Life after Executive Search

Going to the Russell Reynolds Associates London summer party & visiting NY HQ recently, it was great to see many ex-colleagues. I left Executive Search in 2013 after 16 years, seeing them made me think about the decade since which has had 3 distinct phases:

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·???????? Oh God what now? From resigning in spring 2013 until sep 2013 I didn’t really know what I was going to do.? For the first time I formed a personal ltd company performing advisory work “Building connected leadership” or something similar.? This got off the ground and I was fortunate to work with 4/5 software clients.? I had many interesting conversations in this period and explored a number of roles, one became compelling.....

·???????? SaaS CEO.? I had been on the board of HRTech Fairsail since late 2012, being asked to join as ‘you understand HR don’t you?’.? The business plateau’d in Q3 2013 and as I was available was asked to become Exec Chaiman from October 2013, then CEO in March 2014. It was a fairly low risk appointment as the business had 13 people & was valued at ￡5m.? ?A lot of work by many people increased ARR & people by 15x before Sage Group acquired Fairsail for ￡115m in march 2017. I then became EVP Sage People before leaving in October 2017

·???????? Plural since 2018.? Perhaps another board would have appointed me as CEO again, I decided to ‘go plural’ to have more variety of firms to work with and more flexibility with my time.? I am privileged to have been non exec Chair of 4 SaaS companies, director of 3 more & advisor/angel to others.? There have been many discussions, decisions, appointments, investments, exits & a couple of liquidations.?

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So how did my experience in executive search help me since? I’ll try to set it out.?

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Industry View: For the last 25 years my entire focus has been on the B2B software/services market.? Search gave me the understanding over the whole industry: companies of all sizes; PE & growth capital; analysts; advisors, ecosystem.? That included the ability to work with, visit and I hope understand hundreds of companies around the world and be deeply involved about some of their most critical decisions.? It is a role with incredible access and privilege.? Leadership?changes do not exist in a vacuum, they are tightly connected to business performance, investment, M&A & other corporate events.? This knowledge has been incredibly helpful for go to market, partnerships, corporate development and of course hiring.?

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Relationships.? Search provides the opportunity to build trusted long term relationships with many incredible people, knowing them is a pleasure and a privilege. Everybody talks about the?value of relationships; they were?useful in unexpected ways.? For example, as CEO/Chair I have been through many angel / growth capital rounds and sell/buy side M&A processes, with and without external advisors.?The process of an angel round is very like a?senior board search: set out the skills & capital required; put together a long list; approach the As & manage to completion. Like a board search it’s not easy to do well and there will be many ups and downs in the process, but having trust & relationship with the right people is a good place to start.? With growth capital/PE having personal relationships with investors and senior executives helps to fast track discussion & decision making. Search gave me the first opportunity to working closely with PE/growth capital investors which I always enjoyed. All of my board roles have been for privately held companies (so far............!)

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Accelerated decision making.? The software industry has changed so much for the better since the?90s: cloud; customer success; ecosystems; BDR/SDR.? It continues to change: Rule of 40; product led growth; European scale.? I was fortunate in search to focus entirely on B2B software/services. Understanding the experiences of different companies & people really helps to come to a decision, it's much easier & quicker to learn from someone else's successes & failures rather than figure it out from first principles.? I am so grateful to have seen what's happened in other companies?& continue to learn as things continue to change

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Personal execution capability: It's not generally understood how difficult it is to be a successful MD/partner in an executive search firm.? There is no recurring revenue, every year you are personally responsible for having deep enough relationships at board level to be personally trusted with many CEO/CFO/President projects.? That's hard. Unlike in a SaaS company there is no product or PS team to deliver them, you and your team are entirely responsible for doing?a?world class job.? Back then this meant being personally responsible for $2-3m+ business development AND project execution. Every year.?To be a good headhunter there needs to be a lot of dirt under your fingernails, as I used to tell new joiners.

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Context switching.? While being a CEO was enjoyable, mostly, I missed the variety of working with many companies at the same time.? Exec search trained me to quickly context switch from one client to another, constantly going from pitch to interview to reference to approach call and to be on top of each client’s key information & priorities.? It’s the same dynamic being plural.? When plural you are also not running the business, the CEO and the leadership team are.? Ironically, being in search trained me for becoming plural but didnt qualify?me for it, being CEO qualified me for it but didnt train me.? You couldn’t make it up, I'm glad to?have?done?both.? I love working with different CEOs, investors & teams who inspire me all the time.?

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Pressure: Life in exec search is relentless, there is always something going wrong even when something else is going well. This was good preparation for being CEO, although I found that pressure & time needed cranked up even more. My time as CEO was not balanced at all, the situation and how I approached it were not sustainable long term.? I would do it differently second time around.? I am now fortunate not to work full-time and hugely appreciate the flexibility that gives to spend with family & cycling particularly.???

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Hiring: Put last as it’s obvious.? Great companies are made up of great people. The Lobster Tales blog of Fairsail scaleup sets this out here.? Since being plural I have been involved with many appointments of CEOs, leaders and other team members and often use interviewing & referencing experience.? All of the companies have made fantastic appointments that have added huge value. Does every appointment work out well - of course not. I have also been a client of many executive search firms and have generally enjoyed being on the other side.? That’s another story.?

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That’s my list.? To anyone in executive search or wider professional services, you may be more qualified for other roles than you think. The path after search I followed is relatively unusual, but I don't think it?needs to be.