The Naked Headhunter
Search and advisory beneath the surface.
Leadership appointments rarely succeed or fail on competence alone. We look beyond polished CVs and rehearsed interviews to understand not only what a candidate can do, but who they become when the stakes rise — and what that means for the organisation they are about to lead.
One practice. Two expressions.
SAXSKIOLD is the advisory practice. CURRENT is the thinking that shapes it. The Naked Headhunter is where the two meet.
Into what truly moves people and organisations.
This practice works the other way around. Nothing is concealed for the sake of authority — not the method, not the doubt, not the reading behind it. Search and thinking are the same work seen from two depths: one above the waterline, one below.
SAXSKIOLD is a member of
What lies beneath
What they can do is visible.
Who they become under pressure is harder to see.
The Naked Headhunter is an invitation to look deeper. Not to complicate things, but to stop mistaking the weather for the Current. Better leadership and better hiring begin when we stop performing certainty — and start seeing clearly.
Two perspectives
Saxskiold
People, search & advisory
Executive search, leadership assessment, succession and board advisory — the conditions that allow the right people to succeed.
Explore SAXSKIOLD — People, Search & Advisory →Current
The book & the thinking
The book, the Companion, and the engagements built on CURRENT™ Organizational Orientation Dynamics™.
Enter CURRENT — Leadership in Motion →What we do
Engagements across search and the practice.Two registers, one discipline. Executive search and recruitment place people into an organisation. The leadership programmes, dialogues and debates work on the conditions those people arrive into.
- 01Executive SearchSaxskiold→
A mandated search for leadership at board, executive and senior level — read against the organisation, not a generic profile.
Explore this engagement → - 02Organisational Value ProgrammeSaxskiold→
A focused examination of where organisational value is created, constrained or lost—across leadership, organisation, technology and execution.
Explore this engagement → - 03Succession & Board AdvisorySaxskiold→
Confidential work with owners, chairs and boards to strengthen leadership continuity over years, not vacancies.
Explore this engagement → - 04CURRENT Executive Dialogue™Current→
Confidential executive work on a real organisational condition — thinking together before deciding together.
Explore this engagement →
I have worked with Kenneth on recruiting assignments for my management team and other positions. The quality of both the recruitment process and the candidates is very high, helped by Kenneth’s extensive network and strong business insights — which have also proven very valuable in strategic advisory discussions. I recommend Kenneth as a business partner and advisor, and look forward to working with him again.
Nordic executive-search expertise with international reach through more than 30 Taplow offices.
The practitioner
Kenneth Saxskiold-Noerup
Executive search · leadership advisory
“I have spent much of my career watching what happens when capable people meet conditions they were not quite prepared for.”
Former international business executive, board adviser, entrepreneur and executive-search partner. That experience shapes how I approach search today: looking beyond credentials to understand the person, the pressure and the organisation they may be asked to lead.
Meet Kenneth →One conviction
Better leadership and better hiring begin when we stop performing certainty — and start seeing clearly.
Two doors. One underlying discipline. Whether you arrive through the book or through the search, the work is the same: stay with the situation long enough to sense the organisational current, then shape the next move with that reading in the room.
That discipline is Stay · Sense · Shape. It is not a process diagram. It is a way of paying attention — to people, to pressure, to the gap between intention and effect.
The unseen conditions
Transparency is not a style. It is a method.
Say what is actually being looked for
A brief written honestly is already half the appointment. Most searches fail because the organisation described the role it wished to have rather than the one it needs filled.
Show the reasoning, not only the shortlist
Judgement that cannot be examined cannot be trusted. Every recommendation carries its argument with it, including the parts that argue against it.
Read the Current, not the weather
Behaviour on the surface is rarely the cause. Stay · Sense · Shape is the discipline of staying with a situation long enough to see the patterns below everyday behaviour.
Welcome beneath the surface.
Whichever door you take, it is the same practice. Start where your question is.
If the question is less about a role and more about what a situation is making possible, begin with Orientation — three perspectives on the same field.