our firm
FOUNDERS
  • Emmanuel Hemmerle

    Emmanuel has lived and worked in China since Year 2000.


    Prior to co-launching EH, he was a Senior Client Partner and Head of Global Consumer Market for Korn Ferry International, in China. He was also a member of the Firm’s Board & CEO Services Practice, assisting clients in areas such as Board Director and CEO searches, CEO succession planning, and executive assessments. Before joining Korn Ferry, Emmanuel was a Partner at Heidrick & Struggles where he specialized in Consumer and Industrial Practices in service industry segments such as retail, fashion, luxury goods, hospitality, as well as, automotive, equipment and process industries. 


    Over the course of his executive search career, he has led over 500 executive searches and interviewed close to 5,000 executives in China.  


    Previous to executive search, Emmanuel built a substantial corporate business career. In China, he was an executive with the Zuellig Group. Before that, he started his career with Michelin where he spent a number of years in Europe and South America, first in sales, later in marketing, and eventually in general management. 


    Emmanuel holds a Master’s degree in Economics and Finance from Sciences-Po in Paris, an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a diploma in Chinese language and civilization from Peking University. He speaks fluent Mandarin, English, and French, in addition to his mother tongue, Spanish.

  • Zhao Hui

    Prior to co-founding EH, Zhao Hui spent 10 years in Human Resources leadership positions in China with two successful multinational companies: the automotive components manufacturer Valéo, where she was China HR Manager for one of the company's divisions, and the leading global sporting goods retailer Décathlon, where she helped build the business from inception in China, as APAC Talent Acquisition Director first, and then as China HR Director.

     

    Zhao Hui's experience includes the non-profit sector after her work with Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the international medical humanitarian organization. She started her career with Swiss chemicals multinational Ciba as Environment, Health and Safety Supervisor.

     

    Zhao Hui holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Beijing Union University and earned her MBA from ESSEC Business School in France. A Chinese national, Zhao Hui speaks English and French in addition to her native Mandarin.

OUR STORY
The common executive hiring approach
  • Unfortunately, the dominant search model in the market is volume-driven whereby candidates are treated as commodities.

    While working in large, multinational companies, whether corporate or executive search firms, Emmanuel and Zhao Hui repeatedly heard Clients and Candidates voicing a common concern, that executive search is very often transactional, impersonal, superficial, bureaucratic, and volume-driven. In this system, candidates are just a commodity to be traded. 


    This dominant model is not satisfactory from Candidates’ perspective as it means bad personal experience, and no value add, no learning, no insights on the job opportunity and its business context. Candidates feel they are treated like an object being passed along in the process. This is a reason why many Candidates are driven away from transactional search firms. Several excellent candidates have even told us: “I have eliminated most search firms from my contact list because of their transactional and poor value-added behavior”. This turns into a problem for Employers that collaborate with such executive search firms: they miss out on top quality candidates as a result.

  • Most retained executive search firms pursue a global standardized format which is a suboptimal approach.

    Furthermore, Emmanuel and Zhao Hui observed that many players in the executive search industry pursue a standardized and globalized growth model directed from their Western-centric head-office. This is another obstacle to high quality outcomes because in executive search, it is the consultant on the ground who can make the difference, not the multinational platform behind, with its underlying bureaucracy. By pushing the technocratic standardization and globalization onto the executive search craft, these firms hamper the necessary independence, entrepreneurship, and agility to embrace the local particularism. 


    The globalized and standardized model for sure provides a form of convenience, like in other industries such as retail or fast-food, but this model is not suited to a complex and ambiguous craft like executive search. Sadly, Emmanuel and Zhao Hui saw Clients frequently use Western-based global executive search firms for China just because they are familiar with those firms in their home market or because of a global contract, not because the consultant on the ground is the most suited to conduct the search. This inclination toward the easy and yet suboptimal approach poses a problem of search quality and outcome. 

  • Very often, senior executives are hired without proper thorough due diligence into their background.

    Companies often hire senior executives without checking thoroughly into their background: either because their HR directly conducts the search and is not equipped to manage thorough due diligence, or because their search firm is eager to close the assignment thus botching the due background checks or not fully disclosing their findings on a final candidate. This common poor practice poses very high risks. Firstly, bad surprises may happen once such candidate is on board. Secondly, the whole market locally is generally quickly made aware of any negative baggage in the hired executive, which dangerously affects the local subsidiary’s culture and its employer branding. 


    When multinational companies hire key executives without a proper background check, they expose themselves to leadership problems and performance issues down the road. In addition, the hiring of leaders with poor reputation makes it increasingly difficult for these companies to attract the best talent in the market, which ends up hurting their business performance in the region. Emmanuel and Hui heard so many executives in China say: “how could this famous multinational company hire such an executive who has notoriously committed compliance violations in the past or engaged in grave behaviors with team members? Then, if such is the culture or the insensitivity of this company, I will turn them down whenever they contact me! No way I will join such an organization.” 

  • Direct talent approach by companies is seldom an effective activity when it comes to hiring successful senior executives.

    The global spread of social media professional platform has encouraged some companies to get in the business of directly contacting and poaching other companies’ employees. Emmanuel and Hui heard most senior executives in the market concur that a multinational’s such direct talent search activity, while it can work when hiring junior to mid-level managers, is in fact seldom an effective approach when it comes to hiring senior executives. A company's self-promotion triggers doubt in many senior executives as they point out to a bias and lack of objectivity.

     

    Candidates seek instead a trusted independent advisor who can act as an honest broker along a hiring process. They prefer to work with a search consultant with strong seniority and credibility at senior leadership level, a consultant who has built very solid business practice and industry expertise. Candidates most prefer when they deal directly with the founder of the executive search firm as a successful business leader and entrepreneur who can coach them and bring lasting value to them.

By launching EH, Emmanuel and Hui wanted to create a company that brings solutions to the above problems both for the Client and the Candidate.

  • At EH, people matter

    In our view, Executive Search’s essence is diametrically opposed to other standardized and commoditized consulting models. It is not about a set of easily replicable and scalable matrixes, or about systems and methodologies that supersede the consultant. The fundamental human dimension of executive search is in truth antithetical to standardization, transactional process, and excess global scalability. Simply put, people matter, and culture prevails. Sustainability in executive search means that its focus must remain human and local.

  • A different approach

    Emmanuel and Zhao Hui are firm believers in the human side of the business. They gradually developed their own consulting approach, vastly removed from the usual practice. In 2014, driven by an increasing passion to shape and build a very different type of executive search consulting, they decided to go independent to express their vision fully and freely: this was the birth of EH. They have built a successful track record and their firm is hailed as a prestigious leadership consulting firm on the global stage. EH is also a proud and pioneering global consulting firm at the Retained Executive Search level.

  • Uncompromising commitment to our values

    One of the key reasons for this success is that, besides a strong work ethic and consummate dedication to their craft, Emmanuel and Zhao Hui do not compromise their beliefs for profit or growth. Part of the firm’s philosophy is to be extremely selective in the choice of clients, collaborating with those who have the same values and long-term vision.

     

    Emmanuel Hemmerle and Zhao Hui have since the beginning chosen to keep their firm as a boutique so that clients and candidates get the personalized service that they deserve.
     

WHAT MAKES US UNIQUE
  • Expertise

    We advise some of the world’s most prestigious companies, all leading players in consumer products, lifestyle, luxury, beauty, technology, healthcare, and automotive. Our long-term relationships with senior leaders give us access to top talent and help us identify and attract the most suitable executives for your organization.

  • Humanity

    Compassion, understanding, consideration, generosity… define humanity, and are all needed to build lasting relationships. Because humanity is a core value in our company and we take a long-term view of our business, we reject the transactional mentality. A candidate is first and foremost a human being.

  • EH

    Executive search is above all a “people business”. It deals with human beings who are by nature unique and complex. At EH we seek to build unique relationships with our clients and candidates in the complex business environment of China, through craftsmanship, passion, specialization, independence, and integrity.

The 7 cornerstones of our values & identity:
  • Specialization

    Rather than seeking to grow bigger and pursue a ubiquitous and “general merchandise” model, Emmanuel Hemmerle favors niche, hands-on service that specializes in a limited industry scope and focuses on a defined geography. As a complement to executive search, we also offer our advisory services to assist our existing clients.

     

    In the realm of pure human high-touch service, small is beautiful in order to provide superior, flexible one-on-one service to both clients and candidates.
     

    Rather than seeking to grow bigger and pursue a ubiquitous and “general merchandise” model, Emmanuel Hemmerle favors niche, hands-on service that specializes in a limited industry scope and focuses on a defined geography. As a complement to ...

  • Integrity

    We present all our market research and feedback to our clients in a completely transparent and unadulterated manner. 

     

    We conduct rigorous screening of the candidates we present to make sure we weed out future integrity risks for our clients. 

     

    We have the luxury of choosing our clients as much as they choose us. To avoid conflicts of interest, we work selectively with a reduced number of players in any given industry. In addition, we only partner with those companies that uphold integrity in their behavior and respect China and its values. 

     

    We also give both our clients and candidates honest feedback and tell them straightforwardly what is possible and what is not. 
     

    We present all our market research and feedback to our clients in a completely transparent and unadulterated manner. 

     

    We conduct rigorous screening of the candidates we present to make sure we weed out future integrity r ...

  • Craftsmanship

    Executive Search is a craft, one whose main element is not wood, metal, or fabric, but talent.  Yet we take inspiration from eternal artisans: Tang Dynasty’s Changnan potters, Renaissance goldsmiths, and Suzhou silk-weaving craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty, or modern Swiss watchmakers. Like them, we apply a combination of art and technique bolstered by an obsession for quality, depth, and detail in the relentless pursuit of perfection. 

     

    Our co-founder, Emmanuel, is a passionate craftsman of executive search. He lives and breathes his trade as a noble and sophisticated craft that demands a subtle combination of hundreds of soft variables around people’s psyche, aspirations, and emotions to deliver a tailor-made service, a premium experience that is personalized, high-touch, intuitive, creative, insightful, but also tenacious, rigorous, and thorough.
     

    Executive Search is a craft, one whose main element is not wood, metal, or fabric, but talent.  Yet we take inspiration from eternal artisans: Tang Dynasty’s Changnan potters, Renaissance goldsmiths, and Suzhou silk-weaving craftsmen of the ...

  • Independence

    EH is an independently owned firm. We can provide nimble service to our clients because, unlike big executive search consulting firms, we are free of a heavy global infrastructure, stock-market imperatives, and global HQ’s volume targets. 

     

    Our long-term plans involve keeping the firm private, where the owner will continue to personally take care of every single client.
     

    EH is an independently owned firm. We can provide nimble service to our clients because, unlike big executive search consulting firms, we are free of a heavy global infrastructure, stock-market imperatives, and global HQ’s volume targets. 

  • Business focus

    It all starts with the business. In our eyes, a recruitment is not just about filling a vacancy based on a dry HR job description. 

     

    At EH, we place a search for a C-suite executive into the greater business context: this requires not only a strong knowledge of the company’s business in China but also an expertise into China’s broader economic dynamics. We don’t engage in a search without firstly carrying out our own due diligence into the business context and secondly holding at the onset a deep discussion with the senior business leader who oversees the position.  

     

    Our business focus is rooted in our corporate business leadership background and our experience as independent business owners in China.
     

    It all starts with the business. In our eyes, a recruitment is not just about filling a vacancy based on a dry HR job description. 

     

    At EH, we place a search for a C-suite executive into the greater business context: this ...

  • Bridging East and West

    Headquartered in Shanghai, we have built a powerful global reach and possess a strong business and cultural expertise of the markets we operate in.

           

    Most of our searches are global in nature: we scout for talent all over the world.

     

    The leadership positions we fill are based in Asia and in Europe.

     

    Our searchers' roles have scopes that cover China, or Asia, or the whole of Asia Pacific, or the entire world when these are C-suite (CEO, COO, CSO, CMO……)

     

    Headquartered in Shanghai, we have built a powerful global reach and possess a strong business and cultural expertise of the markets we operate in.

           

    Most of our searches are global in nature ...

  • Partnership

    We work in trust-based long-term relationships as much with our clients as with our candidates. This is how we get to know very well our clients: their business, competition, leaders, organization, culture, and internal dynamics. We can thus best help them find the most suitable executives and assist them with adjacent services. Similarly, our long-lasting partnerships with the best executives in the market enable us to get easy and quick access to them, both as candidates and sources when needed. 

     

    We strive to provide the best possible advice and experience to both our clients and candidates.
     

    We work in trust-based long-term relationships as much with our clients as with our candidates. This is how we get to know very well our clients: their business, competition, leaders, organization, culture, and internal dynamics. We can thus best help ...