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AI-driven executive search. Same trusted expertise, now amplified.
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Retained search for CEO, CXO and board mandates, run partner-led from India and the UAE.
Three kinds of mandate, one method. An executive search fills a role that runs something. A board search appoints someone to oversee it, which is a different job assessed against different evidence. A diversity mandate is not a fourth category at all, it is the first two run with a population widened at mapping stage rather than corrected at shortlist stage.
Choosing between them is usually straightforward once the question is put plainly, and getting it wrong is expensive. The most common error is running a board appointment like an executive hire, which reliably produces impressive operators who govern badly.
100%
of every search is led by a partner, from first brief to final shortlist, never handed off to junior researchers.
Retained search for the CEO, CXO and C-suite roles that set your company’s direction, led end to end by a partner.
Explore 02Independent directors, chairs and board members who strengthen governance and sharpen strategy.
Explore 03Inclusive, rigorously assessed shortlists that widen the pool of senior talent without lowering the bar.
ExploreThe role runs something and carries a number. That is an executive search. Assessment is about operating capability at the scale you need, evidenced by what the person demonstrably owned rather than by the title they held.
The role oversees the people who run it. That is a board appointment, and it starts with a composition audit rather than a candidate list. The question is never who is impressive, it is what this board cannot currently see.
The shortlists keep coming back uniform. That is rarely a pipeline problem. It is usually two or three requirements in the brief that filtered the market before anyone was approached, which is a diagnosable and fixable fault.
The role is not defined yet. Then none of the three is the right next step. Research into how comparable organisations are structured, and whether the person exists in this market at the budget assumed, costs a fraction of a search that discovers the same thing in month four.
Every mandate is mapped before anyone is approached. A shortlist of five means little on its own; a shortlist of five drawn from a researched population of four hundred can be interrogated, and the four hundred is the part you should ask any firm to show you.
Assessment is structured and written down, against the brief rather than against impressions, and the same questions are put to every candidate. Unstructured interviewing is a weak predictor of performance for anyone, and the noise it introduces does not fall evenly.
Rejections are reported with reasoning. If a firm cannot tell you who was considered and why they were set aside, the shortlist was assembled rather than researched.
An unattractive mandate stays unattractive. If the reporting line is unclear, the authority is nominal or the predecessor left badly, strong candidates work it out by the second conversation. Search surfaces those problems early and does not solve them.
Nor can a firm compress a market. If six people in the country have run this at this scale and four are unmovable, the answer is a different brief, not a longer list. Saying so is the part of the job clients pay for and firms most often avoid.
Ask what the person is accountable for. If they run a function or a business and carry a number, it is an executive search. If they oversee the people who do, and their value is judgement on papers they did not commission, it is a board appointment. The populations barely overlap at the senior end. See executive search and board and non-executive search.
It is the same search run properly. The work happens at mapping stage, by researching a wider population, and at assessment, by using the same structured questions for everyone. It is listed separately because clients look for it by name, not because it is a different method. See diversity search.
No. Retained work funds the mapping, and mapping is what separates a shortlist drawn from the market from one drawn from a database. Contingency is a reasonable model for volume hiring and a poor one for a single appointment that shapes a function for years. Our view on when each model fits sets out the trade-off.
Retained search is normally priced as a percentage of first-year compensation, billed in stages across the mandate. The percentage varies with seniority, scarcity and scope, so a figure quoted before the brief is understood is a guess. We publish the mechanics openly in what a CXO search costs.
A partner, from brief to close. The distinction that matters is not seniority at the pitch, which every firm offers, but who conducts the assessment and defends the shortlist. Ask any firm you are considering who will be in the room at week six.
Then a search is premature and we would say so. That question is answered by research into how comparable organisations are structured and whether the person you have in mind exists in this market. See market intelligence and talent mapping.
Two mandates that show how a partner-led search works in practice, from brief to onboarded leader.
Search Services
01
India’s largest social commerce platform needed a Head of AI & ML for personalisation. The talent was scarce in India, so we head-hunted globally, mapping 50 to 70 executives across markets.
Search Services
02
An AI-driven healthtech founder-led business in stealth mode needed a CTO to turn it into a technology company. We targeted tech leaders aligned to holistic wellness, mapping 40 to 50 executives.
Each case study opens as a two-page PDF.