What Do Foreign Companies Get Wrong When Hiring Their First US Executive?

Philip Lamb
May 6
6 min read

Updated: Jun 9

PRL International | prlinternational.com

Every year, hundreds of foreign companies open US operations. Manufacturing plants in Tennessee and South Carolina. Regional headquarters in Texas and Georgia. Sales offices in Chicago and Philadelphia. Most of them arrive with detailed capital plans, committed boards, and a clear picture of what they are building. Almost none of them arrive with a clear picture of how to hire the American executives who will determine whether the investment works.

In more than 30 years of placing executives for foreign companies entering the US market, the failures follow a pattern that is almost always traceable to decisions made before the search began. The job description was written for the wrong candidate. The compensation was built on home-country assumptions. The search process was designed for a market that does not behave like the US market. And when the hire fails six months in, the company blames the executive.

The problem was never the executive. The problem was the process.

Why Does the Same Job Description That Works at Home Fail in the United States?

The same job description that works in Germany, Japan, or Italy fails in the United States because the American executive labor market operates on entirely different assumptions.

At-will employment is the standard. There is no legally mandated notice period of several months. There is no 13th-month salary. Compensation is structured around base salary, performance bonus, and in many cases equity or profit sharing. A foreign company that posts a role with a compensation structure calibrated to its home market will attract candidates who could not get a better offer in the US market -- which is precisely the pool they do not want.

Beyond compensation, the cultural expectations are different in ways that matter immediately. American executives expect autonomy. They expect short decision cycles. They expect to be evaluated on outcomes, not on process adherence or organizational loyalty. A management style that works inside a consensus-driven culture in Munich or Tokyo will lose the best American candidates before the first offer is extended. Those candidates will take another meeting, receive another offer from a company they understand, and be gone from the process before the hiring manager realizes what happened.

According to Korn Ferry, 97 percent of executives cite culture fit as critical or very important to their decision to join a company. Foreign companies entering the US market consistently underestimate how much of that assessment happens in the first two conversations -- and how quickly a candidate decides whether a foreign-owned company is a place where they can actually lead.

What Is the Actual Mistake in the First US Executive Hire?

The actual mistake in the first US executive hire is treating it like a routine fill rather than a foundational decision.

The first VP of Operations a foreign manufacturer places in the US sets the tone for how the plant floor gets built. The first CFO establishes the financial controls, banking relationships, and reporting cadence that will govern the operation for years. The first CHRO creates the people infrastructure -- the benefits plan, the performance management system, the employment practices -- that determines whether the company can attract and keep American talent. These are not replaceable decisions on a two-year timeline. They are structural decisions that compound in both directions.

Harvard Business Review research has found that 60 to 70 percent of senior executive placements in cross-cultural environments underperform within the first 18 months, with cultural misalignment cited as the primary factor more often than technical qualifications. The foreign company that hires the wrong general manager does not just lose the executive. It loses the 18 months of operational progress that should have happened during that time, the team members who followed the wrong leader's direction, and the credibility with the US market that a bad start produces.

The companies that get this right treat the first hire as a strategic decision, not an HR transaction. They spend time with a search partner before writing the job description to understand what profile actually succeeds in a foreign-owned US operation -- because that profile is specific and not always obvious from outside the market.

Why Does the Candidate Pool Look Different for a Foreign Company?

The candidate pool looks different for a foreign company because the executives most qualified for the role are often reluctant to take it, and the executives most available are often the wrong ones for it.

The profile that works best in a first-hire role for a foreign manufacturer is specific. The candidate needs operational experience in the relevant industry. They need a track record of building teams and establishing infrastructure, not just inheriting and running existing operations. And they need experience working inside a foreign-owned enterprise -- understanding how to translate between a US workforce and a parent company that makes decisions differently, moves at a different speed, and measures success by different criteria.

That candidate is not easy to find. They are almost certainly not actively looking for a new role. Research consistently shows that more than 70 percent of senior US executives are passive candidates who move only when someone they already trust reaches out directly. A foreign company with no US network cannot reach those candidates through a job posting or a LinkedIn outreach message. The candidates who respond to those methods are the candidates who needed a new job, which is a different population than the candidates who have options and are being selective.

Eisenhower observed: "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are worthless, but planning is everything." The foreign companies that build strong US leadership teams are not the ones with the most detailed job descriptions. They are the ones that spent time before the search began understanding the US market, the specific candidate profile the role requires, and what it will take to close a passive candidate who does not need the job but might want it.

PRL International is a retained executive search firm serving Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania and working with international companies entering the US market across energy, manufacturing, aerospace, and industrial sectors. We have placed senior US executives for foreign companies for more than 30 years and work with clients in English, German, Japanese, French, and Italian.

What Does the Right First US Hire Process Actually Look Like?

The right first US hire process starts with a market conversation before a search is launched.

Before the job description is written, the company needs to understand what the role actually pays in the US market right now -- not what the home country equivalent earns, and not what the company budgeted 12 months ago. Compensation data in the US executive market moves. A number calibrated to last year's data or to a different geography will price the company out of the candidates they want before the first conversation happens.

The job description needs to be rewritten for the US audience. The language that signals credibility to a European or Asian executive often signals rigidity to an American one. The requirements that are genuinely necessary for the role need to be separated from the ones that are simply familiar to the hiring manager. In the US market, a job description that is too narrow or too prescriptive signals a company that does not understand how American executives work -- and the best candidates will pass on that signal before they ever apply.

The search process needs to be proactive, not reactive. For a foreign company with no US brand recognition, a posting-based process will not surface the candidates worth hiring. A retained search firm maps the market, identifies who is performing the role well at comparable companies right now, and reaches those candidates through existing relationships. That process takes 60 to 90 days when run correctly. It requires starting before the pressure to fill the seat exists.

The reference process needs to go beyond verification. For a foreign company that cannot rely on its own US network to validate a candidate's reputation, the search firm's reference relationships are the only check on whether the candidate is genuinely respected in their market or simply good at interviewing. That check matters more for a foreign company than for a domestic one, precisely because the foreign company has fewer informal ways to verify what they are being told.

For country-specific guidance on building US leadership teams, read how to hire senior leaders as a German company expanding into the United States, how to hire senior leaders as a Japanese company expanding into the United States, and how to hire senior leaders as an Italian company expanding into the United States. For what candidates evaluate when considering a foreign-owned company, read what questions you should ask a European company before accepting a US general manager role. To understand why the job description itself is often the first failure point, read why your job description is scaring away the best candidates. For more on our international practice, visit the international executive search overview.