McDermott & Bull is a proud member of Agilium Worldwide, an international strategic group of independent, owner-managed, retained executive search firms with members in virtually every market. Today, Agilium Worldwide ranks among the Hunt Scanlon Global 25.

Rod McDermott, Managing Partner at McDermott & Bull Executive Search, recently attended the 2016 Agilium Worldwide Americas Meeting, which was held in Mexico City. During this conference, Rod and his fellow attendees had the opportunity to strengthen relationships, collaborate on business opportunities, and gain key insights and takeaways pertaining to Executive Search in the Americas. Below, Rod shares his recap of this worthwhile gathering:

“Executive Search in the Americas is growing; in most cases, it’s expanding faster than the local economies. Most firms feel like their corporate clients are using every means available to outpace the growth of their local market by recruiting the very best talent in the industry and utilizing retained search services to do so.

Even in economies that are still considered very weak, such as Brazil and Argentina, retained search service revenue has increased in the last year as companies have decided to make the investment in talent acquisition for key roles.

Mexico has been a darling of Latin America and is posting some of the strongest growth numbers in Executive Search. The U.S. has also showed solid development over the last few years, even with tepid GDP growth.

Canada has been fairly weak, as the downturn in energy and materials mining has had an impact on their economy that has been hard to shake. However, our Canadian partners work in other sectors including technology, consumer products and pharma/life sciences, which haven’t been affected. The government is also spending big on infrastructure, which has created opportunities for heavy equipment and construction companies, as well as other organizations that are reliant on materials and energy. Having recently spent time in Montreal, it’s clear that construction there is very strong, with new buildings and significant road and infrastructure projects being undertaken. Half of downtown seems to be under construction, including a big part of the port.

As we wrapped up our time together at this year’s conference, one thing stood-out amongst a variety of important takeaways: Latin America and Europe are closely tied together, especially companies from Spain, Portugal, Germany and France who have invested significantly in their Latin American operations. We see more cross-firm work being done between our partners in Europe and in Latin America than in nearly any other region, with the exception of pan-Europe collaborations. In fact, our Spanish partner, who happens to be the Chairman of Agilium Worldwide, attended this conference, as he does significant business with our Latin American firms, driven by his Spanish clients.”

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