A GM of Commercial Finance for Tassal, found offshore

Tassal is Australia's largest vertically integrated protein producer, supplying millions of Australians with salmon, prawns and barramundi. Six Degrees Executive was engaged to find its General Manager of Commercial Finance, a role reporting to the Chief Operating Officer and acting as a trusted commercial partner to the executive and general management teams.

Our long history in the Tasmanian market, together with our experience supporting food production businesses, saw us appointed to the search.

The Challenge

The difficulty in this search was location. The talent pool in Tasmania alone was unlikely to give the depth needed for a competitive field, which brought complexity and opportunity at once. Interstate and international candidates were firmly in consideration, which is not always the case for a process based in a major mainland city. With that in mind, we:

• Used our national networks in the food and FMCG sector to build the candidate list
• Drew on our Tasmanian relationships to read the local market and identify suitable people
• Explored the motivations and personal circumstances tied to a possible interstate or international move to Hobart
• Deep commercial and operational finance experience, ideally from global FMCG businesses
• A track record across trade spend management, S&OP and IBP, capex management and margin improvement
• Where relevant, sound reasoning for relocation and evidence they had researched a move to Hobart properly

Our Approach

Our approach combined a national, branded advertising campaign, extensive outreach to our candidate network and a targeted referral programme. We were looking for deep experience in commercial and operational finance, and after an extensive search our field reflected that. Our priorities were:

The Outcome

The successful candidate was based overseas, from a background in global corporates including one of the world's leading FMCG businesses. They had held finance leadership roles internationally and had relocated for work before. Their experience covered driving commercial outcomes, with strengths in pricing, S&OP implementation and managing large-scale capital projects.

The appointment was timed to give a clean handover between the departing leader and the new hire, with minimal disruption to the business.