Who we work with

We work on mid-senior to leadership mandates, functional leadership, CXO roles and niche specialist hires, across industries, for companies hiring in India. Where a search calls for deep domain knowledge, we bring in senior operators from that field to assess alongside us.

What kinds of roles do we search for?

We search for functional leaders, CXOs and niche specialists, from mid-senior through to the top of the organisation, for companies hiring in India. The common thread is not the title. It is that the role reports to someone whose way of working will decide whether the hire succeeds, and that the company is at a stage where getting the person right matters more than getting the seat filled. That is true of a head of sales at a growing brand and of a chief executive at an established one. You can read how we approach CXO and leadership hiring and executive search in India in more detail on their own pages.

How can a small firm search credibly across industries?

Because where a search needs depth we do not hold ourselves, a senior operator from our network who has held that kind of role assesses alongside us. We do not claim to know every function first-hand. We know how people fit, which is the same across industries, and we bring in someone who knows the function when the capability assessment needs it.

The people in this network are operators, not recruiters. They have run the function, hired for it and been hired into it. They sit with us for the capability stage of a search and tell us what a strong CV in their field actually proves and what it does not. The leader brief, the stage brief and the fit conversation stay with us. The result is a search with the breadth of a network and the attention of a small firm. The whole method is set out on how we work.

Where is our depth first-hand?

Our own experience is in consumer businesses: consumer goods and FMCG, retail and e-commerce, health and wellness, consumer-facing services, and Indian businesses facing global markets. These are the categories where we have hired, been hired, and watched capable people struggle for reasons that had nothing to do with their ability. A search in one of them starts with a picture of the business already in our heads.

• Consumer goods and FMCG

  General trade, modern trade, distribution, brand and innovation. The businesses we spent a decade inside.

• Retail and e-commerce

  Omnichannel retailers, marketplaces and D2C brands, where the stage of the business changes the role faster than the title does.

• Health and wellness

  Consumer health, nutrition and wellness brands, which need operators who can hold a claim to a standard and still sell.

• Consumer-facing services

  Businesses where the product is delivered by people, and where the leader a hire reports to shapes the customer experience directly.

• Globally-facing Indian businesses

  Indian brands building for markets outside India, and the leaders who can carry a business across that line.

When are we not the right firm?

We are not the right firm for volume hiring, for roles below mid-senior, or for a client who wants a shortlist without first giving us time with the hiring leader. The method depends on that time. If a company would rather have CVs this week than a leader brief first, a contingency recruiter will serve it better, and we will say so in the first conversation.

India to the world

We back Indian businesses going global, and we staff them. Some of the companies we work with are building for markets outside India, and the leaders they need have to carry the business across that line without losing what made it work at home. It is a question of operating temperament as much as experience, and it is one we read for deliberately. There is more on this on hiring for Indian businesses going global.