Services · Talent Acquisition
Executive Search & Leadership Hiring
Retained search for the appointments where getting it wrong is expensive.
Overview
What this is.
Executive search is what you engage when the role is too important, too difficult or too confidential to run through a contingent process. Typically CXO, Vice President, Director and functional-head appointments — the roles where the wrong hire costs a year of momentum, not a recruitment fee.
We run these as retained mandates. That means an exclusive engagement, a staged fee, and a documented process with deliverables at each stage — including a full market map you keep regardless of outcome.
The difference between retained and contingent isn't the fee structure. It's that a retained mandate justifies the depth of research that a genuinely difficult appointment requires.
When organisations engage us
Four situations we see most.
A first-of-its-kind role
No internal benchmark for what good looks like, and no existing network to draw on.
A confidential replacement
An incumbent is in place. The search cannot be visible in the market.
A capability you don't yet have
Hiring a leader for a function that doesn't exist internally, where you can't assess the candidates alone.
A search that has already failed
A role open for months through other channels, usually because the brief or the compensation assumption is wrong.
What's included
Scope of the engagement.
- Structured briefing and success-criteria definition
- Full market and competitor organisation mapping
- Longlist with written rationale
- Direct confidential approach
- Technical and leadership assessment
- Written candidate assessments
- Interview management and structured feedback
- Compensation benchmarking
- Offer structuring and negotiation
- Reference checking
- Onboarding follow-up through the first months
How we work
The process for this service.
Briefing and success criteria
Including stakeholder interviews where the role reports into more than one person.
Market map
Delivered and reviewed with you before any approach is made.
Confidential approach
Direct, discreet engagement with the identified pool.
Assessment
Against the criteria agreed at the outset, not against the CV.
Shortlist presentation
Each candidate with a written assessment covering fit and risk.
Interview management
Coordination, structured feedback, expectation management.
Offer and close
Structuring, negotiation and counter-offer management.
Onboarding support
Contact through notice period and into the first months.
Engagement model
How this is structured commercially.
Retained, exclusive. Staged fee across engagement, shortlist and completion. Replacement guarantee terms agreed at the outset.
Who you'll work with
Vidya B.S. leads this practice.
21+ years across HR and talent acquisition, with a background spanning enterprise IT, technology services and cross-sector executive search.
Let's talk about the team you're building.
Tell us the role, the constraint and the timeline. We'll tell you honestly whether we're the right firm for it — and if we're not, we'll say so.