A partnership built to give one answer
One profit centre, one set of incentives, and no internal competition for credit. It is an unusual structure for a firm this size, and it is the reason the advice tends to be blunt.
What the structure actually changes
In most advisory firms, the person who owns the client relationship has a financial reason to keep the work close. Ours does not.
Consultants are paid from the performance of the whole firm rather than their own office or practice. Nobody is rewarded for holding on to an engagement they are not best placed to lead, and nobody is penalised for handing it to a colleague on another continent. It sounds like an accounting detail. In practice it decides who ends up in the room.
It also changes what we will say. A firm that is paid to complete searches has a quiet interest in every role being filled. We would rather tell a board that the internal candidate is closer than they think, and lose the fee.
600+
Consultants in a single partnership
71
Offices worldwide
37
Countries
60+
Years advising on leadership
Four things we are willing to be judged on
Say the difficult thing early
A concern raised at the start of an engagement is advice. The same concern raised at the end is an excuse.
02Judge people on evidence
Assessment that a board can interrogate, with the reasoning shown rather than a verdict handed down.
03Treat candidates as future clients
Most of the people we decline this year will be running something in five. How they are treated is not a courtesy question.
04Stay after the decision
The appointment is the midpoint of the work, not the end of it.
Built slowly, on purpose
The firm was founded on a simple objection to how executive search was practised: that selling a candidate is not the same as advising a board. Growth since then has been organic rather than acquisitive, because a partnership with a single profit centre cannot easily absorb firms that were built on the opposite model.
The result is a firm that is smaller than it could have been and more consistent than it would otherwise be.
