Three services.
One starting point.

For founder-led and PE-backed growth companies, the wrong senior hire can cost a year of momentum and millions in disruption. The right one can reset the trajectory.

We place leaders at leadership-team level, CEO, CFO, COO, CHRO, CCO, CTO, and the senior layer directly below. We work for companies between €10 million and €200 million in revenue, typically in moments of transition: a founder professionalising the team, a PE-backed CEO building toward exit, a board preparing for the next phase of growth.

What we look for

We assess leaders the way we wish we had been assessed when we were on the other side of the table. Track record matters, but it is the start of the conversation, not the end. We look for evidence of how a leader thinks under uncertainty, how they decide when the data is incomplete, how they build teams that hold together when things get hard. Our structured assessment is built on the FLOW and BRIGHT frameworks, and we calibrate every candidate against the specific context they would be entering, not against an idealised CV.

How we work

• Diagnosis. Before we start a search, we make sure the role is the right answer. Often it is. Sometimes a conversation reveals that the actual gap sits elsewhere in the team, in the operating model, or in the founder's own role. We will tell you if we think the search isn't the right next step, yes, even before we are paid.
• Definition. A scorecard built around the company's next 18 months, not around a generic job description. Three to five outcomes the leader must deliver, the context they will deliver them in, and the type of person who has done this kind of work before.
• Search. Targeted, not posted. We use AI to map markets faster and find candidates we might otherwise miss, but the decision about who reaches the shortlist is human, judgement-led, and senior. We do not delegate this to algorithms.
• Shortlist. Three to five candidates, each presented with a full assessment against the scorecard. Not a CV stack. A real conversation about who fits this context, and why.
• Landing. We stay involved through offer, negotiation and the first 100 days. A placement isn't successful when a contract is signed. It is successful when the leader is operating.

Timing and fees

Most searches close within 8 to 12 weeks. We work on retainer, with a fee structured around the role's seniority and complexity rather than as a fixed percentage of salary. We send a written proposal after an initial conversation, with the assumptions and scope clearly stated.

Some moments are too big for a single search. Or there is no internal capacity to run the executive search process at all. That's where Embedded Search comes in.

We step inside your team and run the full search process from the inside: intake, longlist, calibration, interviews, references, onboarding. We move three groups of candidates through the same disciplined lens: internal candidates who could step up, candidates from our own portfolio and network, and where useful, candidates introduced by partner firms. One partner holds the full picture, with one running plan.

Two common shapes

The handover. A single high-stakes search you cannot afford to mishandle, and the team to run it isn't there. We take it over end-to-end, hand back the placement with onboarding done. Typical engagement: six to twelve weeks.

The long engagement. A larger transformation that touches multiple seats at once: a new leadership team, a post-deal integration, a full restructure. We stay close for three to twelve months, holding the leadership question alongside you, search by search. One partner, one plan, one running view of the leadership build.

Who this is for

Embedded Search is built for PE portfolio companies in the value-creation phase, founder-led scale-ups crossing €30 to €100M, and any company that knows multiple senior hires are coming but doesn't yet have a CHRO senior enough to lead them. It is also for companies that simply don't have the internal capacity for a single search of this seniority right now, and would rather have a senior partner inside the team than another consultant outside it.

What we deliver

• Leadership planning. Together we map the leadership team your company needs eighteen months from now. Which roles, in which order, with which profiles.
• The searches themselves. Internal, our network, partner firms: all moved through the same standard as our regular Executive Search practice, at a meaningfully reduced placement fee.
• A bench. A talent map of who could step into each key role if something unexpected happens.
• Continuity. No re-explaining the company every time a new search starts.

How we charge

A fixed monthly retainer, agreed up front based on scope and seniority. Placement fees on top, but materially lower than standalone search. Predictable cost, predictable partnership. We share the proposal in writing after a first conversation.

Not every leadership gap calls for a permanent hire.

A company in turnaround needs different leadership for the next eighteen months than for the five years after that. A founder stepping back may need a bridge CEO before deciding who to hire for the long term. A PE portfolio company between value-creation phases may need an experienced operator now, and a different one when the next chapter begins.

For these moments we place senior interim and seasonal leaders, CEOs, CFOs, COOs, CHROs, CCOs, CTOs, into leadership-team roles where the question is "the right leader now," not "the leader forever."

Why "seasonal"

A company's leadership requirements change with its growth season. The leader who built a business at €15M is rarely the leader who scales it past €100M, and the leader who scales it is rarely the one who optimises it at €200M. Founders, boards and CEOs increasingly recognise this, and choose to lead each season with the leader best suited to it, rather than asking one leader to be all things across years.

Our Seasonal CEO perspective sits behind this work. We do not place an interim leader because the permanent hire is taking too long. We place a seasonal leader because that is the right answer.

How we work

• Diagnosis first. Many companies ask for an interim CEO when what they need is a permanent one, or the reverse. Before we place anyone, we make sure the seasonal answer is the right answer. Sometimes it isn't, and we will say so.
• Senior bench. Our interim and seasonal leaders are operators we know personally, people we have either worked with, sat on boards with, or vouched for over years. We do not run a database. We make introductions.
• Fixed placement fee. Unlike most interim agencies, we do not take a margin on day rates for the duration of an engagement. We charge a single, fixed placement fee, agreed up front, based on seniority and role complexity. The client and the interim leader then contract directly. This keeps the search work honest and gives clients predictable cost.

Timing

Most placements close within 4 to 6 weeks. Typical assignments run between 6 and 18 months, though we have placed leaders for shorter and longer scopes.