The challenges facing the Managing Director

Yes. We recruit the Managing Director and their inner circle. Deputy managing directors, business unit heads, subsidiary directors. Demanding contexts, transformation, succession, recovery from crisis, are our ground. Our clients are listed groups, mid-caps, investment funds and their portfolio companies. The mandate for a general management role often comes from the board or the shareholder, bodies our founder knows from the inside, having been Board Secretary of listed groups. That dialogue is part of the assignment. Whatever the level of the role, the process stays the same. In-depth interviews, personality assessments debriefed in full, cross-checked references taken from executives who have seen the candidate decide. These roles commit the trajectory of the company, and assessing them calls for the same rigour at every scale.

Along the lines of specialist executive search. A fixed fee or a percentage of the annual remuneration for the role, invoiced in three instalments (at launch, on presentation of the shortlist, on signature). Fees are set out in writing before the mandate, with no hidden extras. The in-depth assessment, the personality tests, the cross-checked references and the integration follow-up are all included. Transparency applies to the rules, confidentiality to the amounts. A failed hire in general management costs a great deal more. An interrupted trajectory, a weakened governance, the fresh start. Our fees are measured against what they prevent. The detail of our rules, guarantee and off-limits included, is set down in black and white on our method page.

Six months of replacement guarantee, written into every mandate. If the candidate recruited leaves the role during that period, we take the assignment back on with no new fees. The conditions, including termination at the employer's initiative, appear in black and white in the mandate. In sixteen years, that clause has been invoked only twice, in both cases for personal reasons on the candidate's side, never for an error of judgement. That solidity owes nothing to chance. It rests on the initial scoping, the in-depth assessment and the cross-checked references that precede every presentation, then on the integration follow-up that continues for a year after signature. The guarantee protects your decision. Our method makes sure it almost never has to.