Built three C-suite leaders into one of the Kingdom's strategically important maritime hubs, in 10 weeks.

The mandate

One of the Kingdom’s most strategically important maritime hubs engaged us in 2024 to support a critical phase of leadership expansion aligned with its long-term growth and operational excellence agenda. As the institution continued to scale and strengthen its positioning within the regional and global logistics ecosystem, three C-suite seats opened in parallel across finance, strategy and human capital.

The challenge sat in the highly specialised sector experience required: ports and maritime infrastructure, combined with exposure to IPO environments, regulatory frameworks, and government entities such as MAWANI. The CFO mandate required IPO experience within the port sector specifically; the Chief Strategy Officer required direct experience with MAWANI; the CHRO mandate was nationality-locked to a KSA national with strong network depth across the maritime and logistics sector.

JOH Partners worked directly with the CEO and Board to navigate these challenges, ensuring the successful identification and placement of leaders aligned with both operational and strategic objectives.

Our approach

The mandate ran across four phases.

01. Calibration

One week, compressed. Three parallel calibration sessions with the CEO and the relevant board members. Compressed because two of the three roles had been internally scoped for several months prior; the brief arrived with sharper definitions than is typical.

02. Market mapping

Two weeks, three parallel maps. The MAWANI-experience filter on the CSO mandate and the IPO-port-experience filter on the CFO mandate both compressed the candidate pool meaningfully. The CHRO map ran KSA-national exclusively.

03. Longlist research

Three weeks. Primary research weighted heavily toward sector-specific candidates, with selective inclusion of cross-sector candidates carrying credible port-context fluency.

04. Shortlist and assessment

Four weeks. Final-round selection was sequenced by the institution’s board cadence. All three offers were signed by week ten.

The other roles delivered

The talent market intelligence section below covers the Chief Financial Officer seat. The mandate also delivered two further appointments.

Chief Strategy Officer. Strategy leader with direct MAWANI engagement experience, hired to lead long-term strategy and regulatory alignment for the institution.

Chief Human Resources Officer (KSA national). Senior HR leader sourced from the maritime and logistics sector, hired to build the human capital function aligned to Vision 2030 talent objectives.

The outcome

Three offers were signed within ten weeks of engagement. All three remain in seat at twelve months. The hires have strengthened the institution’s leadership team, enhancing its capacity to achieve operational excellence and support the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 logistics and infrastructure agenda.

The team

The mandate was led by the partner heading our Logistics and Transport practice, supported by a research director (full-time across ten weeks), a market analyst (full-time across five weeks) and a delivery PM (full-time throughout). Quarterly retention check-ins continue as part of our 24-month standing commitment.

Three seats, three different sector filters, ten weeks from engagement to signed. The MAWANI lens and the IPO-port lens were the constraints that mattered. JOH took both seriously from the first conversation.