Opening Belgium looks, on paper, like a formality. Eleven million inhabitants, in the centre of Europe, two hours from Paris by train. Many French or foreign companies approach their establishment with this idea in mind: a small market, therefore an easy recruitment. This is the most costly mistake.
The Country Manager who opens a market does not manage a subsidiary that is already running. He creates it. He delivers the first turnover, recruits the first team, takes the first risks, with the legal and commercial weight that comes with the position. Getting this profile wrong means starting from scratch twelve months later, with a market that has already cooled. Before looking for the right person, you need to understand why this market is anything but simple. This is the entire purpose of our Country Manager recruitment method.
Belgium is not one market, it’s three markets
The first thing to understand is that Belgium cannot be managed as a single block. The country is fragmented into three zones that neither speak the same language nor the same commercial language. Flanders, Dutch-speaking, accounts for half of the country’s economic activity. Brussels, bilingual and international, concentrates the headquarters and institutions. Wallonia, French-speaking, operates with its own networks and its own codes.
This is not a folkloric detail. On the assignments we conduct, Flanders accounts for 48%, Brussels 26%, Wallonia 16%. A French executive who arrives thinking he will cover “French-speaking Belgium” immediately locks himself into a quarter of the market. The reflex is understandable—you recruit in the language you master—but it amputates the project before it even launches.
A Country Manager who does not speak Dutch will not be able to attack Flanders directly. He will depend on intermediaries, lose time, and be seen as yet another player who came to sell from Paris. In Flanders, linguistic proximity is not a courtesy, it is a condition of entry.
The profile to target: a three-dimensional salesperson
The temptation, when drafting the job specification, is to pile up requirements. Trilingual, local experience, contact book, technical expertise, managerial fibre, P&L sense. You end up looking for a five-legged sheep that does not exist, and you delay recruitment by six months waiting for a perfect candidate.
The right approach is the opposite. It is not about targeting more skills, but a precise maturity. We call it the three-dimensional salesperson, a concept that Marc Diamant formalised after years in the field. Height, first: the ability to dialogue with a local board, to speak strategy and not just product. Breadth next: understanding marketing, data, the complete mechanics of the business, not just frontal selling. Depth finally: grasping the long-term issues of a client, their sector, their industry.
An excellent salesperson without height will open doors but will not hold a management-level discussion. A good strategist without breadth will produce beautiful plans that no-one executes. For a market opening, it is the balance of the three that counts, and this balance cannot be read on a CV. It must be measured.
The brief before the sourcing
Here is the part that most companies skip, and that most agencies skip with them. You define a position hastily, launch the hunt, and find yourself three weeks later with ten profiles that respond to a poorly defined need. The sourcing was good. The brief, no. And when the brief goes wrong, everything else follows.
This is precisely where the quality of an executive recruitment is decided. Before sourcing a single candidate, you must put the need back on the table: is the function properly defined, does the scorecard hold up, is the salary range aligned with the Belgian market, is the coverage ambition realistic with a single person in the first year?
Our call 1 does not serve to validate your brief. It serves to challenge it. Many agencies take the order, start sourcing, and come back with ten CVs. We first put the need back on the table: is the function correctly defined, does the scorecard hold up, is the market aligned with your range? If the brief goes wrong, all the sourcing goes with it. This discipline is not comfortable for everyone, but it is what has allowed us to last 33 years in a profession where half the agencies do not exceed five years.
– The Archetype method, since 1993
Trilingualism is not an option
Let us return to the question of languages, because it often decides the recruitment. To open Belgium seriously, you need a profile capable of switching from French to Dutch and English depending on the interlocutor. French for Wallonia and part of Brussels. Dutch for Flanders, where the bulk of the market is. English for international headquarters and major accounts.
These profiles exist, but they are rare and sought after. Approaching them requires working in their three languages, not just in yours. Our recruitment force is trilingual by design: we brief, source and evaluate in French, Dutch and English. On a Belgian Country Manager position, this is what separates a credible short-list from a list of candidates who will never cover Flanders.
The signals that should alert you in a candidacy
A few markers recur in profiles that fail after an opening, and they can be spotted in an interview if you know what to listen for. The candidate who speaks only about strategy and never about prospecting: he has gained height, but he has forgotten to sell, and an opening begins with selling. The candidate who announces an unbeatable contact book without ever explaining how he built it: a network inherited from an employer does not always follow, and it ages quickly. The candidate who dismisses the language question with a wave of the hand, certain that English will suffice everywhere: he has not understood Flanders.
The last signal is more subtle. Beware of the profile who has never built anything from scratch, who has always taken over already established structures with their teams and their processes. Taking over a running subsidiary and opening one are two different professions. The first requires managing, the second inventing. At the opening, you are looking for the inventor, and this appetite for virgin territory is not declared, it is proven by the track record.
What to remember
Recruiting a Country Manager for Belgium is not about filling a position. It is about making a bet on the person who will carry your brand in a market with three faces, during the eighteen months when everything is decided. The right candidate is not the most qualified nor the most talkative in interview. It is the one whose height, breadth and depth correspond to the reality of your opening, and whose languages truly cover the targeted territory.
This is prepared upstream, in the brief, not in the rush of sourcing. It is also upstream that the structural trade-offs are made, such as choosing between a local profile and an expatriate executive. We conduct these assignments on retainer, with placement in twelve weeks on average and a six-month replacement guarantee. Not for commercial comfort—because a market opening does not tolerate approximation.
