ISAACSON, MILLER Recruiting exceptional leaders for mission-driven organizations A proposal to provide Executive Search Services to WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY for the Recruitment of a PRESIDENT September 21, 2010 ENCLOSURES: Proposal Letter About Isaacson, Miller Our Approach to Search Our Commitment to Diversity Fees & Expenses Profiles: David A. Haley Michelle Cruz-Williams Bernard R. Jones Carolyn K. Plant Yvonne M. Goulart Representative Searches: Presidents/Provosts for 4 Years Higher Education: Academic Leadership Administrative Leadership September 21, 2010 Governor Paul Massaron, Chair Presidential Search Advisory Committee Wayne State University Board of Governors 4239 Faculty/Administration Building Detroit, MI 48202 Dear Governor Massaron: Thank you for the opportunity to present our executive search services. We would be pleased to serve Wayne State University in its search for a new President. Enclosed are materials that describe our firm, our search process, and our experience. Please accept them as our proposal to assist you in your recruitment efforts. We would be happy to meet with you to discuss this further. THE FIRM Founded in 1982, Isaacson, Miller is a mid-sized, focused, steadily growing, national firm. We have roughly 90 employees, two thirds of whom are search professionals, located in our Boston headquarters and in offices in Washington, DC and San Francisco. We are engaged in approximately 175 retained executive searches a year. Our clients include leading universities and educational institutions, conservation and environmental organizations, research institutes, healthcare institutions, foundations, professional societies, economic development organizations, human service agencies, and national advocacy organizations. While most of our clients are not-for-profit groups, we also work with select for-profit corporations, particularly those with ties to education and science, as well as with socially responsible companies. We believe there are three features that distinguish us from other good retained search firms. First is our mission. We are a mission driven firm serving mission driven clients. We seek exceptional leaders for important civic institutions. We are focused and clear and we understand the missions that drive our clients. There is no search firm in the country that has conducted as many and as varied a range of searches in the independent sector as we have at Isaacson, Miller. Second is our longstanding commitment to bringing women and people of color to senior management positions. We have established networks that support us in our efforts to build and present diverse pools of candidates. Since 1983, approximately 40% of the firm's placements have been women and 25% have been people of color. In 2008, 42% of those hired were women and 19% were people of color, with a total of 54% diversity hires. Third is our attention to the craft of search. We attend carefully to learning and understanding the unique strategic challenges and organizational cultures of our clients, to networking thoughtfully for candidates who may not currently be looking for a role, and to interviewing and referencing our candidates in depth. We are careful to recruit broadly from all sectors, looking Governor Paul Massaron, Chair Page 2 beyond traditional fields to for-profit, not-for-profit, and public institutions, seeking the most technically competent and mission driven candidates, who can be recruited to our clients. We are not and are never likely to become a genuinely large firm, comparable to the largest market-driven search firms, although we compete with them routinely. We feel strongly that our size and definition allows us all the efficiencies of a high volume practice, the synergy of working across the full range of public missions, with a varied and expert staff, but still permits us to attend personally to our clients, to develop relationships that last, and to share readily our learning within the firm. OUR APPROACH Isaacson, Miller has a simple but disciplined search process. We build it around a schedule, with each deliverable and decision point planned with you at the launch. Schedules are essential. They create expectations, simplify logistics, and discipline production. Our searches have three phases: Definition, Building a Pool, and Selection. We spend our earliest time in the search learning from you and working with you so that we can say simply and clearly, on your behalf, what makes this job compelling and what constitutes success in the role. We follow it with an extensive effort to persuade the most talented people who could be available to declare their interest and then we staff you as you learn more and more about fewer and fewer people. Each phase builds logically one on top of the other. Our approach is described in more detail in the accompanying attachments. We do not perform any work, paid or unpaid, on behalf of applicants. STAFF Michelle Cruz-Williams and David A. Haley would co-lead this search on behalf of Isaacson, Miller. Working with them would be either Bernie Jones or Carolyn Plant, Associates, who would focus primarily on the outreach and first phone screens; Yvonne M. Goulart, Senior Team Administrator, would handle all logistics; and skilled reference checkers would conduct in-depth references for all final candidates. Attached is biographical information about those who would comprise the team. In addition, all of the more than 60 recruiters would be aware of the search. We meet every other week as a full group specifically to share ideas and suggest candidates and sources to one another. We believe that we have the networks, clients and experience that will be of direct relevance to your search. EXPERIENCE Over the course of the last few years, Mr. Haley has conducted a number of searches for colleges and universities, large and small, public and private, including ones that brought new Presidents to Grand Valley State University (GVSU) in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a large public university, and several smaller, private, four year degree schools, Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont and Cambridge College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mr. Haley also conducted searches at GVSU for the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, the Governor Paul Massaron, Chair Page 3 Dean, Seidman College of Business, and the Assistant Vice President for Affirmative Action. Several years ago, he recruited the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs for Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan. He has also conducted the presidential searches that brought Dr. Mary Jane England to Regis College, in Weston, Massachusetts, Dr. Jack Calareso to Anna Maria College in Paxton, Massachusetts, Sister Jane Gerety to Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island, Christine Wiseman to Saint Xavier University in Chicago, Illinois, Bill Hynes to Holy Names University in Oakland, California and most recently, Jo Ann Rooney to Mount Ida College in Newton, Massachusetts. Ms. Cruz-Williams has conducted the following Presidential and Chancellor searches that brought Dr. Nancy Zimpher to the State University of New York System in Albany, New York, Dr. Velvie Green to Glendale Community College in Glendale, Arizona, Mr. Timothy Wynes to Inver Hills Community College in Inver Grove Heights, Michigan, Dr. Randall VanWagoner to Mohawk Valley Community College in Utica, New York, Dr. Donald Astrab to Nassau Community College in Garden City, New York, Dr. Bradley Johnson to Northeast Texas Community College in Mt. Pleasant, Texas, and Dr. Joyce Helens to St. Cloud Technical College in St. Cloud, Minnesota. We have attached a list of searches for Presidents and Provosts over the last four years, including the name of the institution and the successful hire. From our complete lists showing representative searches in Higher Education, you will see we have extensive experience with urban research universities. Given the extent of our work in higher education, we have worked with many client search committees. We enjoy and are skilled at facilitating a committee's decision-making process. We work closely with the search committee, its chairperson, and the staff person supporting the committee throughout any search process and maintain regular communication. We view our engagement with our client as a partnership where we work together transparently and collaboratively. We try to schedule all formal search committee meetings at the beginning of the search. In addition, we typically schedule a bi-weekly check-in call with the committee chair and also have a fair amount of ad hoc contact with the chair and with committee members via phone, email, and in person meetings when necessary. Our clients would attest to the fact that we are unusually accessible and responsive, both within and outside regular business hours. Thank you again for the opportunity to present this information to you. Please let us know if you have any questions or would like to discuss this proposal in further detail. Sincerely, David A. Haley Michelle Cruz-Williams Vice President & Director Vice President & Director ISAACSON, MILLER About Isaacson Miller Isaacson, Miller is a national executive search firm devoted to recruiting exceptional leaders for mission-driven organizations. Our founders created the firm in 1982, a time when civic institu- tions rarely used executive search firms. The firm has grown steadily, and today, Isaacson, Miller stands alone as a large, national, re- tained search firm dedicated to the full range of public and civic missions. We have active practices in higher education, science and social science research, human services, conservation and environmental defense, human and civil rights advocacy, K-12 education, academic and community healthcare, philanthropy, arts and culture, and community-based economic develop- ment, with sub-specialties in almost every functional area. Many of our clients and past candidates become part of an extended network that shares our goal of strengthening the civic infrastructure. They see their own missions reflected in the work of the firm and choose to assist us, generously, in our quest for the finest talent in their fields.