The Origin
Advisory is the through-line. This methodology fuses 20 years of operating, building, and leading teams at Razorfish and Sapient with the craft of executive search from my time at Korn Ferry. I recruit for roles I've held and for which I've worked as an operator.
After reviewing ten years of successful placements, patterns emerged. I codified what worked, researched each component, and pressure-tested the system. Not opinions, outcomes. Every step is informed by what drives results.
One person from diagnosis to offer. Weekly calibration. Feedback loops that refine the mandate in real time.
The result: Tenure and promotions: both ~2x benchmark. 98% search completion. 95% offer acceptance.
The Learning
The best searches come from clients who partner deeply, who treat definition as the work, not a step before the work. These are the outliers who lean into the most overlooked part of the process: the candidate.
Most searches treat candidates as ingredients. I disagree. They're the purpose of the search. They're the ones who create value after the hire. The process needs to reflect this.
Marketing transformation and commercial leadership: CMO, CGO, VP, Director and above. Category-agnostic. Cross-ecosystem: PE portfolios, Fortune 500 brands, agencies, consultancies. Function-specific, not industry-specific.
The Why
Most searches start at the brief. I begin with the mandate.
The brief lists requirements. The mandate defines what the hire actually needs to solve. Sometimes they align. Often they don't. Either way, I validate before sourcing begins.
This is definition before selection. It's why 95% of offers are accepted, 98% of searches are completed, and tenure runs ~2x benchmark. It's also why learnings or misalignment surfaces early, allowing for adjustment.
The diagnostic is built into the kickoff and informed by the pre-work I do before we meet. No extra time. Just clarity from the start. And clarity is faster.
AI is part of my workflow and embedded across my tech and data stack: market mapping, research, pattern and signal recognition. I use it daily. But assessment isn't an AI problem. Evaluating whether someone's built anything, whether they'll fit your culture, whether they can deliver under pressure, that's judgment. And judgment comes from having done the work.
Archetypes reviewed on week one. The goal: candidates to review the following week. Average search: 77 days.