Ella Pałka: What will Futurestep offer in Warsaw?

Joel Perrenoud: We see that there is a need in the recruitment area to identify and attract passive candidates, people who are not just looking for a job and who don't react to jobs which are posted on the internet. We saw the need to create a service management center (SMC), which is a center of expertise for sourcing and pre-selecting candidates on a global basis. Our SMC in Warsaw is a service center for all of Europe, Middle East and Africa.

In Poland, [parent company] Kohn Ferry is serving both international and local clients. Going forward, despite potentially higher unemployment and the crisis, real talent remains a rare commodity.

Finding, attracting and retaining top talent should be on the top of every CEO's agenda list, because, again, talent drives business success. The people aspect of any business is fundamental. Making sure that you don't settle for the best people who applied to a job but the best people who are available, should be absolutely key for every company, whether it's a domestic company or an international company operating in the Polish market.

How much has the company invested in Poland?

We currently have a staff of 27. We hired our first people in February this year and depending on deals with clients that are in the pipeline we could be 40 at the end of the year.

What skills or talents do you see in Poland that are appealing to potential employers?

The most important was the availability of talent, especially the availability of multilingual individuals. Given that this service center is covering the needs of our clients and our offices across Europe, we wanted to have a location where we could have people who could cover pretty much all European languages.

From a cost perspective this is also an attractive location in comparison to a lot of Western European locations, but it wasn't the main criteria. The combination of availability of talent in a city like Warsaw, the language capabilities, the stability of the economy and the currency as well as the accessibility towards most European cities was a winning one for us.

Who are your current competitors?

Futurestep is division of Korn Ferry, which is the world's largest executive search and talent company. We're active in four main segments, mid-management search, project recruitment, outsourcing of recruitment and recruitment process outsourcing. We've got a number of competitors including Alexander Mann Solutions, Kenexa and Hudson.