Client: a US-headquartered business and technology consultancy building out its London M&A practice.
The brief
A Director to work across technology and operational due diligence, carve-outs and post-close value creation for private equity clients. Roughly 60 per cent delivery and 40 per cent business development, with a real revenue number attached. The hard part is that combination: people carrying serious origination numbers usually sit behind a large brand, where the name opens the door. In a smaller firm you have to be a better hunter than farmer, and very few people have proved they can do both.
What we did
This was not a volume search. We had already mapped and qualified this market for other mandates, so we worked from a known population rather than starting cold, testing candidates on three things: what they had personally originated, as a number rather than a description; which sponsor relationships would take their call without a brand behind them; and what they had delivered themselves as opposed to overseen.
What we found
Most candidates fail on the second test. Plenty can point to revenue won inside a large firm; far fewer can name the sponsors who would pick up the phone to them personally. That distinction is the whole difference between a farmer and a hunter, and it is the question we ask first.