Inside the Search.

No candidate is contacted, no name is researched and no approach is made until we can describe, in writing, the situation the appointment exists to answer. The first movement is deliberately slow: working sessions with the owner, chair or hiring executive, and where useful with board members, peers, HR and the people who will depend on the appointment.

We examine strategy, market position, performance, leadership environment, decision rights, previous appointments in the role and what has changed since the last one. Where the account given by the top of the organisation differs from the account given a level below, that gap is treated as information rather than noise.

Questions we settle first

• —Why is the position open, and what does the answer say about the organisation?
• —What business question must the appointment answer?
• —What must be different after 12, 24 and 36 months?
• —How much authority, budget and support will the person actually hold?
• —Which stakeholders can enable or quietly block success?
• —Is the organisation ready for the leadership it says it wants?

Briefs describe roles. Organisations impose conditions. The second movement tests the hypothesis against the reality people experience: how decisions are actually made, where authority is informally held, which previous incumbents succeeded and why, and what the organisation has historically punished as well as what it rewards.

The requirement is then rewritten as future contribution rather than past credentials. Where the market cannot supply the requirement as written, we say so at this stage and recalibrate with the client rather than presenting near-fits later as matches.

What the reading typically corrects

• —A sector requirement that turns out to be a stakeholder-management requirement
• —A transformation brief in an organisation that has not yet agreed to change
• —A scale requirement that is really a complexity requirement
• —A title-shaped profile that excludes the people most likely to succeed

Research proceeds from the scorecard outwards: direct competitors, adjacent industries, organisations that have faced the same transition, and roles where the relevant capability is developed under a different title. International research and Taplow colleagues are used where the capability is thin in the Nordic market.

Mapping also produces uncomfortable evidence — that the compensation assumption is below market, that the profile exists but will not move, that the geography is the binding constraint. That evidence is reported as it emerges, not saved for a shortlist conversation.

Most candidates at this level are not looking. The first approach is individual, confidential and — under silent search — made without naming the client until a confidential conversation has been agreed. We explain why the person has been approached and what the situation demands, including what is difficult about it.

The dialogue examines the circumstances in which results were achieved, the candidate's actual contribution, the decisions they regret, and the conditions they would need. Interest that declines when the situation becomes clear is a useful outcome, not a failed one.

• —Scope of responsibility and real decision authority held
• —Experience of the specific transition the mandate requires
• —Relationships with owners, boards and senior stakeholders
• —Motivation, constraints and practical circumstances
• —Reservations the candidate holds about the opportunity

A CV records where someone has been; an interview rewards those who present well under friendly conditions. Neither predicts behaviour when the situation turns. Assessment therefore triangulates several independent sources, each with a stated purpose, and each scored against the role scorecard rather than against the other candidates' charm.

• —Structured, competency-based interviews conducted against fixed criteria
• —Psychometric and cognitive assessment, interpreted in context
• —A business case or role-relevant scenario that reveals judgement and priorities
• —Stakeholder meetings that test relationships, not performance
• —Reference conversations conducted with consent, at an agreed stage
• —Background and qualification verification

We look for what pressure reveals: how the candidate reasons with incomplete information, what they do when a decision goes wrong, and which conditions their previous success quietly depended on.

The most common failure in senior appointments is not a lack of information; it is a field of people agreeing too early. We work against that deliberately.

How bias is countered

• —Criteria and evidence standards fixed in writing before candidates exist
• —Assessment scored against the scorecard before comparative discussion begins
• —A second consultant reviews the field independently of the lead consultant
• —Structured questions asked of every candidate, in the same form
• —Longlists deliberately include profiles from outside the familiar background
• —Interview fluency and presentational polish recorded separately from capability

How disagreement is handled

Where the client group is divided, we do not average the views into a compromise candidate. The disagreement is named, traced back to the criterion it concerns, and settled against the evidence — or, where the evidence is genuinely absent, tested with a further meeting or case.

Where we disagree with the client, we say so once, in writing, with the reasoning. The decision remains the client's. Every recommendation is presented with both the argument for the appointment and the argument against it.

Progress is not summarised only at the shortlist. The client sees the work as it develops, at agreed intervals and to a defined group.

What is shared, and when

• —Week 1–2 — the written search hypothesis and role scorecard, agreed before approaches begin
• —Week 2–5 — the market map and an honest reading of availability, compensation and mobility
• —Week 3–4 — a calibrated longlist with the reasoning for inclusion and exclusion
• —Week 6–8 — the shortlist, each candidate with an evidence summary and a risk and fit analysis
• —Week 8–12 — assessment output, reference themes and outstanding questions
• —Week 12–16 — final recommendation with argument and counter-argument, and appointment considerations
• —Throughout — written progress notes and immediate notification where the mandate needs recalibration

How risk is communicated

No appointment is without uncertainty, and a presentation that suggests otherwise is a presentation to distrust. Risks are stated in writing, in the same document as the recommendation, with the conditions that would contain them.

Offer and contract bring together expectations already established during the process: mandate and authority, performance expectations, compensation and incentives, notice and start date. Anything that surprises either party at this stage should have surfaced earlier.

The period between acceptance and arrival is fragile — resignation, counteroffers, unfinished responsibilities. We stay in contact through it, and through the first months, when the expectations created during recruitment meet the organisation as it actually is.

Follow-up asks whether the mandate has remained clear, whether authority and support match what was promised, whether early performance is developing, and whether circumstances have changed enough to warrant a further conversation.