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An empty boardroom, a long table and leather chairs lit by tall windows
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Every search ends the same way: one chair, one name, and the room going quiet for a second.

Keystone Search · Retained executive search · Boards and chief executives

One name, when it's time.

Not a long list. Not a database.Four hundred conversations, twelve weeks, and a single name we'd put our own on. Nobody knows you're looking until you want them to.

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Mandates

Four kinds of chair. We fill nothing else.

Around twenty searches a year, by choice. Enough to know every serious candidate in the market. Few enough that none of them is a file.

01Chief executiveSuccession planned two years out, or the phone call on a Sunday night. We've done both. The second costs the same.
02Board and chairNon-executives who read the papers before the meeting and say the difficult thing in it. Chairs who can hold a room.
03Founder successionThe hardest one. The person who replaces you has to be nothing like you and completely trusted by you. We've found eleven.
04Investor-backedChief financial and operating officers for the three years between the deal and the exit. Assessed for that timeline, not a career.
01 · The narrowing

Four hundred conversations. One name.

Every square is a person we spoke to. Not a search result. A conversation, usually an hour, usually somewhere that isn't an office.

412
Conversations · Weeks 1–5
02 · Discretion

Nobody knows you're looking. Including most of us.

Search memorandum · InternalCirculation: 3
Client: a listed industrial group, north of England. Revenue £600m. Role: Chief Executive. Incumbent retiring in fourteen months. Board unaware of the timeline. Known to: the Chair, the SID, and two partners at Keystone. Approach: no advertisement, no database, no LinkedIn. Every candidate contacted by a partner, in person. Candidates told the client's name only at shortlist, in a room, after signing. Outcome: one name presented in week eleven. Appointed. Announced by the company, on its own timetable.
A quiet glass-walled office corridor, lights on, nobody in it

The right person is usually not looking. That's why you called us.

They're running something well, somewhere else, and haven't thought about leaving. The first conversation is about their work, not your vacancy. The second one is the one that matters.

Process

Twelve weeks. Four things happen.

Weeks 1–2The brief, in your words.

We interview the board, not the job description. What the last person got wrong. What "good" would look like in three years. Written up on two pages and signed.

Weeks 2–6Conversations.

Four hundred, give or take. Partners only. Nobody junior calls anybody. We tell you who we're talking to every Friday; you can stop any of them.

Weeks 7–10Six people, properly.

Half-day assessment each. References we find ourselves, not ones they give us. A written view on each, including the reasons not to.

Weeks 11–12One name.

We bring one. With a second in reserve you'll never need to meet. Then we stay through the offer, the resignation, and the first hundred days.

Terms

Retained. In thirds.

One fee, agreed before we start, paid in three equal parts. It doesn't move with the salary, so we have no reason to inflate it.

On instructionThe brief is signed and the partner is assigned. Nothing is approached before this.
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At shortlistSix people, assessed, documented. Week ten.
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On acceptanceThe name says yes. Not on offer; on acceptance.
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If it doesn't holdLeaves within twelve months for any reason, and we run the search again. No fee.
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Partner · FounderHelena Voss

Twenty-two years in search. Placed the chief executives of nine companies you've heard of and forty you haven't, which she says are the better stories.

Partner · BoardsAdrian Mbeki

Former chair himself. Knows what a board meeting feels like from the other side of the table, and which candidates will survive one.

Partner · Founder successionIngrid Sato

Eleven founder successions. Spends the first month with the founder and the last month with whoever replaces them. Both calls are hers.

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A partner, an hour, somewhere that isn't your office. No proposal until you've decided you want one. Nobody is told you called.

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