Rosenzweig & Co. Recruits CCSO for Cole Engineering

"This CCSO assignment, and others like it that the firm conducts globally on a regular basis, clearly puts Jay Rosenzweig & Co. as the leading high-end search boutique internationally,” said Scott A. Scanlon, founding chairman and CEO of Hunt Scanlon

Rosenzweig & Co. has recruited Allan Kamerman as chief corporate services officer (CCSO) for Cole Engineering Group Ltd., a specialized consulting and engineering solutions company which addresses population growth and related environmental impacts. Mr. Kamerman’s placement comes on the heels of Rosenzweig’s recruitment of the company’s new president and CEO, Mohsen Mortada. Cole currently comprises 280 technical and support staff operating in Canada and the Caribbean.

The CCSO post at many major international companies is growing in stature and importance. “These people do it all,” said Jay Rosenzweig, president of the Toronto-based search firm. “They focus on all of the corporate services functions: finance, HR, marketing, technology, and legal, among other corporate disciplines. In this case, we recruited a person with a CFO background whose career trajectory caused him to take on greater and greater responsibilities in running businesses beyond just the finance function.”

Mr. Rosenzweig has a number of active searches underway that also require him to look wide and deep for senior-level professionals who can do more than what a standard position specification requires. He and his colleagues are looking for a digital marketing head for Bank of Montreal (Harris Bank), a head of communications for a major private equity firm, a chief administrative officer for another leading PE-firm, and a chief program officer for the Institute for New Economic Thinking based in New York (founded by global investor George Soros). In each case, the corporate mandate is to go beyond the obvious skill sets to identify non-traditional candidates who can think outside the box. “We are being asked more and more by our clients to marry their strategic objectives to our recruitment objectives,” said Mr. Rosenzweig. “To them, and to us, it’s about leadership. That’s the mandate.”

Mr. Mortada, Cole Engineering’s president and CEO, clearly supports this approach. After being placed as CEO at the company by Rosenzweig & Co., he returned to Mr. Rosenzweig to search for more leaders. “We have enjoyed our strategic partnership with Rosenzweig,” said Mr. Mortada. “Rosenzweig's proactive approach to defining the desired role, creating critical success factors for our organization and the candidate, and delivering the right candidate quickly and efficiently has been invaluable to our business.”

“This CCSO assignment, and others like it that the firm conducts globally on a regular basis, clearly puts Jay Rosenzweig & Co. as the leading high-end search boutique internationally,” said Scott A. Scanlon, founding chairman and CEO of Hunt Scanlon Media. A search through Hunt Scanlon databases shows that Rosenzweig & Co. has placed a number of top-flight business leaders around the world, including the Asia head of PR and communications for Manulife/John Hancock Asia (based in Hong Kong), the Latin America and Mexico senior legal counsel for Guardian Industries (based in Sao Paulo); chief executives for Kelso & Company private equity investments, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and Caesarstone; the CFO of Dundee REIT International; as well as board directors at Kinross Gold, Concordia Healthcare, and CAA.

Since 2004, Rosenzweig & Co. has focused on critical, specialized executive search. The firm also offers management assessment, onboarding and executive coaching, organizational effectiveness, digital media strategy, and risk advisory & compliance services to a growing international client base.