For executive search firms
Win the mandate in a market you don't own.
Most of a search firm's year is pursuit, much of it in sectors it does not staff every day. We run the research behind the seat, built to your method and under your brand: you walk in the specialist, and when the mandate is yours the same search names the pool that fills it.
One constraint, from one sector
The binding constraint
Why licensing pedigree is the wrong screen here
A platform running under a sponsor bank's charter falls inside the payment-processor carve-out at 31 CFR 1010.100(ff)(5)(ii)Fact, so the licence is not theirs to hold. Screen for licensing scar tissue and you remove the operators who actually fit.
The regulation is public and free. The work is knowing to look for it, and testing whether it binds on this seat rather than on the sector.
The opening
The market read has always started after the award.
Three to ten firms pitch the same mandate. A week of research costs a week whether or not you win, so the arithmetic has always said pitch first and research later.
| Pitching on credibility | Pitching as the specialist |
|---|---|
| You promise to get up to speed. | The market is sized and the pool is named before the meeting. |
| You learn the sector on the client’s time. | You already know what the seat pays and who is movable. |
| The firm that lives in the sector takes it. | The read is on paper, and the client can check it. |
Depth, not breadth
The constraint is public. Knowing which one bites is not.
Every sector has forty constraints a slate could turn on. A statute, a clearance clock, a licence. Any of them is free to read in ten minutes.
The work is knowing which one actually decides this seat, then testing whether it binds on this company at all.
An aerospace seat can turn on how long a clearance takes to transfer. A healthcare seat can turn on which licence the employer holds. A fintech seat can turn on a carve-out that means nobody in the role ever held a licence.
So the constraint goes into the study with its citation, and you can hand it to the client.
In every study
- The binding constraint, in one line, with the statute or rule behind it
- The intake question that decides whether it applies to your target
- The read a generalist misses, and the record it rests on
What runs on your searches
Two things, and you commission both as you go.
The research behind the seat
The market mapped, the pool named, the money benchmarked, the feasibility called. Every figure carries the record it came from, labelled fact, estimate or inference.
On any search you brief
The mandate before it is one
Your market watched against your own criteria, from a leadership change in an 8-K to a raise or an ownership move. Only the moves that could open a search reach you.
Included with every plan
Questions
What partners ask first.
Who is this actually built for?
US executive search and retained search firms competing to win mandates in sectors they do not staff every day, where being the specialist in the room is what gets the pitch. If your firm runs its own full-time research desk for every sector it places in, you probably will not need this.
Do we need a signed mandate to start?
No. Most of the work happens on pursuits, before anyone has been appointed. A search you are still pitching for is the normal case.
Does it work in a sector you have never mapped?
Yes. The research runs on the public record, and the sector reading is what we build on top of it. Name the sector on the call and we scope it there.
Whose brand is on the document?
Yours. Everything exports under your own brand, and the section written for you is removed when you share it onward.
What if I follow a link and it does not say what you said?
Tell us which one. That is a bug in the engine, not a detail in a document.
Where this is worked out in full
- How a sourced read changes a pitch— what a first meeting sounds like when the market is already sized.
- Whether a search is feasible before you take it— the pool, the comp band and the constraint that decides it.
- The public signals that predict a mandate— which filings move a seat, and which are routine.
- Reading a CFO transition out of SEC filings— one departure, traced through the 8-K and the proxy.
- What is actually in a market map— the sections, and what each one has to prove.
Bring a search you are pitching for now.
A short call, and we start on it. You walk into the pitch with a map of their market.