Executive Search for Technology-Focused C-suite Leaders

Executive search is a retained, research-led process for appointing senior leaders. A search firm is engaged to define the problem the appointment has to solve, map the whole market, approach leaders confidentially, and assess them properly before presenting a shortlist. Contingent recruitment works the other way round: it starts from a job specification, is paid only on placement, and reaches the people who are already looking. At this level most of the leaders worth talking to are not looking, which is why search exists.

Retained, exclusively. That is a quality decision rather than a commercial one. Being retained means we can spend the research time your mandate actually needs from day one, and it means every leader we approach on your behalf gets a consistent, considered experience. That matters a great deal when you are trying to interest someone who was perfectly happy where they were.

Most mandates reach shortlist four to six weeks after the briefing, and run eight to twelve weeks from briefing to accepted offer. Board-level and highly specialised appointments can take longer. We will give you an honest read on the timeline at the outset rather than an optimistic one you find out about later.

Retained search is charged as a percentage of the appointed leader's first-year base salary, typically between 25 and 35 per cent depending on the seniority and complexity of the appointment. We are happy to talk through the structure in an initial conversation, before anyone commits to anything.

A CV tells you what someone has done. It does not tell you how they will behave when the programme slips, the board loses patience, or two of your strongest people resign in the same fortnight. We interview at length and in conversation rather than running a scripted competency exercise, and, working with the social psychologist Dr Ian Stewart, we assess how a leader operates when the room is calm and what they reach for when it is not. You receive a written assessment for every shortlisted leader, mapped against the problem you are solving rather than against a list of keywords.

Our deepest networks are in technology, digital and transformation-driven businesses. We also work across healthcare and life sciences, retail and consumer, media, travel and hospitality, energy and utilities, education and legal. Where our networks are genuinely deep we will say so, and where they are not we will tell you that too. We place across sectors deliberately, because the judgement that changes an outcome often travels better from outside an industry than from within it.

Then an interim leader is usually the right answer, either to hold a function steady while the permanent search runs or to deliver a defined piece of work with a clear end point. Our interim leaders can be in the seat within days rather than months. You can read more on our interim management page.

We are retained by boards, chief executives, people leaders and private-equity operating partners appointing senior leadership into organisations in growth or transformation. We are not a contingent agency, we do not fill high-volume or below-director roles, and we are a poor fit for a process run as a procurement exercise. If that is the brief, we will gladly point you to someone better placed to help.