A Complete Leadership and Engineering Team for a First U.S. Manufacturing Site

A leading manufacturer of inverters – power electronics for solar applications, headquartered in Europe – decided to establish its first production and engineering operation outside its home market: a plant in the western United States that would build both string inverters and central inverters, the large-scale systems used in utility and commercial installations.
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    The Situation

    Our client’s existing U.S. entity was set up purely as a sales and service organization – a small team marketing and supporting imported products. Manufacturing, engineering, and the related support functions existed only at corporate headquarters. The imbalance is clear in direct comparison:

     

    Corporate Headquarters (Home Market)

    U.S. Organization (Before the Project)

    Functions

    R&D, manufacturing, sales, service, and all central functions

    Sales and service only

    Manufacturing

    Inverter production with multi-gigawatt annual capacity

    None – all products were imported

    Engineering

    Central research and development with a mature organization

    Not present

    Employees

    Several thousand (including temporary staff)

    A small team of sales and service specialists

    Support functions

    Established structures for HR, finance, procurement, and supply chain

    No standalone structures suited to a manufacturing plant

    Revenue (group)

    High nine-figure revenue, growing rapidly

    A growth market with high strategic potential

    Less than twelve months separated the site decision from the planned start of production. In that window, an entire organization had to be built from a greenfield: manufacturing, engineering, and every supporting function. The site was expected to grow to several hundred employees with gigawatt-scale production capacity. Because the existing U.S. organization had neither manufacturing nor HR structures, every first-generation leader had to be recruited from the outside.

    The Engagement

    The Engagement

    Our mandate began with the search for a General Manager to take overall responsibility for building the site, reporting directly to the parent company’s head of production. On that foundation, we recruited the complete first leadership level: two Directors of Operations (one each for string inverters and central inverters), a Director of Human Resources, a Director of Finance, and a Director of Materials Management responsible for procurement, logistics, and the supply chain.

    Our Approach

    Our Approach

    We filled the top position first. The profile called for a proven plant-builder and turnaround manager. We found him at one of the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturers: an executive – a U.S. Navy veteran – who served as the company’s internal “firefighter” for critical plants – including the turnaround of its largest site – and whom we approached while he was running a plant in Poland. Despite the ongoing overseas assignment, he was secured within weeks, relocated from Texas to the new site, and helped shape the rest of the team from day one. The remaining leadership positions were filled from distinct talent pools across the electronics industry; the Director of Human Resources, for example, came from a globally leading distributor of electronic components. Beyond functional fit, we screened deliberately for cultural compatibility with headquarters: the HR leader we placed had built HR organizations from the ground up more than once – and, through family roots in the client’s home country, brought the language skills and cultural understanding needed for close collaboration with the parent organization.

    In parallel, we mapped the regional power electronics and industrial manufacturing landscape. For the engineering team, one leading regional supplier of controls and power electronics proved a particularly rich source of talent: five engineers moved from that competitor to our client.

    For every position, we went beyond approach and assessment: we structured market-appropriate offers under U.S. employment law and managed alignment between candidates and corporate headquarters – including background verification and onboarding support.

    The Result

    The Result

    The plant began production on schedule, led by a fully externally recruited leadership team of a General Manager and five directors. Within five years, the site’s annual shipment volume grew from zero to 400–500 million U.S. dollars; ISO certification was achieved within 18 months of start-up, and on-time delivery held at 95–100 percent. At its peak, the Americas region generated roughly 38 percent of group revenue – carried by a site whose production came on line just a few months after groundbreaking. The General Manager remained in the role for eight years – proof of the placement’s durability. Alongside its existing sales and service organization, our client now had a full manufacturing and engineering presence in the U.S. market for the first time. The relationship did not end there: in the years that followed, we filled additional product development roles for the site, including mechanical design engineers and development technicians, plus a further engagement for a senior technical executive. A first engagement became a multi-year partnership spanning the full lifecycle of the site.

    Planning to build your own operation in the U.S.?

    We recruit complete leadership teams, not just single positions – from the site’s top executive to engineering, HR, and supply chain.

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