C. William Guy, Founder & Chairman of Cornerstone International Group, a global leader in recruitment, gave this surprising comment, “During economic downturns, we sometimes have a positive record year! With the threat of a recession, our clients tend to replace marketing-oriented executives with financially-oriented executives who can ‘pull the belt in’ for economic survival. Due to client demand for such replacement management, Cornerstone is expanding in 15 additional cities throughout North America, Asia, Latin America, and Europe.”
For example, Carlyle Associates, the Edinburgh based executive search company, has just become a new office of the Cornerstone International Group. Cornerstone is one of the world’s largest retained executive search & HR consulting organizations with approximately 100 offices internationally. Clients include nearly 50% of the global 1,000 companies and 9 of the 10 world’s largest multi-national firms.
Additionally, the compensation & benefits division of Cornerstone, IBIS Advisors, has just announced the opening of their fourth office, which is located in Mexico City. IBIS specializes in international HR consulting including web-based eVisor, its compliance alerts, and comprehensive country profiles. This Cornerstone division has also hosted the venerable IBIS Academy for the past 38 years, a week-long training program for HR professionals held in Europe
Expanding During the Recession
Carlyle joins Cornerstone in providing executive search for CEO’s, CFO’s and other senior management plus Board Members in the medium and large corporate sectors. Their clients may not be adding staff, but they will tend to replace management, especially with so-called “turnaround” executives who can save companies from insolvency.
Director Duggie Carlyle commented “We are delighted to be joining Cornerstone as their sole Scottish ambassador. This gives us a unique opportunity to offer both clients and candidates local service with an international reach. We look forward to expanding our ability to help clients survive and even prosper during this recession.”
Overseeing the day-to-day operations of these new Cornerstone offices will be Carol-Ann Massie in Edinburgh and Rodrigo Quezada in Mexico City. They will work closely with their Cornerstone counterparts throughout the world. Other office locations soon to be opened by Cornerstone in 2009 include Eastern European cities such as Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Moscow, and Kiev.
Business Will Continue
Richard Polak, Chairman of Cornerstone’s IBIS Division, reinforces the optimism that business remains sound, remarking, “U.S. and international business is still ‘alive and well.’ We would not be adding a new office if client demand did not justify this move. Even in slow economic times, business must go on. We are happy to report that in this age of ‘global economy’ our multi-national client firms are still moving forward.”
Mr. Guy added “The trouble with ‘recession talk’ is that it tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Consequently, the global economy will likely experience economic troubles throughout 2009, but business will continue and jobs will still be available for those who have the flexibility to migrate from industry to industry and from one geographical area to another.”