The hires where getting it wrong costs you a year.

Leadership roles I have closed: CEO, Chief Business Officer, VP Engineering, Head of Engineering, Head of Credit Risk, Head of Strategy, Head of Creator Financing and Partnerships, Head of Finance, Head of Retail Sales, Head of D2C, Head of Customer Support, Brand Director, Revenue and Category Head, Director of Supply Planning, Director of Cloud Solutions, Engineering Manager, Security and DevOps Engineering Manager, CG Supervisor.

At this level the search is mostly not sourcing. The people who can do the job are employed and content. What moves them is a specific and honest account of the problem, the equity, the stage risk and who they would report to. If a founder cannot articulate that, no amount of outreach fixes it, so the first part of the work is usually with you rather than the market.

I keep the process quiet where it needs to be. Confidential searches, including replacing someone still in the seat, are handled without it surfacing.

Expect a longer runway than an individual contributor search. Four to eight weeks is realistic for a genuine leadership hire, and I would rather tell you that at the start than promise two.