CertainTeed, a subsidiary of Saint-Gobain, sells interior and exterior building products for both residential and commercial applications. While they mainly deal in roofing and siding, they also sell trim, insulation, gypsum, and specialty ceilings. We’ve worked with them on-and-off for nearly 25 years, primarily supporting their sales team’s growth across the country at all levels of the organization. This time, they needed support finding someone for a more senior leadership role. 

They saw significant unrealized potential on the big-box retail side of their business, and they wanted to try tackling it from a slightly different direction. Their growth goals were aggressive, and they decided it was time to expand their sales team again, bringing a new Vice President of National Accounts into the fold. 

Internal talent acquisition teams are usually recruiting for a whole array of roles at any given time. Tackling higher-level leadership searches can be difficult to prioritize when there are so many other roles to fill. In this case, CertainTeed posted the role themselves but ultimately decided to bring us in on the search. Rather than waiting to see who would apply, they tasked us with proactively searching the entire market for the best fit. 

Due to the national nature of this sales role, we needed a nationwide lens for this search. But while the geographic scope was broad, their other qualifiers were much more specific. 

First, the right candidate would already be entrenched in the building materials retail space. We’re talking big-box stores like Home Depot, Menards, Lowes, etc. Having existing retail industry relationships—especially at the C-suite level for the bigger names in retail—played an enormous role in their view of potential candidates. (As anyone in the building materials industry can attest, relationships are the cornerstone of many critical business decisions.) Additionally, they wanted to bring in candidates doing at least $300M within that market and the national builder space. Anything larger equalled bonus points.

They also wanted someone who already had sales leadership experience. While this was an expansionary role, it wasn’t experimental: they needed someone who was a tried-and-true proven people leader. Ideally they wanted to move someone laterally into this role, handling that level of responsibility regardless of their official job title.

In total, we sent them 12 candidates across two slates, and the woman they hired absolutely knocked it out of the park. 

The candidate they chose came from a long, long tenure with a notable cabinet manufacturer. She spent 25 years working her way up from the lowest sales role to the VP of Retail where she spent seven years building deep relationships with one of the largest building materials retailers. Her greatest challenge through this process was tackling the deep loyalty she felt for her then-current company. She’d spend the vast majority of her career there, and by the time she left she was managing a $760M territory (a significant portion of the company’s overall business). 

Beyond checking all the right boxes, she’s an incredible presenter and excellent conversationalist. Everyone who interviewed her noted how she “owns the room,” even—and especially—with other high-level leaders in the room. While some may find themselves intimidated in that environment, she had no problem taking charge and driving conversations where they needed to go. 

Part of the interview process involved the later-stage candidates developing a strategic plan. This is where she truly took the cake, going above and beyond and clearly proving she was the perfect fit for the role. While a few other candidates got to the stage where they interviewed with the hiring manager, she was the only one to have a final interview with CertainTeed’s CEO. 

Like many executive-level roles, this one took longer than a “standard” search, about 4.5 months from our initial kick-off to the candidate’s hire date. The executive nature of the role meant coordinating interviews with high-level folks with incredibly busy schedules. Combined with the critical nature of choosing the right person and attempts to minimize the number of on-site trips for candidates, executive searches tend to run long. 

The candidate they chose was excited to apply her experience from a similar role to an adjacent product category. Just as they’d hoped, she spent her first 12 months in the role revamping the sales team and taking it to the next level. She continues excelling at her job and enjoying the role.

We’ve continued working with CertainTeed’s talent acquisition team to support the occasional talent search, generally based on the state of the market. 

If you take one lesson away from this placement, let it be this: it’s easy to write off a candidate with an exceptionally long tenure at their company. It’s easy to assume they’re too happy and loyal to ever leave. You never know was discontent or aspirations are simmering under the surface. Even if it seems unlikely the candidate will say yes, you want to work with a recruiter who’s willing to do their due diligence and always make the call. The person on the line just might surprise you.

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