The hire that decides whether your company runs on systems or on heroics. We run retained search for the operations leaders who build the machine.
A great director of operations is the difference between a company that scales and one that lurches from fire to fire. Get it wrong and you do not notice for months, while the cracks widen.
The best operators are not on job boards. They are running something right now, and reaching them takes a real search, not a posting and a stack of inbound resumes.
We start by understanding how your company actually runs and what this leader needs to fix, before a single name goes on a list.
Every finalist is assessed for leadership style and fit, so you choose between people who can run your operation, not just describe one.
You see the market, the pipeline, and the progress every week. No black box, no disappearing for a month.
The best candidates I have seen in this entire search, including the last seven months of the other firm being retained.
A retained leadership search closed in 33 days after the prior firm spent seven months and eight candidates with no hire. The same rigor we bring to an operations search.
Search fees are typically a percentage of first-year compensation and scale with the seniority of the seat. We will give you a clear number for your specific role.
We find the operator who makes the whole thing run, across people, process, and systems. We screen for judgment and the ability to build order out of chaos, not just a clean resume.
Operations leadership is a senior search, so it takes more care than a line hire. We move with urgency and keep you in the loop the whole way.
We vet hard precisely so it is rare, and we back our placements with a guarantee. We put the terms in writing for your engagement up front.
Directors of operations translate strategy into Tuesday. It is one of the hardest seats to hire for because the failure mode shows up slowly, and by the time it is visible it has already cost you.
Anyone can look busy in operations. We look for candidates who removed work: the report that stopped being manual, the approval that stopped needing three people, the process that stopped needing them personally. Builders leave less work behind them, not more.
Directors inherit teams they did not pick. We screen for managers who have actually turned around an underperformer and can tell you how, step by step, without reaching for a script or a euphemism.
Budget variance, staffing ratios, the real cost of turnover. We push candidates past the headline metric into the second and third question, because that is where real operators live and where pretenders run out of road.
When the search is a level up, our executive search practice takes it from here. When the function is revenue-facing, see customer success recruiting.
Retained search is a partnership. Send us the role and we will walk you through how we run it and what to expect.