Page Executive’s Moon Landing

Few folks look forward to January. I do. Amid the leftover streamers and dirty slush of New York, it’s a celebration for us. January marks the anniversary of when in 2015, having been earlier dispatched from the old world to the new, I set up Page Executive in North America.

Seven years on, and the team has gone from a headcount of one in one discipline to more than twenty executive search experts, eight offices across the U.S. and a multi-disciplinary specialization: from Sales and Marketing to Financial Services – and everything in-between.

It took groundwork and hard work from the team to shine in such a vastly different landscape, but they did. Indisputable proof of their achievements came in 2020, when Forbes listed Page Executive in its 200 Best Executive Recruitment Firms in America.

I still sometimes pinch myself to believe it. In 2020, the team ranked 34 in the top 200 executive search companies. It was a huge win. The Forbes top 200 is the highest profile, independent, peer reviewed ranking in existence. It researches and recognizes the top 1% of 20,000 recruitment companies across the US.

There we were, nestled among heavyweight firms exclusively dedicated to executive search, and us, newcomers who had spent five years listening, learning, adapting and grafting like there was no tomorrow.

And the team was no one hit wonder. This year, to our sheer delight, we moved up the list ten places, and ranked #24 in the Forbes top 200 for 2021. Bring it on, 2022, because we are going to work harder and with greater pride and purpose than ever.

When I reflect on this intense seven-year journey, what strikes me is the metamorphosis. The team shape-shifted, grew and upskilled. We ramped up training, studied industry press, watched and listened. We learned to manage the expectations of C-level clients and candidates, to diversify in terms of geography and disciplines, and to stand out among unfamiliar competitors who are in an entirely different weight class.

?Then COVID hit. New York hospitals suddenly filled to bursting, people bee-lined out of the city and life got turned upside down. The team really felt for our clients, on a professional and personal level – we talked with each other “do you know how X is doing?” or “I heard Y’s mother is in the ICU…” so we got on the phone and asked our clients how they were doing – not as colleagues or partners – but simply as other human beings, living the same moment in history.

?Many of our clients have moved back to the city, and we meet people face to face whenever we can. A quarter to a half of our meetings are in-person now. We continuously upskill and sharpen our market knowledge. Now more than ever, we need to answer our clients’ questions with precision, clarity and confidence. If someone wants to know what’s happening in say, private equity in Los Angeles, our ability to answer that question is a key differentiator. And we keep a keen eye on major people movements, market leaders, who’s buying who and who’s selling who.

?In the New Normal, it’s also vital that we respect and understand the paradigm shift for our C-level clients. Running a business is only part of the battle won. Our clients have to address mental health and managing remote or hybrid working arrangements. They are managing different demands of their workforce than they were two years ago and we are managing different demands of our clients... We must all support each other as we incrementally build back up. But we’ll get there, and I’m excited that the new year is coming. We want to see the team keep moving up that list and I believe they can do it.

?“We’ve put a man on the moon” one of my colleagues told me when we made it into the top 25 of America’s best executive recruitment firms for 2021. We didn’t. We put a team on the moon.

?