Accelerating Growth: Building Market Leadership in Southeast Asia

The Client

Our client is a global, U.S.-based company with private equity backing and more than 30 years of operational history. Active in 17 countries, the company aims to be a leading global provider of technology-enabled solutions for food safety, quality, and sustainability, helping businesses meet regulatory requirements and innovate efficiently.

The Challenge

With a five-year strategic plan to double global revenue, the company sought to accelerate expansion in Asia by hiring a best-in-class industry leader to establish and grow its Southeast Asia business from Thailand.

The new executive would collaborate closely with global leadership to design and execute the regional growth plan, developing markets from a small base through both organic expansion and targeted acquisitions. The ideal candidate needed to combine local expertise with international experience and the ability to lead M&A activities across rapidly developing territories.

The Solution

The search was referred by Boyden’s UK Mark Soden, who had successfully worked with the client in Europe, to Boyden Thailand, where Partner John Holme led the search.

Working from a detailed brief and video consultations with the Global HR Director and Hiring Director, the Boyden Thailand team defined the profile of an experienced, Thai-speaking Country General Manager with an MNC background, over 10 years of leadership in the food safety or agri-foods sector, and a proven record of commercial success across Southeast Asia.

Boyden executed a targeted search focused on candidates with the right balance of technical depth, regional understanding, and leadership capability to deliver rapid market growth.

The Results

Following close coordination with the client and weekly updates to the Global HR and Hiring Directors, Boyden developed a shortlist of four senior candidates, each with deep experience in the sector.

Three finalists were invited to in-person interviews in Bangkok, where the client’s leadership team conducted final evaluations. The chosen candidate had served as Country Managing Director for Thailand for a decade at one of the world’s top five players in the industry. Boyden negotiated and finalized the offer swiftly, securing the signed agreement within just over two months of the search launch.

The new Country General Manager began on October 1, marking a highly efficient and successful search cycle.

The Impact

Within weeks of joining, the new leader expressed strong optimism for the company’s growth potential in Asia and confidence in building and developing the regional team. The client commended Boyden for a seamless, globally coordinated search experience and an excellent outcome delivered in record time.