UK MANUFACTURING & BUILT ENVIRONMENT
Executive search and interim management for UK manufacturing
We help manufacturing businesses appoint the leaders they need to grow, improve performance and navigate change. From board-level executive search to interim leaders who stabilise operations and deliver measurable results. 25 years in manufacturing | 96% right-first-time appointment rate
TS GRALE
What we do
TS Grale is an executive search and interim management firm working only in UK manufacturing and the built environment. We place managing directors, operations and manufacturing directors, CFOs, and interim turnaround leaders. We are not a transactional recruiter. We shape the brief with our clients, assess behaviour under pressure, and place the right person behind the CV.
Executive Search
For the permanent leaders you intend to keep.
First-time success matters, but so does longevity. Most of our work starts before the search does, by shaping the brief with the client, because the brief as written is often solving the wrong problem. We assess how a leader behaves under pressure, not just what the CV says they have done. The result is the right person in the seat, and one who is still there in three years.
Executive Interim
You do not need potential in a crisis. You need certainty.
We place interim MDs, CFOs, operations and transformation directors who stabilise a function in the first 30 days and deliver measurable change by day 90. OTIF recovery, EBITDA improvement, operational and full P&L turnaround, site consolidation, winning back customers who were being let down. Change, not cover.
WHY MANUFACTURERS USE US
We stay in the room, not just until the assignment is won
We work only in manufacturing and the built environment, so we understand the operational pressure you are under before you explain it. And we stay involved from the first brief to the placed leader settling in. Clients tell us that is the difference between us and the larger search firms they have used.
“You have owned the search process. Culturally and experience-wise, every person hit the mark. We do not get that level of service from the larger firms we have used.”
A manufacturing CEO, on a recent assignment
OUR SPECIALIST SECTORS
Deep in manufacturing, not spread across everything
WHAT GOOD LOOKS LIKE
An automotive manufacturer, losing around £1m a month
Delivery performance had collapsed and key customers were losing patience. We placed an executive interim with a turnaround record. The business stabilised and was later acquired.
LOSSES
£1m/mo
breakeven
OTIF
0%
90%+
COMPONENT ARREARS
26,000
300
HEADCOUNT, TURNOVER GREWARREARS
-20%
COMMON QUESTIONS
Questions we are often asked
TS Grale is an executive search and interim management firm for UK manufacturing and the built environment. We place permanent senior leaders and interim directors, from managing directors and CFOs to operations, manufacturing and transformation directors.
Industrial manufacturing, the built environment, and consumer manufacturing. That includes engineering components, machinery, metals, chemicals, automotive, energy, aerospace and defence, construction materials, building systems, food and beverage, packaging and more.
Search appoints a permanent leader you intend to keep. Interim appoints a senior leader for a defined period to stabilise, transform or turn around part of the business. Many clients run both at once, an interim holding the line while the search runs in parallel.
We are not transactional. We shape the brief with the client, assess behaviour under pressure rather than reading the CV alone, and stay involved from first brief to placed leader. We work only in manufacturing and the built environment.
Twenty-five years in executive search and interim management for UK manufacturing, with a 96% right-first-time placement rate, 93% placement accuracy and over 80% repeat business.
If you are about to make a senior hire and the brief feels like it is solving the wrong problem, that is the conversation worth having before you go to market. We are here.