C-suite and VP hires, researched rather than advertised.
A leadership hire that is too critical or too sensitive for ordinary recruiting. The search is confidential and research-led, the shortlist is built from the market rather than from applications, and the match is against your objectives and culture as much as the specification.
Chief executive, operating, financial, marketing, technology, people, product, revenue, customer and diversity officers.
Sales, people, marketing, engineering, branding, operations, business development, growth, product, customer success and finance.
By role, by business stage and by industry — with seven industries defined for search work specifically.
Discovery, alignment, matching and a vetted premium pool. No timed process is published, and none is implied.
What Executive search is
Executive search covers the top of the organisation — chief executive, operating, financial, marketing, technology, people, product, revenue, customer and diversity officers, and vice presidents across sales, people, marketing, engineering, branding, operations, business development, growth, product, customer success and finance. It is deliberately a different lane from Director-and-below hiring, and the boundary is enforced rather than blurred.
The method has four parts. Comprehensive executive discovery searches across a broad spectrum of criteria rather than a title match. Holistic alignment analyses your objectives, culture and specific needs in depth, because a leadership hire fails on fit far more often than on capability. Matching technology narrows the field precisely. And the shortlist comes from a premium pool of meticulously vetted executives with a worldwide network behind it.
A search is customised on three axes — by role, by business stage and by industry — with a different executive archetype expected at each stage of growth. Candidates flow into the applicant tracking system you already use, so the process leaves an evidence trail rather than living in a consultant's inbox.
What it does
What a retained-style search actually consists of here.
Comprehensive executive discovery
A search across a broad spectrum of criteria rather than a title-and-tenure filter — the point of research-led search is finding people who are not looking and would not answer an advert.
Holistic alignment
In-depth analysis of your objectives, culture and specific needs before the search runs, because a leadership hire that fails almost always fails on fit rather than on capability.
Search on three axes
By role across sales, marketing, product, people, operations and finance, and engineering and technology; by business stage; and by industry — consumer, fintech, martech, SaaS, gaming and entertainment, health tech, and venture capital and private equity.
Stage-appropriate profiling
A different executive archetype expected at each growth phase, so an early-stage company is not sold an enterprise operator and an enterprise is not sold a founder-shaped leader.
Confidentiality as standard
The service is described sitewide as confidential leadership recruitment — which matters when the role is not yet vacant, or when the market should not know you are looking.
Evidence in your own system
Candidates enter the applicant tracking pipeline you already screen in, so the decision trail exists in a system your board can be shown rather than in a consultant's notes.
How it runs
The published method, in order. Note what is absent: no week-by-week schedule is published for this service, and we will not manufacture one.
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Understand the organisation
Objectives, culture and the specific needs of the seat — including what the last person in it got wrong, which is usually the most useful hour of the engagement.
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Define the search
The three axes fixed: the role, the stage the business is actually at rather than the one it describes itself as, and the industries worth searching across.
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Discovery
Broad-spectrum research across the market, confidentially, with the matching software narrowing the field as the picture sharpens.
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Vetting and shortlist
A premium pool of meticulously vetted executives, presented against the alignment work rather than against a specification alone.
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Decision, in your pipeline
Candidates and their evidence sit in your ATS, with the HRMS picking the record up once an offer is accepted.
Who it is for
Three situations where research-led search is the right instrument rather than an expensive version of recruiting.
Founders making a first executive hire
The first chief technology, revenue or people officer, where the company has no internal benchmark for what good looks like at that level and getting it wrong costs a year.
Boards and HR leaders replacing a leader
Where the role is not yet publicly vacant, the incumbent does not know, or the market should not learn about it from a job advert. Confidentiality is the service, not a feature of it.
Companies changing stage
A business moving from early to growth or growth to enterprise, where the leadership archetype that got it here is genuinely not the one it needs next — and saying that out loud is part of the work.
What it does not do
What is not published for this service, said plainly rather than filled in.
- No fee, retainer percentage, payment stage, exclusivity requirement, assurance period or off-limits undertaking is published. Executive search is typically a retained engagement as a category; the specific terms are agreed in writing with you.
- No timed process is published, and we will not import one. If you need stage timings as a commitment, ask for them explicitly and get them in the engagement letter.
- Director, senior manager and manager roles are a separate service with a different shape — shorter, less confidential and commercially different. Professional search →
- Where the qualified market is deep and the constraint is speed rather than mapping, a permanent staffing engagement is the cheaper instrument. Permanent staffing →
- No per-market process is documented — notice periods, work authorisation and statutory checks vary by jurisdiction, and those need settling in the engagement rather than assumed from a page.
Answers
What is executive search, and when is it worth it?
A confidential, research-led search for a hire too critical or sensitive for standard recruiting — typically a retained engagement. It is worth it when the people you want are not applying to adverts and when a wrong appointment would cost a year rather than a quarter.
Which roles do you search for?
C-suite seats including chief executive, operating, financial, marketing, technology, people, product, revenue, customer and diversity officers, and vice presidents across sales, people, marketing, engineering, branding, operations, business development, growth, product, customer success and finance.
What does it cost?
No fee structure is published, and we would rather tell you that than print a percentage we cannot stand behind. Terms are agreed in writing before the search begins — ask about the fee basis, the payment stages, the assurance period and any off-limits undertaking.
How long does a search take?
No timed process is published for this service. Anyone quoting a fixed week count before understanding the seat and the market is quoting an average, not a plan.
How is the search kept confidential?
The engagement is described as confidential leadership recruitment: the approach is direct and researched rather than advertised, and the candidate pipeline sits in a controlled system with role-based access rather than in circulated documents.
How is this different from professional search?
Executive search covers senior leadership — C-suite, VP and board — and is normally retained, confidential and research-led. Professional search covers Director, senior manager and manager roles; the shape is similar but it is shorter, less confidential and engaged on different terms.
Two ways to start
Talk to the group and a senior lead scopes it in writing, or go straight to the service's own site and look at it yourself. Neither route commits you to the other.
Name the number you need to hit. A senior lead replies within one business day and a costed plan follows within three working days.
The executive search page, with the full C-suite and VP scope, the three search axes and the growth-stage archetypes.
Related
Everything the group sells around Executive search — the company that delivers it, the nearest siblings, and the full list.