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AI-driven executive search. Same trusted expertise, now amplified.
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Most leadership research is commissioned once the decision is already taken, which makes it a formality. This work is for the stage before that. Should this function have one leader or two. Is the structure our competitor uses actually working, or does it just look tidy on a chart. Is the person we want even available in this market at the level we can pay. Those questions are answerable, and answering them before a search opens is considerably cheaper than discovering the answer through a failed hire.
Not the org chart in the annual report. Who genuinely owns the P&L, which functions report where, how many layers sit between the chief executive and the operating business, and which of those choices are deliberate rather than inherited.
Sizing the real population, not the theoretical one. How many people in this market have done this job at this scale, how many are plausibly movable, and what that means for whether the brief is achievable as written or needs to change.
Observed compensation in the specific population we researched, with the sample stated, rather than a national average drawn from companies nothing like yours.
Where leaders in this function have gone over recent years, which organisations lose people and which retain them, and what that pattern says about timing and about who will take your call.
Two streams, deliberately. Public record establishes the skeleton: filings, annual reports, regulatory disclosures, job postings, professional profiles. Primary conversation establishes whether that skeleton reflects how the business is really run, because the gap between the published structure and the operating reality is usually where the useful finding sits.
Every finding is attributed and rated for confidence. A structure confirmed by three independent sources is presented differently from one inferred from a single job posting, and we mark which is which. Where the evidence does not support a conclusion, the report says the evidence does not support a conclusion. A study that produces a clean answer to every question asked of it has usually been written backwards from the answer the client wanted.
It will not tell you whether a named individual will move, or succeed once they have. It describes how organisations are built and how people flow between them. It does not read minds. It is also a photograph, not a live feed: senior markets shift, and a map commissioned a year ago should be treated as history.
It will not resolve a disagreement inside your leadership team about direction. Research narrows the range of defensible answers and removes the indefensible ones. Choosing between what remains is still your job, and any firm that tells you otherwise is selling you the comfort of an outsourced decision.
If you know the role and need the names, you want talent mapping. If you know the role and need to price it, you want compensation benchmarking. If the role is defined and signed off and you want it filled, that is an executive search.
Market intelligence is for the stage before all three, when the shape of the answer is still open. It frequently ends with a recommendation not to hire the role as originally conceived, which is an uncomfortable finding to deliver and usually the most valuable one in the report.
A talent map answers who. It names the people who could do a specific job and tells you where they sit today. Market intelligence answers why and whether. It looks at how competitors have organised themselves, which structures are working, where functions report and what that means for a decision you have not finalised yet. If you already know the role you are hiring, you probably want a talent map. If you are still deciding whether the role should exist, or what shape it should take, this is the work.
A written analysis structured around your decision, with the organisation charts we reconstructed, the population we identified and sized, the compensation ranges observed in that population, the movement patterns we found, and a set of recommendations with the reasoning attached. Every claim carries its source and our confidence in it. You also get the underlying data, so your team can interrogate it rather than take our word for it.
Two streams. Public record work covers filings, annual reports, regulatory disclosures, job postings, patent and litigation records, and professional profiles. Primary work means structured conversations with people who have direct knowledge of the organisations in question. Public record establishes the skeleton. Primary conversation is what tells you whether the skeleton reflects how the business actually runs.
It is observed, not surveyed. We report what we saw in the population we researched, with the sample size stated, rather than a national benchmark that has been averaged across companies unlike yours. That makes it narrower and more accurate for your specific comparison set. Where a sample is too small to be meaningful, we say so instead of publishing a number that looks precise. For a broader benchmarking exercise across levels and functions, see compensation benchmarking.
It cannot tell you whether a specific individual will say yes, or perform once hired. It reports how organisations are built and how people move, not who is quietly unhappy. It is a picture of a market at a point in time, and senior markets move. It will not settle an internal disagreement about strategy either. Research narrows the range of defensible answers. It does not choose between them for you.
Primary conversations are conducted without naming you, and we do not approach people inside a competitor in a way that would signal what you are considering. Public record work leaves no trace at all. If a mandate cannot be researched discreetly, we will tell you that before it starts rather than after.
Tell us about the mandate or challenge you are facing and we will show you what a tailor-made, partner-led engagement really looks like.