The right leader changes everything. Sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly, but always fundamentally, in ways that ripple through an organisation and far beyond it.
For four decades, we have had the privilege of seeing this change happen thousands of times. In boardrooms and partnership meetings, schools and hospitals, research institutions, charities and the bodies that shape public life. Each placement is different, but each one matters.
That sense of purpose extends beyond the work itself. How we are structured, how we treat people, and how we operate in the world, these things matter to us too. The commitments below reflect that.
Client Story
When Windward Energy restructured its Group in 2024, it needed to build a board capable of governing something genuinely ambitious, a portfolio spanning new grid infrastructure, onshore wind and long duration energy storage across the UK.
We were asked to find four non-executives who could bring either complex infrastructure experience or energy trading expertise at a global scale. The search drew both emerging portfolio builders attracted by Windward’s entrepreneurial character, and seasoned governors who brought the kind of rigour a growing Group board requires. All four were appointed.
It’s a relationship that has grown with the business. We had previously worked with Windward subsidiaries Bute Energy and Green GEN Cymru, and we continue to support the Group – most recently appointing their Director of Policy, and currently leading the search for a Group CFO.
Client Story
The brief was precise and the stakes were high. A family-owned business operating across 75 countries, with revenues of $800m and three distinct companies under one roof, was preparing for a fundamental shift, from owner-operators to chairman-investors. To make that transition work, they needed their first ever Group CFO.
The role demanded rare combination: the technical rigour of a world-class finance leader, the strategic instinct to drive capital allocation and M&A, and the cultural alignment to thrive in a business with a distinctive family character and an atypical governance model. International experience was essential. So was genuine entrepreneurial ambition.
Our search ranged widely, across family-owned businesses and family offices, FTSE 350 companies in industrial services, automotive and retail, and private equity-backed businesses of comparable scale. The appointed candidate brought exactly the right background: a career built in family-owned businesses, most recently as CFO of a family foundation.
Client Story
Ooni had gone from Kickstarter campaign to £200m revenue business selling pizza ovens in over 90 countries in just over a decade. Fast Track 100 fastest growing. Growing, as they put it themselves, in multiple directions at once.
What they needed was a General Counsel who could keep pace with all of it, commercially astute, genuinely agile, capable of building an in-house legal function from scratch while acting as a trusted advisor to a leadership team that moved quickly. Cultural fit mattered as much as credentials. This is a business with a thoroughly modern personality and values that run through everything it does.
We assigned a dedicated researcher to the project for two weeks, focused entirely on this search, nothing else. That depth of attention showed in the candidate pool. Nearly 80% female. Drawn from drinks, publishing, retail, financial services, hospitality, home appliances and FMCG. Seven of the eight longlisted candidates were women.
The appointed candidate came from a billion-pound multinational drinks business, where she had served as Lead Counsel across business units and central services.
Client Story
Few briefs demand quite this combination. A major international property developer and landowner with £12.6bn of assets, an iconic UK estate, operations across 60 countries. They needed a new non-executive director who could hold their own at a main board table of genuine complexity.
The search was discreet and targeted. The client was looking for senior European business leaders with strong connections into policymakers across different markets. Former board members of large European entities, senior government ministers, or those with comparable political fluency. Commercial and strategic in outlook. Collaborative in style, with the kind of quiet authority that doesn’t need to announce itself.
Diversity was a clear priority, in particular bringing more women to the board. Of the 23 candidates presented, 15 were women. Three of the four shortlisted candidates were women.
The appointed candidate brought exactly the weight the role required. An executive board member of a €78bn European technology business, with non-executive experience spanning automotive, FMCG and technology multinationals. Her ESG credentials were a particular strength, well aligned with a client whose own sustainability commitments run deep.
Client Story
The Crown Estate’s portfolio is unlike almost anything else in the country. £16bn of assets spanning the West End of London, one of the largest rural landholdings in Britain, a significant residential portfolio, and the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Its ambitions are equally distinctive, net zero by 2030, climate positive thereafter, and a genuine commitment to restoring natural habitats both on and offshore.
To drive that agenda, they needed an exceptional sustainability leader. Not a figurehead, but someone who could operationalise a complex strategy across an unusually diverse portfolio, create measurable impact, and help establish the Crown Estate as a genuine leader in the field — environmentally, socially and ethically.
We assigned a dedicated researcher to the project for two weeks, searching across retail, extractive industries, technology, consumer brands, travel and leisure, real estate, financial services and beyond. Of the 15 candidates presented, 53% were women and 26% brought ethnic diversity.
The appointed candidate came from a multinational telecommunications business, where they had served as Director of Sustainability and CSR.
We’ve been placing diverse leaders for decades, long before it became a talking point. We’ve seen what happens when the people at the top genuinely reflect the world around them. Organisations find their way to places they couldn’t see before and it shows.
That view runs through our own firm. Our team is 78% female and 14% from underrepresented ethnic backgrounds (in 2025), a reflection of how we hire and who we are. Through partnerships with OnBoard, EPOC, REACH and 10,000 Black Interns, we invest in the pipelines that will shape the next generation of leaders.
Diversity, equity and inclusion
In 2025 we achieved net zero carbon emissions, verified by an independent review.
We partnered with Climate Stewards to measure our carbon footprint, understand where reductions were possible, and offset what remained through community carbon projects.
Our ongoing commitment to sustainability is monitored by our Board and Sustainability Committee, and it is embedded in how we choose suppliers, how we work, and what we stand for.
We believe in contributing our time, energy, money and expertise to causes which are important to us. Partners give half a day a month to volunteering, our charity committee organises fundraising across the firm, and we operate a matched Give As You Earn scheme that has earned us the CAF Diamond award, the highest level, for three consecutive years.
Through our diversity programmes and partnerships, we mentor and support talented people from underrepresented groups. The UN Sustainable Development Goals guide our thinking. We hold ourselves to the same standards we bring to our clients.
We became employee-owned in 2014, the first executive search firm in the industry to do so. It was a deliberate choice about the kind of firm we wanted to remain.
Everyone who joins becomes a Partner, with a genuine stake in how the firm operates and what it stands for. That shared sense of responsibility shapes how we work with clients, how we develop our people, and how we think about the long term. Our Partners are represented by elected Trustees, they are the custodians of our values. It is governance that holds a firm to account to everyone it touches.
