Job Description

FOUNDING EXEC SEARCH DIRECTOR

Location: New York preferred, hybrid. Exceptional remote US profiles considered.

Compensation: $160,000–$200,000 base + bonus

I’m looking for an executive recruiter who knows that hiring a Partner is not simply filling a senior vacancy. It is a long-term, highly commercial courtship: understanding their client relationships, what they could build, why they would move and how to create an offer compelling enough to make it happen.

You’ll join a growing, private equity-backed international management consultancy and take ownership of building its Partner and executive hiring capability. Partner recruitment is one of the firm’s most important growth levers. The people you bring in could arrive with $3m–$10m+ of annual business, making every successful hire genuinely transformational.

This is not a high-volume or inbound-led TA role. You will map markets, approach hard-to-reach leaders, build relationships over time and guide sophisticated candidates through a complex process. You’ll partner directly with the senior leader responsible for People and Talent, work intelligently with external search firms and help create the infrastructure behind a repeatable Partner-recruiting engine.

What you’ll own

• Proactive research, mapping and engagement of consulting Partners and other specialist executives across the US and internationally.
• Building long-term relationships with commercially successful leaders, including those who are not actively looking.
• Assessing portable relationships, revenue potential, market credibility, motivation and alignment with the firm’s growth strategy.
• Designing and managing a rigorous, high-touch candidate journey from first conversation through offer and close.
• Navigating bespoke compensation, bonus and equity arrangements with confidence and discretion.
• Creating the process, data and reporting needed to turn one-off Partner hiring into a repeatable capability.
• Owning other high-impact specialist searches, including senior AI appointments, and flexing into experienced or campus recruitment when priorities shift.

What we’re looking for

• Experience in executive search, ideally recruiting Partners or senior leaders into management consulting, professional services, private equity value creation or a closely related market.
• A genuine headhunter: curious, persistent and comfortable opening relationships without relying on a famous employer brand or inbound applications.
• Commercial judgement and the confidence to speak with senior candidates about clients, revenue, incentives, risk and opportunity.
• Strong candidate stewardship, including the patience to manage a slower-burn search and the urgency to close when the moment is right.
• The humility and energy to support broader recruiting priorities as the business evolves.
• Agency search experience is particularly attractive, although relevant in-house executive hiring experience from a challenger consultancy or acquisitive professional-services business will be considered.

The opportunity combines the best of search and in-house: access to senior decision-makers, freedom to build, fewer transactional mandates and the chance to see the commercial impact of every leader you hire. If you want to build a Partner-hiring capability rather than deliver another search and move on, I’d love to speak.

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