Retained executive search · Singapore
A retained mandate is priced in three instalments with a trigger per payment, and the replacement clause — its window, its remedy and its exclusions — is on the page before you engage us.
Start a mandateWhat arrives
A retained shortlist is not a pile of CVs ranked by keyword. Each name arrives as a dossier judged against the success profile you signed off, and the names we rejected are shown as rejected.
Illustrative concept policy. The number of names, the ranking and the window are agreed per mandate in the engagement letter, together with consent, confidentiality and data retention. Where a market cannot produce five credible names, we say so and the schedule is adjusted rather than padded.
Where a mandate starts
Chief executive, finance and operating roles, including confidential successions where the incumbent has not yet been told. These run on a retained schedule with one consultant accountable from profile to start date.
Brief this practice ↗Practice 02Technology, operations, risk and commercial leaders one or two levels below the executive team, where the market is thin and the same eight people appear in every advert.
Brief this practice ↗Practice 03Roles where residency, licensing or committee experience is part of the specification rather than a preference. The requirement is written into the profile before the map is built.
Brief this practice ↗Practice 04Replacing a named individual without the market learning it. Your identity is withheld from every approach until you authorise it, and the slate is presented under a code name if you ask.
Brief this practice ↗A licence number belongs in the engagement letter, not in a headline. Ask for the number, then check it yourself in the national directory. This page is an illustrative concept and claims no licence, award, accreditation or registration of its own.
How a mandate runs
Timelines are quoted by case type rather than as one optimistic number, because a governance or residency requirement changes the offer cycle far more than the search itself does.
You agree what the person owns, the three measures the slate will be judged on, and the constraints. Output: a written profile you sign off, and the first instalment falls due at this point.
A universe of typically 150 to 300 names, built from primary research — competitor structures, published filings, our own records and named referrals — not from a job-board search. Output: the map, with its sources named.
Direct, confidential, by name, by one of the two people on the mandate. Your identity is not used until you authorise it, and nobody inside your own off-limits list is approached at all.
Each candidate is interviewed against the profile, and the evidence for and against them is recorded whether or not they survive. Output: the notes behind every name that reaches you.
We speak to former supervisors, peers and direct reports — not only the names the candidate supplies — and we tell you who was spoken to. Output: written reference notes delivered before any offer, not after.
Five names, ranked, with the trade-offs we would accept or reject ourselves. Your committee decides; we do not sit on it. The second instalment falls due when you accept the slate for interview.
We construct the offer, check the compensation against the market, and manage the notice period and the counter-offer with the candidate. Your part is to decide and to hold the internal narrative.
Check-ins at day 7, 30, 60 and 90, with the mandate team on the call and a written note afterwards. The third instalment falls due on the start date, and the replacement window runs from that date.
| Case type | Typical window | What extends it |
|---|---|---|
| Functional leadership | 12 to 16 weeks | A market where the same small group of people holds the experience |
| C-suite mandate | 16 to 20 weeks | Board availability for interviews, and a longer notice period at the end |
| Regulated or residency-linked | 20 to 28 weeks | Licensing, residency or committee steps that sit outside the search itself |
| Confidential replacement | 8 to 12 weeks | The incumbent leaving earlier than the plan assumed |
Which model, and what each one costs you
One of these models is cheaper if the role is easy and the market is full. We will say which one we think fits, including when the answer is not retained.
| Row | Retained mandate | Success fee |
|---|---|---|
| Exclusivity | One firm on the role; we can approach the whole market by name | Usually shared with two or three other agencies |
| What you commit up front | A third of the fee, before the map is built | Nothing |
| When you pay the rest | On the slate, then on the start date | One fee on the start date |
| What you get that the other model cannot fund | A market map, confidential named approaches that need a researcher's hours, and a written dossier per name | Profiles from candidates already looking, screened against your brief |
| The downside, stated plainly | You have spent real money before you have seen a single candidate | Approaches are limited by who is already on the market, and the market learns who is hiring |
The schedule
You are funding a process rather than paying a deposit on a person, so each instalment is tied to something that has been produced. If a trigger is not met, the instalment is not raised.
| Instalment | The trigger | Illustrative amount |
|---|---|---|
| First · a third of the fee | On engagement, before any mapping. Non-refundable once the profile is signed off, because the research and the researcher's hours start here | S$33,000 |
| Second · a third | On your acceptance of the slate for interview — the trigger is the shortlist being agreed, not a candidate's availability | S$33,000 |
| Third · a third | On the candidate's start date. The replacement window runs from the start date, not from the signed offer | S$33,000 |
| Total | The fee — nothing is added at the end, and no separate charge is made for the map, the dossiers or the reference notes | S$99,000 |
Included in the fee: the market map, every approach, the dossiers, the written reference notes, the offer construction and the four check-ins. Outside it, quoted and approved before anything is spent: travel for final interviews, assessment instruments, and any advertising you ask for. If the mandate is cancelled before the slate, the first instalment is not refunded and no further instalment is raised.
One mandate, in order
A mid-market group needed a finance director with two plant integrations behind them. The profile named three measures, the map found 214 names, and the slate arrived as five dossiers — each one naming the evidence, the risks and what the candidate was giving up to move.
Illustrative mandate: the profile set the three measures and the constraint (no relocation, a monthly board presence). The map was built from competitor structures and published filings, and 41 people were approached by name. Nineteen were interviewed by the consultant, seven went to reference, and five reached the slate with a ranking and the trade-offs we would accept or reject ourselves. The client's committee interviewed three, offered one, and the offer was constructed against the market position we had seen in the process. This is an illustration of how a slate is built and evidenced, not a completed placement.
Off-limits in practice
The first question a senior client asks in private is whether we will use their own people as targets. The answer is a list, agreed in writing before the map is built, and the list travels with the mandate file.
Illustrative mandate: the client named its own group, two joint-venture partners and one former employer as off-limits, and asked that no approach be made to anyone it had interviewed in the previous eighteen months. Those names were excluded from the map before it was built, not filtered on the way out, and the exclusion list is reviewed with the client once, mid-mandate, when a competitor's structure changes. This is an illustration of a working rule, not a completed engagement.
Illustrative mandates. They show how a slate and an off-limits list are produced and evidenced, not completed client work, and no client, candidate or firm is named.
A call with the candidate and the hiring manager, with the consultant on the line, about what the first week has actually been like.
A written note against the three success measures in the profile: what has moved, what has not, and what needs a decision.
A call without the candidate present, so the client can say what it would not say in front of them.
The final check-in, and confirmation in writing of how much of the replacement window remains.
The clause that gets negotiated
The replacement clause is the most argued-about paragraph in a retained engagement, so it is written out here rather than summarised in a proposal. The window runs from the start date; the remedy is stated; the exclusions are named.
Twelve months from the start date, not from the signed offer and not from the acceptance. If the person leaves inside the window, we run the search again for no second fee, and you choose between that and a refund of the final instalment. A shorter window is not offered as a discount, because a discount on the window is a discount on the clause.
Ask about the windowThe clause does not apply where the role changed shape after the start date, where the departure followed a restructuring or a board decision you led, where the fee was unpaid, where the departure was not notified to us in writing within the period set out in the letter, or where a fixed-term engagement converted to permanent. Each of those is a real exclusion and each is written down rather than implied.
Expenses only: travel for final interviews and any assessment instrument, quoted and approved before they are booked. If the second search does not produce a hire, the mandate ends there and no further instalment is raised. The first instalment is not refunded in any scenario, because the mapping work has been done and handed over either way.
Your name is not used in an approach until you authorise the words, and the off-limits list stays with the mandate file afterwards. The map, the dossiers and the reference notes are not recycled into another client's search: if a name is relevant again, that person is approached again rather than reused from a file. Candidate names, dossiers and reference notes do not leave the mandate under any circumstances.
Client perspective
“The schedule and the clause were in the first document. We spent the meeting arguing about the profile instead of about the fee.”
Finance director mandate · sample story
Sample story. Not a real customer review. Ask for the engagement letter before the proposal, and for two mandates we can describe without naming anyone.Before you engage
A signed success profile, a market map of typically 150 to 300 names with its sources named, and the researcher's hours to build it. That is work, and it is the part of a search that cannot be done in a weekend. It is also why the first instalment is non-refundable once the profile is signed off — and why you should not pay it until you have read the profile and agreed it.
Twelve months from the start date. If the person leaves inside the window we run the search again at no second fee, or refund the final instalment, and you choose which. It does not apply where the role changed shape after the start date, where the departure followed a restructuring you led, where the fee was unpaid, where the departure was not notified in writing inside the stated period, or where a fixed-term engagement converted to permanent. Ask any firm to put both halves of that sentence in writing.
No. Off-limits names are agreed in writing before the map is built — usually your own group, joint-venture partners and any employer you name — and they are excluded from the map rather than filtered out later. The list is reviewed with you once, mid-mandate, because competitor structures change.
If the slate is rejected and the mandate ends, the instalments already triggered stay payable, because the work behind them has been done and handed over. No further instalment is raised on the second search if that one also fails. The answer to this question should never be discovered in the engagement letter — ask it before the proposal, and ask whether the map and the dossiers stay with you.
On first-year gross remuneration at the percentage stated in the engagement letter, with remuneration defined there rather than inferred: base salary, bonus or commission, allowances and benefits. The figure used is the greater of the advised package and the actual one, and it is not reduced later if the candidate's pay changes. That last sentence is what stops a fee from being renegotiated after the hire.
You own the profile, the interviews, the decision and the internal narrative. We own the map, the approaches, the assessment notes, the reference reports, the offer construction and the four check-ins. The boundary is written into the process table above: your committee meets the slate, and we do not sit on it.
Start with the role
Send the role, the outcomes the person owns, the constraints and the band. If the role is confidential, say that in the first line — it changes how the approaches are made, not how the mandate is priced.
Concept only. Nothing is sent or booked.
Nothing on this form is shared outside the mandate team, and no client or candidate is named anywhere on this page.