Krishnan Rajagopalan to lead Heidrick & Struggles

BENGALURU: Nasdaq-listed Heidrick & Struggles, a global provider of executive search, lea dership consul ting, and culture shaping services, has appointed Krishnan Rajagopalan as president and CEO.

Rajagopalan is the second Indian-origin CEO to make it to the top job in the fiercely-competitive executive search industry. Rival Egon Zehnder had named Rajeev Vasudeva as its CEO in 2014. Rajagopalan, who has been with Heidrick & Struggles since 2001, succeeds Tracy R Wolstencroft, who has taken the role of chairman. He was previously acting CEO at the firm, and prior to that the head of global executive search practices. For a time, he also led the firm's leadership consulting practice.

An alumnus of The Johns Hopkins University , Rajagopalan has been recognised by BusinessWeek as one of the “100 most influential executive recruiters in the world.“ He has been focusing on leading senior-level searches for clients in the management consulting, technology services, outsourcing, and venture capital businesses.

In an interview with TOIlast year, Rajagopalan spoke on a breadth of issues from boardroom challenges, India's burgeoning startup story, to how Indian CEOs are embracing the tectonic shifts in the technology landscape to land their companies in a digital-first economy.