Executives Seeking Executives.
Boutique search and selection for the roles you cannot afford to get wrong - run by an executive who has sat in the chair, not a process shop that has read about it.
A mis-hire at the top is the most expensive mistake on your books.
Research from the Center for American Progress puts the cost of replacing a highly skilled employee at up to 213 percent of annual salary. For a senior executive, even that number is conservative - it counts the search and the ramp, not the initiatives that stalled, the customers who wobbled, or the strong people who left while the wrong leader ran the team. The fee for getting selection right is a rounding error against the cost of getting it wrong twice.
Your HR team is good. This is a different job.
Most internal recruiting teams are excellent at what they were built for. Assessing whether a stranger can run a P&L, rebuild a leadership team, or survive a board - that is a different job, and it is best done by someone who has done those things.
More than one CEO I worked for made a final interview with an experienced executive a requirement for every senior hire. They were not being ceremonial. A peer hears things a resume screen cannot: the difference between owning a result and standing near one, the polished story that never varies, the candidate who manages up beautifully and leaves wreckage below.
Six phases. Every one has a gate.
The process runs on what selection research actually supports - structured interviews, work samples, and evidence over advocacy. Every step produces a written record.
Scorecard. The role defined as outcomes, not duties. You sign it before we touch a candidate.
Sourcing. A slate of three to five who clear the screen - not thirty resumes. (Full Search engagements)
Structured assessment. Same questions, same order, every candidate, scored against anchors - plus a work sample, so we watch them do a slice of the job instead of asking about it.
The Executive Gate. The final interview, run by an executive who has sat in the chair. It ends in a written go or no-go, with reasons.
References and decision. Structured reference interviews, then a written evidence report a reader who met nobody could follow.
Offer through first day. Offer support and a 90-day onboarding plan, including a CliftonStrengths debrief for the new leader and their team.
Two ways to engage.
Both paths run the same assessment machinery. The only difference is who finds the candidates.
Get the book"If I were running a company today, I would have one priority above all others: to acquire as many of the best people as I could [because] the single biggest constraint on the success of my organization is the ability to get and to hang on to enough of the right people."