HDS Strategies

Organisational Consulting · Human Resources · Executive Search

The organisation and the leadership your strategy demands.

I work with leaders of small and mid-sized companies through their strategic transitions: growth, turnaround, a new chief executive, a capital transaction. Restructure, strengthen or recruit — but the diagnosis comes first.

France and the EMEA region.

Services

An execution problem is rarely just a hiring problem. I look first at what the organisation has to deliver, then at who can hold it.

Organisational diagnostic

Structure, scope of roles, criticality of positions, capabilities in place and breaking points — all read against what the business plan requires. Presented to the executive committee, and closed with a decision rather than a report.

  • The gap between the current organisation and your trajectory
  • For every critical role: hold, strengthen or replace
  • A costed sequence of the moves to make

Independent recommendation It follows the analysis, and nothing else. Sometimes it concludes that the answer is already inside the company.

Discuss it ›

Transitions & restructuring

Executing the chosen route and landing it for real: anticipating resistance, protecting operational continuity, keeping alternatives open to the end.

  • Redesign of roles, scope and internal mobility
  • Assessment of senior leaders and management alignment
  • Steering critical transitions — interim management, senior outplacement
Discuss it ›

Executive Search

Commercial decision-makers and executive committee members. Retained, direct-approach search: I go after leaders who are in post and not looking.

  • Direct approach to leaders in post — first profiles within fifteen days
  • Assessment built in: beyond the CV, execution capability and commercial judgement — read by someone who has held these roles
  • Support throughout the onboarding period

Direct mandate If your brief is already defined, the search starts without a prior diagnostic.

Discuss it ›

Sometimes I conclude that you should not recruit at all.

The best hire still fails in a flawed organisation. Which is why I look at the organisation before I look for anyone.
HDS
About
Louise Lamari, founder of HDS Strategies

Louise Lamari Founder

Twenty years in operating roles before advising.

20years in commercial and operating leadership
9years on executive committees
35salespeople managed, France & Benelux

I work with leaders through their strategic transitions. I start from the business issues to design the organisation and identify the capabilities it needs, then I secure the path: anticipating resistance, protecting operational continuity, keeping alternatives open. Recruitment comes afterwards, as the means of executing a decision already framed.

I have carried a P&L, run a sales force and defended budgets in the executive committee. Industrial services, international communications, European and Mediterranean markets. I have held the roles I now assess.

I then designed and sold, to large-account leadership teams, every possible answer to a capability gap: workforce planning, make-or-buy arbitration, role redesign, assessment, interim management, outplacement. Including, therefore, the answers that involve no hiring at all.

I work with

  • Growing small and mid-sized companies
  • Investment funds and private equity, for their portfolio companies
  • LBO-backed businesses and build-up transactions
  • Subsidiaries of international groups
  • Family businesses going through succession

On roles such as

  • Chief executives, country and site managing directors
  • Executive committee members
  • Commercial and operations leadership
  • Key functional leadership

Across

  • France
  • Europe, including the DACH region and Germany
  • North Africa and the Middle East

In contexts of

  • Growth and structuring
  • Turnaround and restructuring
  • A newly appointed chief executive
  • A capital transaction
Get in touch

Tell me about your situation.

I will tell you what I see in it, and whether there is something worth taking further. Reply within twenty-four hours.

louise@hdstrategies.fr

Paris and surrounding area · LinkedIn