Ask a board how it judges a chief executive appointment and the answer is always some version of the same thing: we will know in a year. We built our commercial model around that answer. Our fee follows the judgement of the board, not only the day the executive joins.
Where appointments are decided
In our experience, the success of a senior appointment is settled in two places. The first is before the shortlist, in how clearly the role is calibrated and how honestly the brief is written. The second is after the join, in how well the new leader is integrated into the team, the board and the culture. A search partner should be accountable for both.
The outcome is not the shortlist. It is a leader who integrates and stays.
The Outcome Partnership
When we designed the Outcome Partnership we asked a simple question: would we be comfortable if our fee followed the board's own view of the appointment? The answer shaped each of its commitments, and the reasoning behind them matters as much as the terms.
The money back guarantee exists because the first promise a search firm makes is to find candidates who meet the brief. If we cannot keep that promise, the client should not pay for it.
The fee schedule holds part of our fee beyond the joining date because that is when the board begins to judge the appointment. It seemed right that we should be judged at the same moment.
Continuity assurance runs for up to a year, and it covers the two ways an appointment can end early. A resignation is replaced at no further fee. A termination for performance is replaced at a reduced fee, because once employment begins the client and the firm share the accountability for how the leader is supported.
The full terms are set out on our Outcome Partnership page and confirmed in every engagement letter.
This is a discipline as much as a commitment. When part of our fee depends on how the appointment performs months after the join, we invest more in the first week. We spend longer on the brief. We go further on independent references. We run the integration reviews ourselves.
Working in one shared space
Clients may also be given access to our own applicant tracking system as a shared workspace for the mandate. The pipeline, candidate notes and feedback sit in one place, and the client's team works alongside ours in real time. It keeps the search transparent and the decisions fast.
Depth that rises with consequence
Every appointment carries its own consequence, so every engagement is designed for it. Our four engagement models, from Foundational to Apex, keep the same method throughout. What deepens with each tier is the depth of assessment, the intelligence delivered and the share of our fee we place at risk. The result for a board is alignment: the firm advising on the appointment has a financial interest in the same outcome, a leader who is still there and still performing a year on.
