Executive Search · Since 1997
We don’t post jobs.
We find people who aren’t looking.
For founders, PE firms, and boards navigating C-suite transitions where a single leak — or a second wrong hire — is not an option.
The placement of a CFO who restructured three failing divisions inside 18 months — without a single public announcement during the search — is the kind of work that defines the firm's approach.
Financial Times
Marcus Henley, Capital Markets Editor
November 2025
Where most search firms rely on LinkedIn and warm introductions, Headhunt operates in the negative space — the executives who have quietly decided they would move for the right situation, but will never post a profile.
Harvard Business Review
Dr. Priya Nair, Leadership Practice
September 2025
Three portfolio companies, three C-suite transitions, a combined $2.1B in enterprise value preserved. The discretion alone is worth the retainer.
Bloomberg
Cassandra Wolfe, Private Equity Desk
January 2026
Transparent Process
What happens after
the retainer is signed.
Scroll through a search you haven’t commissioned yet. By the bottom, you’ll understand exactly what you’re buying — and why discretion costs what it does.
Phase
Mandate Definition
Before a single name is considered, we reconstruct the failure. If you've had a wrong hire, we conduct a structured debrief to isolate whether the miss was competency, culture, or board expectation. We define the role not by its title but by the three decisions the next executive will face in their first 90 days — and the specific judgment those decisions require. The output is a mandate document that functions as a legal brief: precise, disputable, and signed by all stakeholders before search begins.
Deliverable · Mandate Document
Phase
Market Mapping
We map every person who holds or has recently held a comparable role across your competitive set, adjacent industries, and the institutional sources — investment banks, consulting practices, PE-backed companies — that produce the profile you need. This is not a database search. It is an intelligence exercise: understanding who is performing, who is constrained, and who is quietly available. We produce a market map of 60–120 names before a single outreach call is made.
Deliverable · Market Intelligence Map
Phase
Long-List Calibration
We present 18–24 profiles to the hiring principal — not as candidates, but as hypotheses. The purpose is calibration: which of these profiles generates genuine excitement, and why? Which reveals an unstated preference? This session typically surfaces the actual criteria that were absent from the initial mandate. We then use that calibration to tighten the search parameters before any candidate has been told the role exists. No candidate's name is shared beyond the hiring principal at this stage.
Deliverable · Calibration Brief (Redacted)
Phase
Candidate Engagement
Outreach is conducted by a senior partner — never an associate, never an automated sequence. We approach candidates as peers with a specific and compelling situation, not a job posting. The initial conversation is a professional exchange that does not require the candidate to commit to anything. We qualify interest, verify availability, and assess cultural fit before the client's identity is disclosed. Candidates who do not meet the mandate criteria at this stage are thanked and removed from the process. No names are released to the client until we have spoken with the candidate and obtained their informed consent.
Deliverable · Engagement Status Report
Phase
Shortlist & Interview Architecture
We deliver a shortlist of four to six candidates. Each is accompanied by a written assessment — not a CV summary, but a structured evaluation against the mandate criteria, including identified risks and the specific questions that will surface them. We design the interview process: who meets whom, in what sequence, and what each conversation is intended to test. We provide an interview scorecard that forces interviewers to record evidence, not impressions. The scorecard is returned to us after each round and used to structure the debrief.
Deliverable · Interview Scorecard Template
Interviewers must record specific evidence, not impressions.
Phase
Offer Engineering
We structure the offer. This means understanding what the preferred candidate actually values — not what they say they value in the first conversation — and constructing a package that addresses their specific situation: unvested equity at their current firm, a spouse's employment constraints, a board seat they were promised elsewhere. We negotiate on both sides, acting as a neutral party whose interest is a closed search. We have a 94% offer acceptance rate on shortlisted candidates. The remaining 6% are situations where the candidate's circumstances changed materially after shortlisting.
Deliverable · Offer Structuring Memo
Outcomes
Three searches.
No announcements during.
Identifying information has been removed at client request. The metrics have not.
18 months
To EBITDA positive post-placement
CFO Placement
Series D SaaS · Board-mandated restructuring
A CFO placed into a $340M ARR company facing its first down round. The mandate required someone who had managed covenant negotiations with lenders while simultaneously cutting headcount by 30% — without triggering an exodus of senior engineering talent. Search completed in 47 days. Candidate was not in market.
47 days
Search to signed offer
CTO Placement
Legacy Financial Services · Migration mandate
A bank with $4.2B in AUM needed a CTO who had migrated a comparable institution off on-premise infrastructure without a single customer-facing incident. The candidate placed had done it twice — once at a competing institution. The search was conducted under a mutual NDA. No press release was issued.
0 leaks
During a 9-week active search
CEO Succession
Public Company · Quiet board succession
A $1.1B market cap company required a CEO successor before the current CEO's departure was announced. The board had 90 days. Six candidates were evaluated, two were finalists, one was appointed. The announcement was made on the board's timeline. Stock moved +4.2% on the announcement day.
Model Comparison
Retained vs. Contingency.
What the difference actually means.
Criterion
Retained Search
Contingency Search
Fee Structure
Fixed retainer in three tranches. Paid regardless of outcome.
Percentage of first-year comp. Paid only on placement.
Candidate Discretion
Candidates are never told a role exists until qualified. Identity protected.
Roles are typically posted or broadcast to maximize candidate pool.
Search Exclusivity
One firm. Full market access. No competing agencies approaching same candidates.
Multiple firms often work the same search, creating candidate confusion.
Passive Candidate Access
Primary focus. Passive candidates require relationship capital to approach.
Limited. Contingency economics favor candidates already in market.
Deliverable Ownership
Market map, calibration brief, interview architecture, and offer memo are yours.
No proprietary deliverables. Process ends at placement.
Appropriate For
C-suite, board seats, roles where discretion or difficulty justify the investment.
Director-level and below, roles with large active candidate pools.
Engage
Start a
Confidential Search.
This form reaches a senior partner directly. No intake coordinator, no automated response. You will receive a personal reply within one business day. If the situation requires an NDA before further conversation, check the box below and a mutual NDA will be sent to your email automatically.
Retainer-based only
We do not work on contingency for C-suite mandates. The retainer structure is what enables the discretion.
Minimum search duration: 45 days
We will tell you if your timeline is incompatible with a quality search. We will not compress process to close a retainer.
One active search per client at a time
We do not manage multiple concurrent mandates for the same client. Focus is the product.