Cielo APAC: A year in review

SINGAPORE – 2020 was an unusual year, by any measure. Uncertainty loomed large and it’s not over yet. Cielo APAC had to demonstrate a very high degree of agility to support our clients navigate through this volatile period. We are very grateful for our clients’ trust in Cielo as we retained all of our APAC client partnerships and also expanded our engagements with clients in North America and Europe into APAC. Our technology-focused talent acquisition solutions ensured that we stayed proactive and that we provided innovative solutions to support our clients’ needs in the region throughout 2020. Cielo developed the “Leading through COVID-19: HR & Talent Acquisition” resource center to help organizations with best practice and suggestions to navigate the pandemic.  

“We can all agree 2020 has been a year unlike no other. However, I couldn’t be more proud of the unwavering commitment and dedication of our teams, who have continued to serve our customers flawlessly through this ever-changing environment. The outstanding service performance results and many complementary comments from customers’ is testament to the ongoing value of our partnerships through changing times.” - Paul Daley, SVP, Cielo APAC 

Our employees and their wellbeing remained our number one priority in 2020. Cielo, along with our financial partner, Permira, launched an ‘Employee Assistance Fund’ this year and this has helped to provide support to employees during calamities like the cyclone in the Philippines and COVID across the world. 

As we continued our focus and growth in APAC, we increased our footprint to China through an acquisition of an established business (AsiaNet China) with offices in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Wuhan. This enhanced presence and capability enabled us to respond to growing demand for RPO services in Greater China. We also strengthened our leadership team and welcomed Ray Pereira in Manila and Doug Terry in Singapore. Ray Pereira joined us as the VP for our Manila Delivery Centre to lead our 350+ strong team supporting our clients globally. Doug Terry joined the leadership team as Director for Client Services and focused on strategic client relationships and innovation in our RPO accounts across the region. 

In 2020, Cielo welcomed new clients to our portfolio in APAC across sectors including Energy, Life Sciences, Professional Services and Government. We renewed our strategic partnership with Sanofi and will continue to hire the best talent for them throughout the enterprise in 9 countries across APAC. Our Executive Search practice also delivered strategic senior hires in the region including in Japan and Greater China.  

We are humbled and encouraged by recognitions we have received from independent analysts like Nelson Hall who have identified Cielo as a leader in all categories in their 2020 NEAT vendor evaluation for RPO and HRO who named us as #1 Global RPO provider in the 2020 HRO Today Bakers Dozen list - an annual ranking based on client satisfaction surveys and published by HRO Today magazine. We also retained the #1 Rank for Healthcare RPO for 7th year in a row. These ratings are exclusively based on customer satisfaction ratings. Cielo was also recognized as a leading RPO provider at the Asia Recruitment Awards in Singapore. 

Additional highlights for Cielo’s APAC team in 2020 include: 

• Achieved business growth significantly above the RPO industry average, while retaining 100% of our client partnerships 
• Celebrated our third birthday in our Manila Delivery Centre. We now have over 350 recruiting professionals serving over 40 customers, 24 hours a day. That is a 50% growth from 2019
• Promoted and enabled career moves for more than 40 of our employees  
• Achieved strong customer and employee satisfaction results. Our Hiring Manager satisfaction continued to trend towards 90% across many of our partnerships 
• Hosted our first China specific webinar “Using Talent Market Insights to Increase TA Effectiveness” in July and a regional webinar on "Employer Branding for Challenging, Changing Times in APAC." We also published a thought leadership article on "Demystifying Total Talent in APAC."