Executive Search Success Story: Building the Leadership Team for a Private-Equity-Backed Manufacturer’s Greenfield Highly Automated Smart Factory

How JRG Partners executed a confidential, multi-role North American executive search strategy that equipped a private-equity-backed precision metal components manufacturer with the plant, automation, industrial data, OT cybersecurity, and workforce leadership required to design, start up, and run a greenfield highly automated factory that doubled capacity with one-third the labor of its legacy plants.

The Challenge

A private equity sponsor had approved a $210M greenfield factory for its precision components platform, designed around flexible robotic cells, automated material handling, AI-driven scheduling, and a lean technical workforce, to double capacity and reset the platform’s cost position. The company’s existing plant leaders had run labor-intensive operations for decades, had never designed or started up an automated factory, and the sponsor’s underwriting depended on the new plant reaching its productivity targets within eighteen months of start-up. The engineering firm and integrators needed an owner’s leadership team to design against. Executive leadership and the sponsor identified several critical vulnerabilities threatening the program:

• No internal leadership with greenfield automated factory design and start-up experience
• Automation architecture decisions due before any leadership was in place
• AI-driven scheduling, quality, and maintenance capabilities with no industrial data leadership
• A connected factory with no OT cybersecurity or industrial network expertise
• A workforce model requiring technicians rather than operators in a region with no such talent base
• Sponsor productivity targets due within eighteen months of start-up

Recognizing that the factory’s design and ramp required an owner’s leadership team seated early, the sponsor and CEO engaged JRG Partners to recruit a Vice President & General Manager of the Smart Factory, Vice President of Automation & Robotics, Vice President of Industrial Data & AI, Director of OT Cybersecurity & Industrial Networks, and Vice President of Workforce Transformation. The company required an executive search partner with deep smart factory expertise and access to leaders who had started up highly automated plants.

Why They Chose JRG Partners

Smart Factory & Industrial AI Focus

JRG Partners maintains a dedicated practice serving manufacturers building smart factories and deploying industrial AI, with a clear understanding of automated factory architecture, industrial data platforms, OT security, and the workforce models highly automated plants require.

Greenfield Start-Up Experience

Our firm has extensive experience recruiting leadership teams for new highly automated facilities, with a clear understanding of design-phase decisions, commissioning, and ramp to productivity targets.

Private Equity Portfolio Experience

Our team works routinely with sponsors on capital program leadership builds, with a clear understanding of underwriting assumptions and the timelines they impose.

Our Executive Search Strategy

Phase 1 — Factory Program Alignment

Our consultants partnered directly with the sponsor’s operating partner, CEO, and engineering firm to review the factory design, automation concept, data and AI requirements, network architecture, workforce model, and productivity targets, defining five leadership profiles sequenced to design and construction milestones.

Phase 2 — Talent Identification & Mapping

Our research team performed an extensive talent mapping initiative targeting plant, automation, industrial data, OT security, and workforce executives at precision manufacturers, automation integrators, industrial technology companies, and highly automated plants who had led documented greenfield start-ups. Over 400 executives were systematically assessed across these sectors.

Phase 3 — Candidate Engagement

Priority during outreach was given to leaders with a documented history of starting up highly automated factories, designing flexible robotic cell and material handling systems, deploying AI-driven scheduling and quality systems, securing industrial networks, and building technician-based workforces in new regions. Only candidates meeting these strict performance baselines advanced.

Phase 4 — Selection Process

Finalists presented factory start-up plans to the sponsor and CEO, completed structured leadership assessments, and underwent reference verification focused on quantified start-up, productivity, and workforce outcomes.

Key Outcomes

• 400+ advanced manufacturing, automation, and industrial technology executive profiles mapped across North America.
• Successfully placed a synchronized leadership tier spanning plant leadership, automation, industrial data and AI, OT security, and workforce within seven months.
• Commissioned 64 robotic cells and automated material handling on schedule.
• Reached 98% first-pass yield within six months of start-up.
• Built a 220-technician workforce running at one-third the labor per unit of legacy plants.
• Reached productivity targets fourteen months after start-up, ahead of underwriting.