Executive search for the physical economy

My process is centered on high context search: start with the problem, look past titles, and understand the conditions that formed a person's capability.

I have always worked this way. Over time, what began as instinct became a process I can make visible, repeat, and build with a client.

Build the canon

We start by writing down the problem, together, in a form everyone involved agrees to. Four questions, answered by the people who will live with the hire.

What is the problem that needs to be solved. Who is solving it now. Why now. What will make this person successful in their first ninety days.

That document is the canon. Everything after it gets measured against it, and when it changes, we change it on purpose rather than letting it drift.

The canon also sets the relationship plan. Search is relationship work, so we agree at the start on how we will build relationships with this talent pool. The touchpoints, the coffees, the pace. That is a commitment on both sides, because it shapes how quickly a slate can honestly appear.

"Who is solving it now" earns its place on that list. It tells us whether the problem is real, who is carrying it today, and what their job becomes once someone else owns it. Sometimes it turns up a person already inside the company who should be considered.

Build the universe

A search can begin with a title and the companies where people hold it. I start a step earlier, from the capability the canon calls for, and I rebuild the environments that produce it.

Which efforts have actually solved a problem like this one, and when. A program that reached rate production. A platform that held together through its first real scale. A function built from nothing into something that worked. Which of those were genuinely hard, and in which years. Who was in the room while the hard part was being solved, and who arrived once it was done.

What comes out is a map of where the capability was formed rather than a list of people who hold the title today. Then I go find the people who were there.

This changes who shows up. Some of the strongest candidates will have titles that do not match your job description, because they were formed in the right conditions under a different label. Some people whose titles match perfectly will not be on the list, because they arrived after the problem was solved. You will see both, and I will tell you which is which.

0-1 is not the same skill set as 1-1000. The pioneer builds without a map. The farmer makes the work repeatable, scalable, and durable. Neither is better, but the role has to be honest about which one matters in this moment.

Close the role

Finding people has never been the hard part. Getting the right person to take the conversation seriously, gathering enough evidence to make a good decision, and bringing both sides to a confident yes is.

Closing starts with the canon, not the offer. It is not persuading someone past their concerns. It is learning, from the first conversation, what has to be true for the move to be right, then deciding whether the company can honestly offer it.

I go to market early and on purpose, because the market answers back. Those first conversations tell us what the canon could not have known: what the role is actually worth, who is genuinely open, what the real hesitation about your company is, and which part of the spec no one person can satisfy. I bring what I hear straight back to you and we adjust together.

Before your team meets anyone, we agree on what will count as evidence that a candidate can do the work. I help build the interview and assessment process, we debrief against that shared standard, and what we learn goes back into the universe. Each round sharpens the next until the answer is clear.

The search stays visible while it is running. You can see the universe as it develops, who has been engaged, where each conversation stands, and the evidence gathered for every candidate. I use AI to read and organize at volume. It does not decide. I do.

Comp strategy, the offer, the close and onboarding support are one continuous phase. The search continues through the first ninety days, with a handoff of what I learned, a thirty-day check on whether the conditions for success are in place, and a ninety-day debrief that improves the next search.