Questions we get asked before the first call.

Retained means we work exclusively on your search, on a dedicated basis, and are committed to it until it’s filled. Contingency recruiters are paid only if their candidate lands, so they’re incentivised to send volume quickly across many clients at once. For a pivotal leadership hire that incentive is pointed the wrong way. Every retained search we have run since 2015 has been filled.

Retained search is priced per assignment and depends on the seniority and difficulty of the brief. The 15-minute call is where we work out whether it’s the right approach for your role at all — we’ll tell you if it isn’t.

A brief agreed in writing by every stakeholder before the market is approached. The full addressable market mapped, not a shortlist of whoever is available. Competency-based video screening against that brief, applied identically to every candidate. A 12-month replacement guarantee as standard. And a typical time to secured hire of 30 days from engagement.

Contingency: if several firms are racing you, we’re the wrong choice. Volume shortlists: if we send you six resumes, six of them are serious. And every technology role: the concentration on CTO-level search in New York is deliberate.

Our own platform for running the search. It carries structured assessment through selection and into onboarding, so the standard applied at week one is the same standard applied at shortlist.

CTO, VP Engineering and Chief AI Officer, plus the senior technology leadership around them. We deliberately do not cover every technology role — the concentration is the point.

VC and PE-backed AI, FinTech and HealthTech scaleups, mostly headquartered in New York City. AI, including Chief AI Officer appointments, where the role is often being defined for the first time. FinTech: regulated, high-stakes platforms where the technical bar and the governance bar are both real. HealthTech: where domain fluency is not optional and the wrong hire costs quarters, not weeks.

New York is home base — it’s where our network runs deepest. But we work with companies wherever they’re headquartered: across the US, in London and the UK, and beyond. If the role is senior technology leadership, geography is rarely the obstacle — start the conversation and we’ll tell you straight if we’re not the right fit.

Yes. Alongside founder-led searches we work directly with VC and PE investors who need CTO, VP Engineering or Chief AI Officer appointments across NYC-based portfolio companies — with a consistent assessment framework across every one.

Because the process travels. A behavioural job survey across every stakeholder, including the investor, so the brief is agreed in writing before the market is touched. Consistent, transparent assessment, so a shortlist means the same thing in every company. A 12-month replacement guarantee as standard, so the risk sits with us, not with the portfolio company. And a record you can check: every retained search filled since 2015, 96% of placements still in role at 12 months. On the Harper search, the investor who made the introduction went on record alongside the founder and the CTO placed.

When the CTO has left, the roadmap hasn’t, and a rushed permanent hire is the most expensive mistake available to you. An interim keeps delivery moving and buys you the time to run the permanent search properly, often making the permanent brief sharper in the process, because someone senior has now seen the estate from the inside.

Yes: a non-executive or advisory technologist for boards that need to challenge a technology plan credibly, particularly where investors want a second opinion on architecture, delivery risk or the leadership team itself.