LivCor was formed in 2013 as a portfolio company of The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX), a leading global investment and advisory firm.  It is one of the premier real estate companies in the United States focusing on the ownership and asset management of apartment properties. As a comprehensive real estate operator, LivCor currently owns and manages 152 properties comprising approximately 42,000 units located in 22 states. LivCor is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

The challenge:

LivCor’s Finance team approached SystemsAccountants to kick off a search assignment for an experienced Financial Systems Director. LivCor had grown rapidly and the pace of this growth had outstripped their financial reporting, budgeting and planning capabilities. The business also wanted to hire an exec with a balanced blend of Financial Reporting and Transactional Accounting process expertise, combined with a deep technical subject matter knowledge of Oracle Hyperion PBCS and JD Edwards OneWorld ERP, to manage and optimise their Financial Systems architecture.

The solution:

A SystemsAccountants Director, took point on all client interaction, which included obtaining and documenting a comprehensive role and candidate profile report, and then led a team of recruitment consultants to execute a discrete and exhaustive search.

In addition to leveraging our known network of financial systems professionals, our research team generated a long list of options via various in-house databases and social media tools. Our account director then met, interviewed and assessed the most appropriate candidates, and refined a shortlist of 4 candidates to present to LivCor’s CFO.

The outcome:

All four candidates were interviewed and via a staged selection process — one was offered and commenced employment within six weeks of the commencement of the assignment. The client had been looking for three months prior to engaging the services of SystemsAccountants.