Talent intelligence
Talent intelligence for executive search.
Talent intelligence is what your firm knows about a market before it commits to a search: how deep the pool runs, what the seat pays, who will move. We run that research on your seat and hand you the read.
The brief
What it has to answer
Four questions decide whether a search is winnable. Talent intelligence is worth buying when it answers all four on the seat in front of you.
The pool
How many people hold this seat in this market, and which of them sit inside your client’s reach.
The money
What the seat pays on the public record, and whether your client’s band can win against it.
Who is movable
Tenure, vesting and the reason a strong candidate takes your call this quarter.
What changed
The appointments, funding rounds and ownership changes since last month, on your criteria.
The distinction
Data and the read
A dashboard gives a firm the data and leaves the reading to the firm. A research desk hands over the read, with the record sitting under every line of it.
A shortlist means nothing without a denominator. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted841,710 financial managers nationally in its May 2025 estimates, and that is the ceiling. What decides your search is the figure that survives scope, and that is the one we give you.
A core ring of four and a core ring of forty are different searches even when the job spec reads identically. Ring size sets your timeline, your fee argument, and how hard you press the client on the band.
How that ring gets built is method, and the method belongs to our post on talent mapping for executive search. This page is about what it buys you.
Worked example
Two filings, one seat
Two public CFO seats, priced from the companies’ own proxy statements.
- Financial managers, nationally
- 841,710
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025 estimates. The ceiling, before scope narrows it.
- One filed CFO total
- $9,377,269
- HubSpot’s DEF 14A, filed 2026-04-27. The rows foot to it exactly.
- Gap to the peer total
- 77%
- PagerDuty filed $5,306,013 in its own DEF 14A. Base salaries sit 15% apart.
Base salaries sit 15% apart, $538,333 against $471,814. The filed totals differ by 77%, and the gap is equity, not salary. Priced on base alone, these two seats read as neighbours.
Both figures come from each company’s own DEF 14A proxy statement, HubSpot’s filed 2026-04-27. The Bureau of Labor Statistics median for a financial manager is $166,570 in its May 2025 estimates, which prices the occupation. A proxy statement prices the seat.
Name the seat. We will read the market.
Bring a live search to the call. You will have a first draft in a day.
From $2,495 a month, two searches included.