President-CEO-COO Manufacturing Turnarounds Executive Resume Branding

My client, Bruce Smythe, a pioneering leader in manufacturing revitalization and transformations, is actively seeking a c-level business leadership role with a new company.

Because he’s not in a confidential search, he wanted me to use his real name here. We collaborated on developing his executive brand, resume, biography and LinkedIn profile.

Bruce had already done some branding work and created a tagline that he wanted to continue using – “Innovating and Transforming Companies into Market Leaders”.

He had also updated his resume, but didn’t think the document presented the value he offered well enough, and it didn’t contain a true brand positioning statement.

What stood out most about Bruce was his unwavering success, throughout his career, with companies in distress – exacting operations-wide change fast, and leaving the organization healthy, with manufacturing operations improved by 5 to 10 times and employees with a secure future.

To make his career successes and promise of value to potential employers immediately evident in his resume, I needed to bring forward to the first page his early career contributions – things that would normally fall to the second page – and back them up with his phenomenal metrics.

As you’ll see in his resume, with this strategy, the first page stands on its own, even if people assessing him never go to page two. Page one tells just enough to generate interest in him and compel people to want to learn more. It worked. When Bruce put his resume into circulation, he started getting attention and interviews within a few days.

In working through the branding process, we uncovered the following:

Top values – Challenge, drive, ingenuity, making a difference, being the best
Top brand attributes – Fearless, confident, resourceful, passionate
Top strengths – Seeing the big picture, visioning, innovating, solving problems, creating value

Bruce described what differentiates him from his competitors in the job market:

“There may be better CEOs in healthy companies, but there are very few that can outperform me in a turnaround or restructure that results in a strong market leader – not just a company that is stripped through cost reduction and is ‘still in business’ . . . ALL of my companies have gone on to sustain success and become industry leaders.
My differentiating qualities include knowledge of all business functions at a detailed level and how to optimize them. I have strong marketing and sales skills, and world-class expertise across all aspects of engineering, manufacturing, materials, quality, systems, and especially JIT/Demand Flow Technology/LEAN.”

For his resume, we created the following brand positioning statement to generate chemistry for his personal values, attributes, strengths and drivers:

A fearless change agent fuel-injected with enthusiasm, I envision and execute game-changing turnarounds FAST, get returns NOW and bullet-proof companies against the economic tsunami forces driving today’s highly volatile global marketplace. It is my responsibility to save companies, make them healthy, ignite strong leadership across all levels and enable good people to have a secure future.

For his biography, I slightly adjusted the brand statement, and used it to lead the document. As is always the case, his bio allowed us to better showcase his softer skills and personality, and more deeply express what his brand is all about.

Bruce can be reached at (865) 437 – 9968 or via email at BruceSmythe1@gmail.com.

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