Client: A global giant in the production of electrical equipment and tools.
The Challenge for Lavoro: To find a Key Account Manager (KAM) for Kazakhstan. We needed a strategist who could retain existing distributors, attract new ones without jeopardizing current contracts, and work equally confidently with retail, B2B clients, DIY chains, and e-commerce. Essential requirements included knowledge of the local construction market and English at a negotiation level.
Why It Seemed Impossible:
The client cut off their own air supply. The hiring manager prohibited considering candidates from key competitor companies and a number of major distributors. The pool of “ideal” applicants became catastrophically small.
The experience paradox. Deep industry experience (in power tools) was required, but due to the client’s own restrictions, we had to search practically everywhere except that specific industry.
The company was a “ghost” to the market. The absence of a local office in Kazakhstan deterred systematic candidates from large corporations.
Specialist vs. generalist paradox. We needed a “combine harvester” – an expert who understood all sales channels simultaneously. Such specialists are worth their weight in gold.
Our Move (Shattering Stereotypes):
We disregarded the initial request to find someone from the power tools sector. Instead, we proposed a new logic to the client: search not by industry, but by type of thinking and skillset.
We shifted our focus to adjacent segments of the construction market: building materials, engineering systems, plumbing. We looked not for those who sold drills, but for those who masterfully managed complex partner networks in a similar B2B environment. We tightly controlled the process, constantly synchronized with European HR, and always attended interviews ourselves. This allowed us to grasp the managers’ focus in real-time and prevent them from rejecting a strong candidate merely due to the formal absence of the “right” product on their resume.
We sold the client on potential, not background. We “packaged” each candidate, emphasizing their skills in channel management, analytics, and regional growth experience, rather than the names of their former employers.
The Final Outcome:
We found a candidate for the client who had never sold a single power tool before. However, they had rock-solid experience in the construction sector, knew all the local distributors inside out, possessed excellent English, and was precisely that “combine harvester” skilled in all sales channels. Overcoming internal resistance, the client agreed – and received the strategist they were looking for, albeit forged in a different, yet adjacent, “smithy.”
Our Key Conclusions:
Sometimes the best candidate lies beyond the limitations set by the client. Our job is not to follow them blindly, but to professionally expand those boundaries.
A narrowly focused industry search under strict “forbidden lists” is a path to a dead end. The solution is a search based on competencies and the type of problems solved.
Success depends on controlling the process at all levels, including the ability to “translate” a candidate’s profile into the language of the client’s benefits.
