Exton Park

The Challenge

Exton Park is one of the UK’s leading premium English Sparking Wine Estates, planted on the rolling chalk slopes of the South Downs in Hampshire. Exton’s pioneering ‘Reserve Blend’ is at the forefront of the English Sparkling wine category with its innovative approach, philosophy and diverse library of aged liquids blended to a house style with each harvest.

The business’s founder and entrepreneur Malcolm Isaac’s vision for Exton is to be the market-leading English Sparkling brand. Exton has made significant investments into building a world-class estate, winery, wine experience building ‘Exton Hall’, and a highly skilled and committed team to realise his vision.

To deliver a step change in growth post the completion of Exton Hall, the Cesium Group was retained to manage a UK-wide executive search mandate to recruit the business’s first CEO to work with the NED board and SLT to shape the next phase of the business’s growth journey.

The Solution

Two of Cesium Group’s team spent an immersive day at Exton Park to fully appreciate the culture, business functions, team profiles and leadership requirements. They met with the Chairman, the senior leadership team, and a number of the non-Executive board members for one-to-one sessions. This approach gave a more complete understanding of the company, and the personalities involved and provided input from all key stakeholder groups on their vision for the role of the incoming CEO.

Following these sessions and in close partnership with the Chairman and HR Director, the Cesium Group shaped a set of leadership competencies and built a detailed candidate briefing deck to support employer branding and showcase the business’s potential before embarking on a rigorous executive search process.

Having mapped out the landscape and headhunted key high profile talent across the UK the Cesium Group delivered a broad long-list of talent with the track record and behavioural attributes to lead Exton, ultimately securing the services of a seasoned industry veteran.

Testimonial

“Paul and his team did an outstanding job for us. They took time to properly understand the brief, build the right candidate profile, and we received excellent feedback from the candidates about the pre-briefing and preparation they gave to those shortlisted. I would have no hesitation at all in recommending Cesium Group as a senior talent search partner.”