Six Degree West

Who We Are

Six Degree PeopleSix Degree West (a subsidiary of SDP/UK) is a team of sustainable business experts. Based in London and San Francisco but operating globally, we are a specialist search, acquisition and business intelligence practice.

Our team represents a unique mix of experienced professionals drawn from both senior search and industry roles across the global environment, energy and sustainability market place.

We completed our first board level assignment in this area in 1997 and our clients tell us that we are a great business to work with: our approach is focussed, well informed and pragmatic. We don't take on assignments that we are not confident of filling and we make the strength of our relationships our number one priority.

IKEA on working with Six Degree People: Working with Six Degree People as a Search Firm was very refreshing. Their approach fits very much with how we work. By focusing specifically on Sustainability they have created a very strong network, that can spill over to other categories.
Pernille Spiers-Lopez, President IKEA North America

 

How We Add Value

We use our market insight, industry knowledge and unrivalled networks to deliver three areas of service. These are:

  • Talent search
  • Business search
  • Business intelligence and market insight

We have been actively building networks of the leading talent and organisations across all parts of the value chain for nearly 15 years. We have thousands of relationships, ranging from corporate to public sector; from consultancy to NGO; and from finance to energy and technology.

These relationships give us the 360-degree view essential to add real value, whether our clients are looking to appoint a key leader, identify acquisition targets or understand what business-critical services a client base will be procuring in the near future.

THE CLIMATE GROUP on added value: Organisations wishing to stay at the forefront of progress are facing a new limited resource - the pool of professionals with the capacity and experience to work across the sustainability agenda and guide their employers towards the right solutions. Six Degree People build those networks.
Jim Walker, Chief Operating Officer

 

Talent Search

We spend time with our clients to build the type of relationships that allow us to understand in detail their culture, ambitions and needs. This allows us to focus upon identifying and attracting talent that is both culturally well aligned to our clients' organisations and ensures we can quickly address the requirements of the role.

Our well-established senior networks allow us to quickly build shortlists of highly referred candidates for business critical roles. We enjoy nothing more than to finding some of the hardest to identify skill sets or filling the most challenging of role descriptions.

Some recent examples of completed search mandates include:

  • Group Head of Sustainability, Global Retailer (main board role)
  • Managing Partner (Sustainability), Management Consultancy
  • Head of Renewable Energy and Clean Technology, Global Utilities Business
  • Regional Managing Director, Environmental Consultancy
  • CEO, Award Winning Carbon Reduction NGO
ARTHUR D LITTLE on talent: Six Degree People have and continue to build the right networks globally across the space. We asked them to find a very specific type of profile, they understood the brief and delivered a varied shortlist on time within six weeks which ultimately result in a successful appointment.
Richard Clarke, Global Leader Sustainability and Risk

 

Business Search

Whether we are searching for potential acquisition targets or commercial partners, the combined skills of our team allows us to initiate conversations and unlock opportunities that would otherwise be impossible to find.

We only work 'off-market' and operate the same principles of referral, scrutiny and integrity that apply to our talent search. Because the Six Degree People team is composed of true industry experts with board level experience in client side organisations, we are able to understand the strategic ambitions of the organisations with which we interact.

Recent businesses searches that we have undertaken include:

  • The identification of a mainland European consultancy practice for acquisition by a US-based multi disciplinary firm
  • A search for a portfolio of emerging technology businesses for an energy PLC
  • The creation of a partnering opportunity to allow access to a new territorial market.
Six Degree People supporting the development of partnerships: Working with Six Degree People has allowed us to identify partners that have opened up new market territories and has produced a short list of potential acquisition targets.
CEO, Clean Technology Development Firm

 

Business Intelligence and Market Insight

The breadth and depth of our relationships allow us unique insights into those sustainable business issues affecting organisations across all markets.

We know what keeps people up at night and opportunities they anticipate. We gain the clearest possible picture of what services these businesses currently procure and where their focus will be in the near future.

Our consulting and technology clients retain us to produce regular Business Intelligence Reports that give them significant competitive advantage. We are not a market research firm, but we report on how the market place perceives their business and its competitors.

We provide valuable feedback on what the market tells us it will be procuring in the next 1-5 years. Our clients tell us we enable them to make much better decisions because they can develop products or services much closer aligned with the market.

On gaining the right market intelligence: We needed a road map to identify and target key decision makers in our new Strategic Sustainable Business practice, as we moved to a service line - key account model. Six Degree People helped with that road map, provided invaluable market intelligence and then followed up by identifying the right person to lead the business practice.
Global Key Account Director, Multi Disciplinary Consultancy

 

On Thought Leadership

We proudly to share our knowledge and insight and regularly produce pieces of thought leadership. We distribute these across our networks and make sure that we collate all the feedback to help inform future reports.

The 5 Stages to a Sustainable Business was first circulated June 2009 and combines the experience gained from profiling and interviewing over 1,000 global sustainability leaders.

We combined this insight with specific research from business leaders, experts in organisational change and leading business schools to map the transition through which organisations go to become fully sustainable businesses. (click to view)

Our 'Embedding Sustainability' review discusses why identifying the right talent mix capable of embedding sustainable business practices is critical to becoming a fully sustainable business. (upon request)

Marks & Spencer Group PLC On the Five Stages: The importance of business credibility cannot be underestimated, for at Stage 4 you have to reinvent both traditional business and established approaches to sustainability in order to deliver the transformation required.
Richard Gillies, Director of Plan A