As the CEO of the multinational executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles, Mr Kevin Kelly possesses an uncanny ability to match qualified candidates with the best careers possible. And at a time when Asia is on its rise, he aspires to be part of the dynamic change, hunting for the right executives to lead Asian organisations that are now expanding to the rest of the world.
His interest in Asia is no mere passing fancy but one forged years ago. He was in his early 20s when a friend called from Japan and asked him if he was interested in going there to teach English.
“My life-changing moment was the time I decided to go and work in Japan,” he says. “My career in life wouldn’t be close to where it is right now if I were to stay in the United States. Without the experiences I gained in Japan and through the time I spent working in Asia, I would not have been able to be the person I am today.”
Mr Kelly is no stranger to successful executives either; he has been developing the mind of a leader since his years in college. At George Mason University he developed an interest in politics and even ran unsuccessfully for the student presidency. After he graduated, he entered the banking business, but two years later, his life’s journey took a different path.
“It was a time when the banking market in the US was not really going so well and I had been reading a book about studying Japanese,” he recalls. “I thought it would be a good opportunity and would help my career in the future I spent time teaching English in a rural area in Japan for about a year and a half, but at the same time managed to study a Japanese language course. I didn’t want to go back to the US, so I tried to find a job in Tokyo and somebody referred me to a headhunting company.”
Travelling back and forth to the recruiting company with hopes that soon the job he was matched for would be offered, Mr Kelly realised that being unemployed in the most expensive city in the world was a terrible thing.
“The headhunter asked if I wanted to join the team. I said ‘no’; being a headhunter would be the last thing I wanted to do. But as I realised my condition, with the limited experiences that I had then, after the third time I was asked, I said ‘okay’.”
Mr Kelly thought that being a headhunter would allow him to find a better job, given he would have better access to many other interesting career opportunities. But soon he realised that he was really enjoying it and it was actually a career he had long been looking for.
After he worked as a search consultant in a Japanese company for two years, his career took him back to the United States, where he was assigned to open a new branch office in New York. “At first I thought it would be very easy, but then I learned that there were about 10,000 recruiting companies running in the city. So opening a Japanese company with no brand name was very daunting. The market was very saturated.”
In 1996, Mr Kelly returned to Japan to take up an opportunity from a British company, PA Consulting, which was looking for someone to run a Japanese office. But a year later, he decided to join Heidrick & Struggles in Tokyo as a partner. He was then named Regional Managing Partner for Asia Pacific in 2001 and became president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa from 2004-06, before he was named the CEO of the firm.
“I thought to myself that if I wanted to stay in the industry which I have begun to like, I have to work with the top company and Heidrick & Struggles is the one I wanted to work for,” he says.
Apart from looking after 55 offices with more than 1,500 employees around the globe, Mr Kelly has to spend considerable time with clients to ensure that the company remains at the forefront of the leadership industry. He also represents the firm at external events, including the World Economic Forum, a global organisation dedicated to bringing business, political, academic and other leaders together to address key issues.
He favours a philosophy based on working as a team and understanding of people across different cultures, a reflection of his time spent away from the United States.
“My experiences in Asia were unbelievable. In dealing with people from different cultures, there are a lot of concerns that we have to take into consideration. I am interested in studying new cultures and how to work across nationalities,” he explains.
The trend in the leadership field is now shifting toward Asia and more and more opportunities will emerge in this region, he believes.
“We used to help European companies, American companies and many other multinational companies that were looking to expand their business in Asia,” he says. “We helped them to find executives in the country or executives from the region to run the business here. But now we are helping clients from Asia that are seeking global executives for the companies of their own — it’s the other way around”.
The shrinking world has also given rise to demand for a new type of leader. In Mr Kelly’s view, the new qualification that today’s CEO must possess is “international experience”.
“We are now in the era when it no longer matters about your nationality or your background, but it is the experiences you have that you can bring to the organisation.”
According to him, ‘CQ’ or cultural quotient is becoming an important asset in this era as working across cultures is becoming more common.
The things that Mr Kelly finds most attractive in the executive search industry are consistency of learning, meeting new people and keeping up with new trends that emerge.
In the limited time he has left over from his busy schedule, Mr Kelly has also managed to write three books on leadership: CEO: The Lowdown on the Top Job; Top Jobs: How They Are Different and What You Need to Succeed, and Leading in Turbulent Times.
“My core value would be my sense of humour; being patient and nimble are also crucial. At a time when technological changes are abundant, you have to continue learning. I believe in the concept of ‘reverse mentoring’, when mentoring roles are flipped. You can learn from anyone at anytime you can,” he concludes.
