Client: Baggerød AS (part of IMS Group)
Role: CEO
Industry: Industrial production – maritime fire doors and safety solutions
Location: Vestfold, Norway
Year: 2024
Øyvind Nilsen
Chairperson, Baggerød (IMS Group)
After a period of strong growth, Baggerød faced a crucial crossroads with increasing demands for structure, leadership, and quality. For the board, it was essential to find the right CEO, as a poor hire would have had clear consequences for both the organization and delivery capability. PU provided insight, structure, and professional execution, giving us a comprehensive decision-making basis that assured us we chose the right leader and laid a solid foundation for the next phase of Baggerød's development.
The Situation: A boardroom at a challenging crossroads
Baggerød is a solid Norwegian industrial company with specialized expertise in fire doors and maritime safety solutions. As part of the family-owned IMS Group, the company is in a strong position and has clear growth ambitions both nationally and internationally.
In the summer of 2024, the board of Baggerød faced an important crossroads.
The company experienced a phase of good and profitable growth, but increasing complexity in operations, deliveries, and the organization. At the same time, the current CEO wished to transition into a more product-oriented role towards retirement.
For the board, this was not just about replacing a leader, but about ensuring that the next phase of the company's development was led in a safe, structured, and sustainable manner. The question was fundamental but challenging:
How to professionalize leadership and organization without losing culture, ownership, and what actually worked?
What was at stake
Through initial dialogues, it became clear that the consequences of a wrong choice would have been real:
- Lack of common direction could weaken execution capability and delivery quality
- Unclear leadership principles could weaken collaboration and execution capability in a phase with increasing complexity
- Weak understanding of ownership structure and governance model could create friction between board and leadership
The assignment therefore required more than a traditional search. It required a precise decision-making basis.
As the chairperson later put it:
"Had we done this on our own, the process could easily have taken a wrong turn."
The Challenge: A leadership assignment with multiple dimensions
Baggerød has strong professional environments and a lot of technical expertise. This imposes high demands on leadership, coordination, and prioritization. Therefore, in 2024, there was an expressed need for:
- clearer structure and more consistent leadership principles
- better collaboration across functions
- increased organizational maturity in a phase of further growth
- a leader who understood the interplay between an autonomous subsidiary and a family-owned industrial owner
The board was clear that the role required more than industry experience alone.
"For us, it was important to find a CEO who not only had technical and industry background but who could also be an active driver for collaboration, delivery quality, and development of human resources."
PU's role: Providing the board with a better decision-making basis
PU was engaged to support the board in making the right decision in a phase where the risk was high and the consequences long-term. To ensure a common decision basis, PU worked closely with the chairperson at Baggerød and the executive management at IMS Group. The focus early on was to establish a common understanding of:
- the company's strategic direction and ambitions
- expected leadership behavior and interaction with the board
- the ownership's role and governance model
- which risks needed to be reduced and which qualities needed to be strengthened
Then, we conducted individual conversations with the entire management team at Baggerød to uncover critical insights into the organization's actual state, culture, and interaction patterns. This real organizational context helped clarify what a new leader would need to handle from day one.
The insight work was crucial to translating ambitions and challenges into a precise and realistic requirements profile.
The Candidate Selection: Leadership adapted to the context
The search strategy was developed based on the actual situation the board was in, not an idealized job description.
The final candidates shared three key characteristics:
- documented operational leadership strength
- practical understanding of production and operational environments
- ability to create structure and development through people
The selected candidate had broad leadership experience from complex industrial environments and was consistently described as clear, inclusive, analytical, and trust-building. In the evaluations, he appeared particularly strong in building culture, responsibility, and interaction – directly in line with what the board had defined as critical for the company's further development.
The Outcome: Increased direction, clearer leadership, and better anchoring
The new CEO spent the first months getting to know the organization, production, and people. With this as a foundation, several targeted measures were implemented:
- clearer responsibility and decision-making structure
- more systematic collaboration in the management team
- strengthened interaction across functions
- organizational adjustments to support further growth
The result is a more aligned organization, with clearer leadership and better execution capability. For the board, this has provided increased confidence in governance and priorities.
"PU brought insight and experience, had control of the process, and contributed to us landing the right candidate."
This was not a recruitment to fill a vacancy, but a boardroom choice with real consequences for the company's further development.