The client wanted to set up a new regional business unit in structured finance based in Singapore. The jobholder would set it up from scratch and there was a mandatory requirement to have a Korean for this role. Mandate helped in preliminary mapping of the market in Korea. The result was a long list of global banks and Korean banks with only a handful of potential candidates in each organisation. We conducted face to face interviews with them in Seoul. Many have not dealt with executive search firms before. Therefore, building rapport and trust were very important.
