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The World's Most Influential Headhunters (Updated)
Joseph Daniel McCool / Business Week
May 15, 2008
You can’t get to the top without the headhunters. That’s as true for businesses as it is for established and emerging leaders. The world’s top headhunters control access to the lion’s share of C-suite succession and leader-replacement searches for the world’s largest corporations. Their influence also extends to the top ranks of the most ambitious smaller companies, which understand how crucial top talent is and are willing to pay for it.
That’s why BusinessWeek has introduced its exclusive database of the world’s most influential headhunters, with comprehensive information on 100 of the top global executive recruiters. So what is it that separates these executive recruiters from the rest? BusinessWeek considered a number of factors in selecting these 100, including their individual reputations; their years of headhunting experience; the global scope of their recruiting practices; their accessibility and responsiveness; their high visibility within the client markets they serve; the recognition they enjoy within their firms and/or global executive search communities.
MATCHMAKER, MATCHMAKER
It is important to note that their individual reputations are often the most important reason that corporations engage these headhunters. And while these 50 include some of the world’s best, given the global influence and size of the $10 billion executive headhunting market, more will soon be profiled by BusinessWeek to expand this already impressive list.
Who are the most powerful talent brokers? They include former management consultants, corporate human resources executives, authors, boardroom advisers, graduates of the world’s most elite business schools, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and trusted confidants of the world’s most powerful business leaders. They are almost universally workaholics and globetrotters with a passion for the business of executive matchmaking, an affinity for socializing and peering deep into the human psyche, and a finely honed instinct for fitting candidate and company.
Thirty-one of the first 50 headhunters profiled herein hail from North America, the world’s largest market, for their refined talent-spotting abilities. Many of them recruit for industries—such as financial services, consumer goods and services, technology, retail, and manufacturing—that have long relied on external talent to drive performance and fulfill senior leadership functions including the most prized C-suite posts.
WIDE RANGE OF INFLUENCE
And given its recent recruitment of two especially influential headhunters from competing firms, NYSE-listed Korn/Ferry International (KFY) takes the lead with seven headhunters on this initial list of executive recruitment power brokers.
If they hadn’t pursued the business of corporate headhunting and weren’t busy recruiting the most powerful business leaders, they say they would have otherwise pursued careers as venture capitalists, musicians, lawyers, politicians and teachers, among other professions.
Together these 100 headhunters recruit the lion’s share of CEOs, presidents, and board members at the world’s largest and most prestigious corporations. They exert massive influence the world over.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A LEADER
Even though the recruiters have a number of traits in common, they have fascinatingly different perspectives on what they’re looking for in leaders, what advice they would offer, and what global business trends will influence corporate performance. “Be exceptional and we’ll find you” is what Senior Chairman Gerard R. “Gerry” Roche of Heidrick & Struggles (HSII) tells today’s emerging corporate leaders.
“Focus on and balance what is good for stockholders, clients, and the talented people in your organization, and do what is right for them,” advises President and CEO Christopher J. Clarke of Boyden World. Do that, he contends, and “Your rewards will follow.”
