In Conversation With: Meaghan Wilkinson of Danby

At Waterstone Human Capital, we are privileged to help a diverse roster of clients fill roles that are integral to their ability to meet their culture and performance goals. We are also fortunate to work with some exceptional, high-performance candidates. And sometimes we’re lucky enough to work with an outstanding client who was once a candidate.

Meet Meaghan Wilkinson, Vice President of Marketing, Product, People and Communications at Danby.

The Waterstone team first met Meaghan as a candidate for what would become her role at Danby. Since then, we’ve had the pleasure of working with Meaghan as a client, helping her find a Vice President of Sales to join the Danby team.

We recently caught up with Meaghan to learn more about Danby, her role there, and her experience working with the Waterstone as both a client and a candidate.

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Waterstone Human Capital (WHC):  What can you tell us about Danby?

Meaghan Wilkinson (MW): Danby is a Canadian company that sells appliances in North America as well as the UK and Mexico. The head office for Canada is in Guelph, ON, and we have about 300 employees – that spans North America as well as Asia.

WHC: Is there a recent project, success story, or milestone that you’re particularly proud of?

MW: One of the biggest things that I’m proud of is the transformation and cultural movement within Danby from good to great.

Our owner and CEO, Jim Estill, is a huge advocate for servant leadership and doing the right thing – and that starts with the people at Danby. One of the biggest things we’ve been working through is building a culture of higher communication and higher transparency – breaking down some silos, eliminating some toxicity, and really trying to build a level of trust from the bottom up, and from the top down.

We’re seeing success in terms of our retention rates, our employee satisfaction, and the development of a culture team that is part of the hiring process (I myself went through that when I started). We’re also seeing some different programs we’ve been able to introduce flourish – such as cross training with “a day in the life”, and building out some focus groups specifically around culture and how we can build a better culture.

WHC: Talk about the recruitment process and what it was like when you were looking to join the Danby team.

MW: I wasn’t actively looking at the time, but I was contacted by a member of the Waterstone team and asked if it was something that I would be interested in discussing further, to which I agreed. After a conversation, it was about a 30 or 45-minute conversation, there was a great outline of the company and the role they were looking for, and if that would be of interest to me. The team answered some of my questions immediately, and my name was put forth into another round.

I think I had, in total, about nine interviews with and throughout Danby. It was a very important role for Danby, and they were wanting to make sure the candidate was going to be a change agent within the company. There were conversations I had with all of senior leadership, with the teams that would be reporting up to and through me, with individual contributors, with the culture team, as well as with some strategic advisors to the owner and CEO. It was a very thorough process, and the Waterstone team did an amazing job on keeping on top of it, keeping in constant communication with me, and answering any questions I had – right through to offer and acceptance.

WHC: Was there anything Waterstone did that helped set you up for success?

MW: The immediacy of follow up and their ability to answer the questions that I had, really did help. Also, understanding to whom I would be speaking and what the pain points were so that I could prepare for my conversations, so that I could bring applicable skills and experiences, and so that I wasn’t wasting anyone’s time. 

The Waterstone team are very good in terms of outreach. They do a very good job of following up; they do a very good job of ensuring success. After I was hired, I had a check in: How are you doing? Is the role going well? How are you finding things? That meant a lot, especially as somebody who had jumped into the deep end and within two weeks had acquired another two groups reporting into me. It’s not done and dusted as soon as the contract is signed – there is that touchpoint after the fact that speaks to the level of professionalism, but also the care they take with all their customers and candidates.

WHC: Since joining Danby, you’ve also had the chance to work with Waterstone as a client. Talk a bit about the role you were looking to fill.

MW: I was looking for a Vice President of Sales.

One of the things that really stood out for me, which in turn gave me a better understanding of why the team was so well prepared to speak to me as a candidate, was that Waterstone asked a lot of questions. There was a lot of due diligence done ahead of time – not only in terms of the scope of the role but about the person, to whom they’d be reporting, what some of the deal breakers would be for us and what that would look like in practice. They also looked at areas and categories within the appliance world where we didn’t want to go – we don’t want to look at customers or candidates where we’d be considered poaching. We have “Do the Right Thing” on the side of our building, it is our motto. We don’t want to tarnish that reputation with some of the recruiting tactics we would take.

The Waterstone team did a very good job getting a thorough understanding of the role, of the fit, of the people we would want them to reach out to, and understanding what that would look like from our perspective and how it would best fit within Danby.

WHC: Why did you decide to work with an executive search firm on that role?

MW: We know what we don’t know, and we wanted to bring in the expertise of a firm that had experience recruiting in the US and that was able to speak the language (so to speak) – different terminology, different tactics, understating the US job market far batter then we do. And it was a very senior role – there will be a lot of change management as a result of that role, and we wanted help to find someone who had the capabilities to do that successfully.

WHC: For a leader who’s never worked with an executive search firm before, what advice would you have when it comes to making that relationship successful?

MW: A lot of times there’s push back in terms of the cost – we don’t need that because we have a recruiter; we don’t need that because we have an HR team; we don’t need that because, because, because… 

Yes, you might have a recruiter, but this is an extension of that recruiter. The job world out there right now when you’re actively looking to fill a role is incredibly difficult. You’re getting hundreds if not thousands of resumes that need to be sorted through – it’s about being able to work through and find as well as eliminate. Using someone like a Waterstone eliminates the noise, and it frees up the ability for that recruiter or member of the HR team or hiring manager to focus on what’s really important: looking at successful candidates that are qualified and that have already been vetted. A lot of companies don’t necessarily understand how long it will take and the hurdles they’ll have to go through. People are applying for a senior level role and you’re going through resumes that have one year of experience – what happened to all the criteria that were laid out?

You need to be able to build out and look at your business case and understand that time is money; it’s not something you get back. Having that level of outreach, there is a cost to it but you have look internally and see how much the time of all those multiple people, and the effort, and everything else that can be taken away and given to Waterstone to handle, how much that is worth. [The search team are] professionals and they can do it a lot faster and better.

WHC: What’s next for Danby?

MW: Continued growth. We did successfully hire a candidate for that Vice President of Sales role, so we are looking at growing our footprint within US retail both in-store and online. We’re looking forward to building the Danby brand in the US while continuing to grow it in Canada.

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At Waterstone, we partner with our clients to support the full spectrum of culture and recruitment opportunities through our Waterstone Executive Search services and the Waterstone Culture Institute. Schedule a meeting with our team today and find out how we can help you build, sustain, or transform your high-performance team and culture.