between us, our client-company and our candidate.

Some typical confidential searches that we have performed for our client companies:

*** Replacement of a non-performing or under-performing manager *** For family-run or closely held private companies, identifying a new generation of management *** Hiring a person to expand sales or grow business in a new region or market sector *** Hiring a person whose newly created role could help improve the efficiency of the business

When we make initial contact with candidates for the purpose of ascertaining their degree of interest in a particular position, we often will not even name the client-company. This is to prevent or delay a circulation of news about our client's pressing need. Sometimes we might be vague about stating a specific technology, product or location, if such details might readily identify the employer. We try as much as any search allows, to keep the discussion of "confidential" searches to a minimum within an industry.

Whenever a search is opened beyond a company's own ranks, there is a trade-off between measured discretion and reaching the right candidates to fill that position begins. Please always be aware that once a company begins any hiring process - via internal company referrals, classified advertisements or headhunters - there is a more than reasonable chance that news of your opening might quickly spread within an industry relatively fast, even if only a few trusted candidates have been informed.

We therefore strongly advise that, before contacting us, employers carefully analyze the possible repercussions of human nature or "industry word of mouth" causing your intended "confidential" job search to become public knowledge. When contacting ART with your "confidential" search, it is up to your firm to tell us why the search is confidential and what language we should not use in describing the job to our candidates.

If your firm is considering the delicate matter of replacing an existing executive or manager, we recommend that you first inform that employee of your concerns or dissatisfaction and discuss the possibility of a termination. Perhaps this works best or only in a "perfect world" scenario, but we believe that "honesty is the best policy." It is your decision how to proceed, but again, please always assume that your industry consists of humans who gossip, and that once a search opens, news of it will likely get back to your employee.

Even before you open your search, that employee you wish to replace might already be exploring the job market, because he or she probably also feels dissatisfied with the status quo. Even before your firm opens its own search, that same employee's own presence on the job market might alert competitors or others that your firm is about to have a vacancy or make a management change. If it sounds as if we are saying that we conduct confidential searches but that no searches are truly confidential, then you are reading us correctly.

We try to provide a cautious balance and a minimally permeable firewall of information during your executive search process. Most importantly, when we present your vacancy to serious candidates, we provide the proper perspective, balance and context for your vacancy to be appreciated for what it is -- a wise and strategic enhancement of your firm's long term potential.

w w w . a t l a n t i c r e s e a r c h . c o m ART Executive Search Specialty: International Recruitment

With ART, your firm does not need to hire multiple recruiters to recruit across multiple countries or to get on planes to interview recruiters in multiple cities. ART covers most all key global markets, so we can save your firm time and money, while bringing you some of the world's best senior managers quickly and efficiently.

ART is one of the few executive search firms globally that is region-neutral in approach. We recruit in most major markets and have done so for many years. This is why companies based in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Mideast, Latin America and Africa all look to ART to find senior managers for both their home countries and for their key postings abroad.

Our clients understand that we are targeting a very specialized group of globally minded managers and leaders who: 1. have compatible business management styles...

2. uphold the same standards and proper practices...

3. are already where they need to be located...

4. have experiences that might best prepare them to understand the employer's product or urgent need... 5. are already reaching the customers who must be reached in order for that market to be won.

We see the global economy as a unity that demands top local managers who think globally, while being highly competent at cultivating their respective local markets. The people whom we recruit for posts outside of our clients' home countries must be like human bridges able to connect easily across oceans of differences. They must understand the employer's business culture and needs as their own, while also successfully connecting to local staff and customers in their own country.

Our searches can start with the best local candidates before we expand the search radius, unless you tell us otherwise. For us to broaden a search, no special delays are caused, because ART is an executive search firm that recruits without regard for borders, as this is the reality of today's global economy.

Global Success comes only when you have the right people in the right places Think of ART as your firm's guide to new business opportunities around the world. Too many companies - even billion dollar firms - are slow to venture beyond their home countries. They know that the opportunities around the world are vast, but simply because they do not have knowledgeable executives familiar with the target countries, often years and infinite lost opportunities pass them by. Their competitors, meanwhile, are already there. Sometimes firms that are operating overseas are doing so very ineffectively.

Our job is to help your firm find top people who can build your operations or sales in other countries. Our staff is highly internationally oriented and we appreciate and respect the differences between countries and cultures, and when we conduct your search, we seek to find candidates who can serve as intelligent and dynamic bridges between business cultures. We have done so successfully for startup firms, fast growing medium sized firms, as well as for multi-billion dollar firms.

World Class management candidates on six continents, in over 100 countries Regardless of region, industry, or job title, our candidates tend to be highly results oriented, unbureaucratic managers. Their approach to business usually might be characterized as localized versions of "world-class management style." They are all fully fluent in English, and most candidates outside the English-speaking countries are fully bilingual or multilingual in the local or regional languages. A significant proportion of our candidates have worked for leading North American, European or Asian multinationals. Many have received MBA's from leading North American, European, or Asia- Pacific business schools.

Candidates who can communicate with your customers... and with you!

w w w . a t l a n t i c r e s e a r c h . c o m Let us help shape your firm's International Expansion, region by region or country by country.

ART, with its broad technological, industry and geographic market coverage, is well positioned to help your firm find those key people to expand or maintain your operations in other countries or continents. We recruit candidates in a broad range of fields who are able to begin, either singlehandedly, or as part of a team, the operations, sales, marketing, business development, financial, procurement, or manufacturing activities for firms that are establishing themselves for the first time in new countries ("greenfield operations").

Companies already with "beachhead operations" in the target country that wish to significantly raise their in-country profile or expand their sales volume, should also consider ART candidates for their next generation of managers. In most cases, ART candidates are now working for your competitors or for firms closely related to your own product or service mix, and these candidates are likely already doing what you need them to do, with the same customers that you need to reach. Let us introduce these excellent candidates to your firm.

General Management Executive Search

The character and success of your company will be shaped by the person who is the head of country operations - the Managing Director, President, General Manager, CEO, etc. Often the wrong person is hired for such roles, resulting in a company that finds itself floundering in a market that should be good for them. ART can help identify your key first employee in the foreign market -- someone who can better be able to get your mission started properly.

Sales, Marketing & Business Development Executive Search Our worldwide sales and marketing contacts are capable of working as pioneers and prospectors for your future international sales organization, either as Country Managers or continent-wide Regional Sales Heads.

Finance Management Executive Search

If you have operations in another country, you need to have a competent finance head. If your costs are not monitored correctly by a trusted person, your overseas operation could be bleeding cash for years without your knowing it. A top finance manager, networked into local sources of capital and investment, also can be instrumental in financing expansion of your company in the foreign country.

Supply Chain Management Executive Search

Our firm has been recruiting in the supply chain management field even before the field was called "Supply Chain Management." We understand the subtle hand-offs between procurement, materials management, logistics, distribution and fulfillment, as well as the unique variations of supply chain organizations as they exist from company to company. Our focus on international sourcing searches is to identify knowledgeable local candidates who understand the criticality of buying from quality sources, not simply from the lowest priced vendors. Our logistics candidates know how to organize your supply chain to just in time exactness, so that your operation can be coordinated to your global needs.

Manufacturing Operations & Quality Executive Search Some companies are content that they merely have overseas operations. But often the most efficient overseas operations, in our experience, are those whose managers, trained in world class business practices, are well equipped to communicate effectively with their local staff and to gain the trust of key local customers and partners. This is how to build a more solid and effective global corporation. Our focus in international manufacturing is on building state of the art operations that maximize automation and robotics, while empowering the factory workforce with advanced training in flexible manufacturing, kaizen, continuous quality and continuous process improvement methodologies. Managers who know how to recruit, train and develop such skilled staff can bring tremendous long term value to our client companies.

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The Secret to Our Success

THE ART SELECTION PROCESS

Most searches accepted by ART are completed in 3-4 weeks, regardless of the country or city, with candidates being presented to the client shortly afterward. Our competition often requires significantly longer Why is ART so fast?

Good Ethics

ART only accepts searches for which it believes it is likely to be successful: those cases where it typically has candidates and contacts or believes that it could find candidates in a relatively brief time. The decision to organize our recruiters in this way was deliberate, because retainer-focused recruitment puts the emphasis on getting the client to pay a fee before doing any work - a major source of client discontent.

Often retainer-focused search firms will even overstate the difficulty of a search in order to justify the exceptionally long time that it will take for them to get up to speed to learn the client’s market. They tell the client that they need a retainer to cover the costs of learning the target market.

A better, more logical, approach is to simply encourage recruiters to emphasize finding the right candidate. That is what any employer really wants and needs from an executive search firm: a results-focus, not an advanced payment-focused search firm.

Paying a search firm in advance does not guarantee quality or results; it only guarantees payment. ART does not believe that in most situations there is any reason for a competent, well-connected search firm to need retainers. If at the start of the search, the executive search firm does not have enough candidates, contacts, or confidence to conduct a proper search at their own risk, why should they then ask a company to pay them in advance to learn how to do this important search? If they do claim that they have great contacts, why are they unwilling to show their candidates to the client before being paid? This is an illogical argument. Wise employers see this incongruity. We saw it in 1987, and we were founded to do executive search differently.

Competence at Every Stage

For the client's search, ART assigns an experienced recruiter, who maps out with the client a multi-pronged recruitment strategy. ART recruiters will not present candidates to a client unless they truly believe that the candidate could do the job well and be happy doing that job with that company.

Candidates know that the ART recruiter has the candidate’s best interests at heart, and often good candidates will recommend even more suitable candidates to a recruiter whom they trust.

Clients know that the ART recruiter is focused on finding people who can fulfill their business mission. This is a win-win-win approach to executive search: with each new search, ART recruiters improve their abilities and knowledge base; candidates get an honest recruiter who cares about their careers; and employers get access to candidates who are enthusiastic about helping build their new company.

21st Century Organization

ART is in operation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. While most other recruiters are asleep, the ART team is working for you! Searches are begun shortly after a contract is signed.

Clients are updated frequently, and if there are problems, the recruiter will ask more questions or suggest changes in the original profile, in order to fine-tune the search. If failure looks likely, the recruiter will inform the client promptly.

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Your ART Headhunter

ART is an executive search firm (headhunting firm) employing executive search recruiters (headhunters) well experienced in the careful consideration of candidates for their clients' searches. ART recruiters have a minimum of 10 years' experience as headhunters, using the direct approach method. Direct approach is the specific targeting of candidates at a client’s competition or at firms having people with the right skill-sets for the client’s needs.

In many executive search firms, the person soliciting business, collecting the retainer, or even managing the search, might be a person who is not at all trained as a headhunter. They might in fact have been hired for that "facing role" solely due to their cleverness in obtaining retainers. So while they might call themselves headhunters, they might not know anything about headhunting. If they are not skilled in headhunting, they might not be able to easily find candidates or even to understand what kinds of candidates might be good fits for a client. Given many candidates, they might not see who is a good fit. They could make many mistakes that could cost time and money to a client.

Employers should also be aware that just as certain people who do not headhunt call themselves "headhunters," there are many recruitment companies that label themselves as "executive search firms," when in fact they do not do executive search. In many parts of the world, including in many highly developed countries, the practice of headhunting is very limited or very poorly practiced, and many recruitment firms rely heavily on advertising to produce candidates for a client. These firms should more properly be called "employment agencies," due to this kind of unfocused practice of recruitment, but often they call themselves "executive search firms" in order to sound better qualified to handle senior management recruitment searches.

The ART Method

Such precise work of position profiling, candidate identification, and candidate evaluation, requires a recruiter who is conversant in thousands of corporate business models and career case studies. The ART recruiter must have a knowledge base of thousands of candidate career paths in order to understand who might fit a specific client’s business model and business mission well. A client's search by ART should be a mission-critical search for which advertising would be seen as a wasteful exercise.

ART never uses advertising in order to find candidates. No true executive search firm should ever use advertising, because if they were to use advertising, it would suggest that they do not have a sufficient candidate base or industry contacts to properly conduct a search. Clients using ART must agree to not use advertising while ART is conducting its search work on behalf of the client.

The ART Reputation

ART is a long established executive search firm whose managers are frequently quoted in the leading world business press. Some of these interviews can be read on the ART website. Due to ART's prominence and reputation over decades, our firm also enjoys a very favorable rating by senior management candidates, and it is our great reputation that makes our work easier and easier. Our candidates know that we only will contact them about a very good search with a very good client company, so when they hear from us, they respond positively. If we need to tap into their own networks of colleagues in your industry, they are usually more than helpful in guiding us to the right candidates for our clients.

Our candidates make such efforts, because they trust us and they trust that we will treat their friends and colleagues with respect and offer them good career opportunities. These long personal contacts with global industry leaders is our secret strength.

Positive recognition by leaders in those industries and markets where we put our focus, also tends to be recognized by global internet search engines. The effect of this high visibility is that ART often is the first stop for senior management candidates the world over. ART's application process for new candidates is time consuming in order to encourage only those candidates who are the most suitable fits for ART's clients.

w w w . a t l a n t i c r e s e a r c h . c o m THE TOP 10 REASONS WHY YOUR FIRM SHOULD ENTRUST ART FOR YOUR SEARCHES:

1. EXPERIENCE COUNTS.

ART has over 30 years' experience in conducting mission-critical senior level management executive search assignments for leading corporations in a wide variety of industries. A recruiter is assigned to your firm's search only if s/he has had a minimum of 10 years' experience in senior management executive search. Proper executive search is not an easy profession, and those who have proved themselves over the duration are those who know how to serve their clients and candidates well.

2. OUR RECRUITMENT METHODOLOGY IS SUPERIOR.

ART is a U.S. executive search firm whose recruiters bring the highest level of American executive search to the world. Why should this be important to you? Because in America, since the 1960's, there has evolved a great distinction between recruitment firms that do executive search (headhunting) and employment agencies, which only know how to place advertisements for employers. Leading corporations only trust their key management searches to executive search firms. But in much of the world, even if the firm claims to do executive search, their typical practice of recruitment is often limited to the passive placement of advertisements and the hit-or-miss nature of sorting through incoming resumes. At most of our competition, ad-response candidates are typically sorted by poorly trained staff who have minimal understanding of careers, corporate business structures, or even their clients'products and technologies.

ART, in addition to relying on decades' worth of industry contacts, is a recruitment firm that uses headhunting - the direct approach of candidates at the client's competitors or near-competitors - as a key tool in identifying the most highly qualified candidates. Our clients hire us to find the best people possible from their industry, because we are only hired for the most critical assignments.

3. WE SEEK CANDIDATE EXCELLENCE, NOT MERE AVAILABILITY.

ART recruits everywhere on earth using the exact same standards, methods and expectations. All countries have differences that need to be understood, but never should our client accept a candidate anywhere who is not up to the same high standards as similar employees in other countries.

4. ART RECRUITERS HAVE HIGH REPUTATIONS.

ART recruiters working on your search often have world-famous reputations in executive search, including interviews in the world's leading business publications. We make available transcripts of most of these interviews on our website.

5. ART RECRUITS IN YOUR CITY, ACROSS YOUR COUNTRY, AND GLOBALLY.

ART recruits globally in over 100 countries, in the top 1,500 world centers of business, industry, finance, and creativity. We are able in the briefest of time to enlarge a search radius from a single metropolitan area, across a country, throughout a continent, or globally. Our objective is to find the best local candidates whenever possible, but if a wider scope is needed, in order to provide more varied choices, ART is uniquely qualified to lead that search effort.

w w w . a t l a n t i c r e s e a r c h . c o m 6. TOP MANAGERS IN YOUR INDUSTRY TRUST ART.

Because our candidates know that we care about their long term career successes, a great many of these industry leading talents look to ART for their career options. Not only are we able to tap great candidates who have sought us out, but many of these top managers in your industry happily and confidently refer their most capable colleagues to ART when we have a fitting client search. Trust, longevity, and competence work to everyone's advantage.

7. ART CONTROLS ITS ENTIRE SEARCH PROCESS.

ART does all of our search work through our own recruiters. By not outsourcing searches to any other firm we are able to control the quality of the search, as well as the time lines and ethics. These matters are greatly important to us in properly serving our clients and candidates.

8. ART IS IN CONTINUOUS OPERATION, 24/7/365.

When our competitors are working, we are working. When they are having lunch or dinner, we are working. When they are asleep, we are working. So is it really surprising that ART beats out other recruitment firms, even in their own cities and countries?

9. ART IS FAST WITHOUT SACRIFICING EFFICIENCY.

Most searches involve the identification of suitable candidates in 1-2 weeks, with candidate contact and evaluation typically being in weeks 3-4. In most cases a client can expect to see candidate resumes or CV's 3-4 weeks after the start of the search. Clients are updated with progress reports on at least a weekly basis, and if the search parameters need to be fine-tuned, we would do so quickly with the advisement of our client.

10. WHEN ART TAKES ON A SEARCH, WE TAKE THE RISK, NOT THE CLIENT.

We only accept a search if we have determined that we have at least a 75% chance of finding candidates that the client would want to hire. This calculation is made as a "best guess" at the start of the search, but it is an "educated guess," based on our knowledge of the client's industry, the local market, and the attractiveness of the opportunity for our candidates.

We offer a 100% money-back guarantee on our placement. This means that our recruiters are committed to finding the best possible candidates for your firm, because their reputation, time, and income is at stake. We feel that this system brings efficiency and competency to the forefront, for everyone's benefit.

11. WE WORK EXTRA HARD TO EARN YOUR LOYALTY

We added an 11th reason to work with ART to show that at every stage of our relationship, we try to add more value to you and your firm. Reduced fees on multiple searches, for example.

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