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PRL International | prlinternational.com Experience is the teacher of all things." -- Julius Caesar The general counsel search in a mid-market company is one of the most misunderstood executive searches a CEO will run. It is misunderstood because most mid-market CEOs have limited direct experience hiring lawyers at the executive level and because the role itself sits at an unusual intersection -- part legal technician, part business strategist, part risk manager, part board a

PRL International | prlinternational.com An army of sheep led by a lion will defeat an army of lions led by a sheep." -- Napoleon Bonaparte The European manufacturer who builds a world-class operation in Germany, Austria, or Italy and then attempts to replicate that model in the United States is working from a playbook that does not translate. Not because American manufacturing workers are less capable -- they are not. Not because the production systems are incompatible -- mo

PRL International | prlinternational.com "If you took the best battalion and the worst and switched their commander, in 90 days the best would become the worst and the worst would become the best." -- General George S. Patton Manufacturing plants do not fail because of bad equipment, poor product design, or weak customer relationships. They fail because of leadership. The same plant, the same workforce, the same machines, the same product -- put the wrong person in the VP of

PRL International | prlinternational.com "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." -- John Adams, 1770 The CFO search in an energy company is one of the most technically demanding executive searches in any industry. It is also one of the most frequently mishandled. Energy companies, particularly mid-market operators in oil and gas, midstream, and energy serv

PRL International | prlinternational.com The executive search market reached $64 billion in 2026, and that boom is reshaping how quickly companies have to move to land senior leaders. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act committed $1.2 trillion to roads, bridges, broadband, water systems, and energy grid modernization across the United States. The money is real, the projects are being awarded, and the senior operational and program leadership talent capable of executing

PRL International | prlinternational.com Most companies discover they need a senior environmental leader after a regulatory event, not before one. A notice of violation. A permit denial. A state audit that reveals gaps in the compliance infrastructure. By then the search is reactive, the timeline is compressed, and the candidate pool of executives who have managed exactly this type of situation is very small. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, environmental complian

PRL International | prlinternational.com The US energy sector is in a hiring environment unlike anything in recent memory. The Energy Information Administration reports that US energy production, including natural gas, LNG export, and power generation infrastructure, is at record levels heading into 2026. Capital is moving. Projects are being permitted and funded at an accelerated pace. And the senior leadership talent capable of running those projects is not keeping up with

PRL International | prlinternational.com "Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence." -- George Washington The US manufacturing expansion by European companies is accelerating. The U.S. Department of Commerce SelectUSA program reports that European foreign direct investment in American manufacturing represents the largest single source of inbound FDI in the country, with German, Austrian, and Italian manuf

PRL International | prlinternational.com "I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep. I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion." -- Alexander the Great Pittsburgh companies ask this question differently than they did five years ago. The market has changed. The labor pool for senior executives in Western Pennsylvania is tighter than it has been in a generation. Energy companies are competing for the same leadership talent as technology firms and healthcare systems

PRL International | prlinternational.com The wrong title is one of the most expensive mistakes a mid-market company makes in a marketing leadership search. A company at $50 million in revenue hires a CMO because it sounds right. The person they land has spent a career at the Fortune 500 level, is used to a team of thirty and a budget in the millions, and is now sitting in a company where they are the entire marketing department. Within eighteen months, they are gone, and the

PRL International | prlinternational.com You hire a Chief Sales Officer after an acquisition by starting the search before the deal closes, defining the role around the integration the business actually faces, and selecting a leader who has inherited and stabilized a sales team before, not just built one from scratch. The sales organization is the most volatile part of any newly acquired company, and who you put at the front of it decides whether revenue holds. No part of a n

Child at sink running cold water after eating a Carolina Reaper pepper while two adults laugh in the background I will keep the story part short, because sometimes a story tells itself. A few years back I brought my son into the office for bring your kid to work day. At the time I had two office suites in an industrial complex, a front office where my admin worked, a back office where I worked, a small kitchenette, and a bathroom. Nothing fancy. Functional. I got him set up i

PRL International | prlinternational.com Gartner published its CHRO priorities report for 2026 in October 2025. The headline finding was direct: CHROs' top priorities now center on realizing AI value and driving performance amid uncertainty. Not compliance. Not benefits administration. Not talent acquisition pipelines. AI value realization. That is a fundamental shift in what the CHRO role requires, and most hiring managers have not adjusted their search brief to match it. Th

PRL International | prlinternational.com The demand for energy CTOs has increased 35 percent annually over the last three years, according to Gartner. The supply of candidates who can actually do the job has not kept pace. That gap is not a market problem. It is a search problem. And the companies getting it wrong are not hiring bad people. They are searching in the wrong place for the wrong profile, and by the time they figure that out, the transformation initiative has stal

PRL International | prlinternational.com Senior leadership recruiting in oil and gas has never been a straightforward exercise, and the current market has made it harder. The candidate pool is technically narrow, geographically concentrated in specific basins and refining corridors, and composed almost entirely of executives who were not considering a move until the right conversation reached them at the right time. Add sustained competition between traditional operators and

PRL International | prlinternational.com The moment information about a leadership transition moves beyond the people who need to know it, you lose control of the story. In an organization where people are watching closely for signals about their own security, losing control of that story has consequences that compound fast. Research on executive transition practices finds that 70 percent of hiring managers conduct a confidential search when replacing an executive-level role.

PRL International | prlinternational.com Most family businesses know the transition is coming long before they do anything about it. A Deloitte Private survey of 300 family business executives published in 2026 found that 78 percent expect a CEO transition within the next decade, and 42 percent anticipate the shift within three to five years. Despite that urgency, only 57 percent have a formal succession plan, and fewer than a quarter are actively implementing one. The gap be

PRL International | prlinternational.com Forty percent of executive placements fail within the first 18 months. According to Korn Ferry research on executive transitions, COO roles at mid-market companies underperform even that average. The reason is almost never the wrong candidate. It is the wrong search -- one that started with a flawed assumption, promoted the obvious choice, and left the CEO operating without a real strategic partner for the next two years. The assumptio

なぜ母国のアプローチはアメリカの製造業で通用しないのか 米国市場で苦戦する外国メーカーの多くは、資本も技術も製品も揃っている。欠けているのはマネジメントの適応だ。自国で実証済みのシステムをそのまま持ち込み、何の修正もなく米国の労働力に適用しようとする企業は、予測可能な失敗へと向かう。そのコストは高く、しかも回避できたはずのものだ。 2024年のステランティスは、この失敗を世界規模で示した事例となった。CEOカルロス・タバレスは欧州市場では標準的だが米国では機能しない在庫プッシュモデルをディーラーとの関係に適用した。ディーラーへの報酬が実際の販売台数ではなく車両出荷台数に連動する仕組みだ。2024年第3四半期、北米の売上高は42パーセント下落した。10万ドルを超えるジープ・グランドワゴニアが10万台以上、ディーラーの駐車場に積み上がった。タバレスは2024年12月に辞任した。取締役会は「米国市場での運営方法について見解の相違があった」と述べた。外交的な表現だが、要するにそのモデルは通用しなかったということだ。 一方、異なる結果を出した企業もある。ホ

Quello che Stellantis e Fincantieri hanno imparato sul mercato americano "Ciò che vi ha portato fin qui non vi porterà oltre." Questa osservazione ha messo fine a più di una carriera. Per i produttori stranieri che si espandono negli Stati Uniti, mette fine a intere operazioni americane. Le aziende che faticano maggiormente sul mercato americano non sono quelle a corto di capitali, tecnologia o prodotti. Sono quelle che arrivano con un sistema di management collaudato nel pro