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Riga, Latvia – The Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA) has announced the winners of its Reputation TOP awards, which recognise top managers in Latvian companies.

The business community and general public evaluated the effectiveness, consistency with the company’s goals and ideals, values and character traits of managers, as well as the respect and recognition that they receive.

Many different industries were represented in the top ten: food production, telecommunications, cosmetics, publishing houses, construction, banking, and pharmacy, etc. The majority of the winning managers can boast many years of experience, and approximately half of them are founders of their own companies and originators of their business concepts.

What kind of managers are considered to be kind, effective and respectable? What are the main requirements? How do the requirements and evaluation of managers nowadays differ from those of ten years ago? These questions were put to psychologists, consultants from different organisations and recruitment specialists, including Evita Lune, Partner at international Executive Search firm “Pedersen & Partners.”

All of the experts explained that it is not an easy task to be a manager in 2016. The business environment has become much more complex, it is more difficult to achieve growth, and the requirements imposed on managers by owners, employees, clients and society as such are constantly growing. There are many changes due to information overload, global matrix model structures, new technologies and the like.

Evita Lune, Partner at Executive Search firm “Pedersen & Partners” stresses that nowadays a manager is expected to possess strong competencies in Internet and communication technologies as well as deep knowledge of his own field. “About 10 years ago, good English and communications skills were appreciated during the process of recruitment. Now they are not enough,” she continues.

Professional experience is still important – this has not changed. It is very rare for a fresh graduate to become a big boss straight away; it takes time to accumulate experience and knowledge. Managers usually end up in higher-level positions at around 40 (give or take a decade).

However, Evita has noticed that younger candidates are becoming more and more attractive to her firm’s clients. It can be due to the fact that young managers have more youthful character traits – they are naturally passionate, enthusiastic, and energetic. Moreover, compared to older managers, they have a more open attitude and higher level of knowledge about technology. “IT often is a significant disadvantage for older candidates,” she says.

A manager should show qualities that correspond to the company’s ideals and represent its values. Executive Search professionals often talk about “authentic behaviour”; Evita says that it is unacceptable for a manager to “put on a mask in the morning.”

For example, if a company’s values are simplicity, openness and equality, then its managers should correspond to these qualities. They should eat lunch with their colleagues, not show off their high status and so on.

It is also vitally important for a manager to be a team player. Although more and more managers have now accepted this, Evita thinks that Latvia’s education system puts too much emphasis on individual work and does not focus enough on developing team skills.

Although the specialists named many competencies and character traits that managers should possess, all of them readily admit that there is no single ideal manager type. The required skills and competencies also depend on the company’s stage of development. Evita concludes with an example: there is a huge difference between the required skillset for a manager of a start-up which is simultaneously developing in ten different countries, and for a manager that works at a traditional German manufacturing company.

Evita Lune joined Pedersen & Partners in 2005; she is Partner, the Country Manager for Latvia and Head of the Retail Practice Group. As Partner Ms. Lune also takes on regional oversight, and through completing numerous senior level assignments Ms. Lune has established strong cooperation with clients in Poland, the Baltics, Scandinavia, Russia and CIS across such sectors as: Consumer Goods, Retail, Pharmaceutical, Manufacturing and the Professional Services sectors. Her previous experience includes three years with the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga as the Executive MBA Program Director and six years with Shell in international regional marketing management functions in Riga, Budapest and Brussels.

Pedersen & Partners is a leading international Executive Search firm. We operate 56 wholly owned offices in 52 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia & the Americas. Our values Trust, Relationship and Professionalism apply to our interaction with clients as well as executives. More information about Pedersen & Partners is available at www.pedersenandpartners.com

If you would like to conduct an interview with a representative of Pedersen & Partners, or have other media-related requests, please contact: Diana Danu, Marketing and Communications Manager at: diana.danu@pedersenandpartners.com