DON CHRISTENSEN B.Com, B.A., CMC
Specialist Fields: IT Professionals, ERP Specialists, E-Commerce, Finance/Banking.
Background: Over 25 years experience of leadership roles in IT development, systems implementation and Management Consulting. His "Big Five" consulting experience includes recruiting senior personnel at the CEO, CFO, GM and Sales Director levels. 
E-Mail to donc@stoakley.com

PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND

Don has continued to earn the trust of business leaders during a four decade career of helping senior managers reengineer their business processes, while ensuring that their organizations were staffed with the most talented professionals available. His skills were developed and fine-tuned in a wide variety of assignments over the years, but have never been more valuable than they are in today's challenging market!

In the year Don first entered University, he was fortunate enough to earn a part-time Computer Operator's job at IBM's Montreal DataCentre. Initially, the technology consisted only of punched cards and electro-mechanical devices, but the impact on big business was clear, and a steady stream of blue chip clients, including Governments, Banks, Insurance Companies and Stock Brokers, brought their clerical tasks into the DataCentre to be automated. Later, as the first generation of IBM 1401 computers evolved, those same clients endorsed the new magnetic tape and disk technologies, leading to a never-ending evolution of larger and faster generations of systems! For Don, that early experience not only financed his two undergraduate degrees, but also laid the groundwork for his extensive career in Information Systems, and the Business Process Re-engineering which inevitably accompanies the implementation of a new technology.

Soon, Don was recruited into the consulting profession by one of the largest public accounting firms in Canada, where he focused on assisting mid-sized companies in the selection and implementation of their first "mini-computer." The process often involved canvassing North America for a similar business which had already undergone the transformation, and interviewing the programmers responsible, to assess the system's suitability for cloning. Inevitably, the selection of the hardware system, was more a selection of the software developers, based on Don's assessment of their prior experience, previous levels of success, current technical skills, and adaptability to the new client environment.

As Don guided his clients through the Business Process Re-engineering associated with their newly computerized operations, they often discovered that they now needed to acquire some new skill sets within the organization … perhaps a full-time Data Processing Manager, or maybe a new Accountant or Controller with the aptitude to work with a computerized General Ledger, or even a new Sales Manager, who could master the newly automated Sales Analysis and Inventory reports. Don's familiarity with the client and their new system made him the logical professional to help in locating that new executive talent.

Don's passion for recruiting the right candidates for his clients, plus his enviable success rate in these projects, led the audit partners to bring an increasing number of retained search assignments to Don's office. Soon, Executive Search became a service offered nation-wide by the firm, with Don responsible for all such projects, whether they related to Information Technology or not. During the following five years, Don conducted successful search assignments for such key management positions as Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Executive, Divisional General Manager, Chief Financial Officer, Vice-President of Sales, Plant Manufacturer, Corporate Controller, Vice-President of Finance and Administration, and Manufacturing Manager.

When PC's first came on the scene, Don was lured away from the recruiting profession for a series of leadership roles in commercial software and services, but eventually was attracted back by an opportunity to manage the Canadian IT Division of one of the world's largest multi-national contracting companies. Focusing on the Just-in-Time resourcing of IT Project Leaders, OS/390 specialists and Client/Server developers for a major IT service organization and a global telecom giant. Don led his team to preferred supplier status in record time.

When an opportunity arose to rejoin a Big Five Consulting firm with responsibility for recruiting a much broader range of Professionals, including SAP, PeopleSoft and JD Edwards Consultants and Consulting Managers, Don jumped at the opportunity. Three years later, as the Y2K consulting boom subsided, Don joined the full-service team at Stoakley-Dudley and, while continuing to provide first class candidates to his former Big Five employer, was now able to extend similar services to a much wider array of client organizations. Since that time, Don has developed several high-level market niches and an impressive base of candidates by conducting such focused searches as the following: