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Telkes Consulting, Hungarian Partner of IMD International Search Group, hosted the autumn business conference of the organization in Budapest on October 3-5, 2019.

Telkes Consulting is a long-time IMD Partner as they joined just a few years after the foundation of the company. Telkes Consulting is indeed a pioneer in executive search on their market, as it was among the first executive search firms established as early as 1990. The firm has built over the years a robust brand image, with about three decades in the market and over 1.700 searches completed. The Telkes consultants are covering a wide range of industries and executive functions, notably FMCG, telecom, retail, financial services, business services, procurement, audit, real estate, and automotive. It is to be noted that they received this year the IMD President's Award, a well-deserved recognition of their quality of operations and dedication to IMD.

The conference was highly interactive and focused on business development and the best client service offering. One-third of the participants were newcomers from existing member firms, which shows that they are growing and attractive to new talents in executive search and leadership consulting. It was also satisfying to welcome two potential new members; Hopefully, after the meeting, a mutual agreement is found to sign a partnership. Stay tuned!

Between active sessions of best practices sharing and networking, participants were pleased to pause for listening to our guest speaker Edina Heal, CEO of Google Hungary, who shared with us her insights on diversity in talent acquisition and creative thinking. Bias, stereotypes, and automatic thinking are harmful to insightful thinking. Illustrating her speech with examples of companies, considered too big to fail, that so much believed in their unique USP and were happy with themselves that they did not see that other technologies were catching up and rapidly outweighing them. Shutting oneself from diverse thinking may have damaging consequences, therefore, it is essential to be cautious about your way of thinking and broaden your horizon to make the perfect diverse hires.

Putting actions in accordance with words, Edina Heal, and IMD support the Equal Salaries Campaign, in which the attention is drawn to the fact that women and men are both entitled to equal remuneration.

"A busy meeting that generated many ideas for participants to bring home, on improvements to our own companies and our processes to meet client demands", concludes Dr. Matthias Mohr, IMD President and Managing Partner of Dr. Heimeier & Partner, "in a world of many challenges, our partners seemed optimistic and punchy".

The meeting ended with a "save the date" and plans for our next meeting in Barcelona, Spain, on April 16-18, 2020, hosted by our Partner Robert Allen.