List of executive search firms

Last updated October 09, 2024

Executive search (informally often referred to as headhunting) is a specialized recruitment service which organizations pay to seek out and recruit highly qualified candidates for senior-level and executive jobs.

A 2022 industry newsletter ranking of the largest executive search firms in the Americas listed estimated revenues of 50 firms, with top five being: Korn Ferry, Russell Reynolds Associates, Spencer Stuart, Heidrick & Struggles, and Egon Zehnder. Each of them had more than U.S. $450 million in estimated revenues, and more than 300 consultants. ^[1]^[2]

Forbes partnered with market research company Statista to determine an annual ranking of America’s best executive recruiting firms—the top 150 executive search firms specialized in filling positions with salaries of at least $100,000.^[3]

Notable executive search firms include:

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Korn Ferry is a management consulting firm headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1969 and as of 2019, operates in 111 offices in 53 countries and employs 8,198 people worldwide. Korn Ferry operates through four business segments: Consulting, Digital, Executive Search, Recruitment Process Outsourcing and Professional Search.

The Korn Ferry Tour is the developmental tour for the U.S.-based PGA Tour, and features professional golfers who have either not yet reached the PGA Tour, or who have done so but then failed to win enough FedEx Cup points to stay at that level. Those who are on the top 30 of the money list at year's end are given PGA Tour memberships for the next season. Since the 2013 season, the Korn Ferry Tour has been the primary pathway for those seeking to earn their PGA Tour card. Q-School, which had previously been the primary route for qualification to the PGA Tour, has been converted as an entryway to the Korn Ferry Tour.

A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to represent clients in civil or criminal cases, business transactions, and other matters in which legal advice and other assistance are sought.

The Adecco Group is a Swiss–French company based in Zürich, Switzerland. It is the world's second largest human resources provider and temporary staffing firm. It is a Fortune Global 500 company and is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cari M. Dominguez</span>

Cari M. Dominguez is an American who was the 12th Chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). She was nominated by President George W. Bush and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Her five-year term expired on July 1, 2006.

Egon Zehnder International Ltd. is a global management consulting and executive search firm. Egon Zehnder is the world's largest privately held executive search firm and the third largest executive search and talent strategy firm globally with an annual revenue of CHF 883 million. The firm offers services in Executive Search, Board Consulting and Leadership Strategy Services.

FFL Partners, LLC, previously known as Friedman Fleischer & Lowe, is an American private equity firm, founded in 1997 by Tully Friedman, Spencer Fleischer, David Lowe, and Christopher Masto. The firm makes investments primarily through leveraged buyouts and growth capital investments and is focused on investing in the U.S. middle-market.

Rosenzweig & Company is an executive recruitment firm, which publishes the annual Rosenzweig Report on Women at the Top Levels of Corporate Canada. The company is led by founder and CEO, Jay Rosenzweig.

Stephen A. Unger is an American "leading executive recruiter" who served as managing partner of the media and entertainment divisions at the three largest executive search firms in the world. From 2004 to 2005 he wrote a regular weekly column on leadership for the Daily Variety, a trade publication considered to be the "Bible of Show Business."

The PGA Tour is the organizer of professional golf tours in North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also known as the PGA Tour, as well as the PGA Tour Champions and the Korn Ferry Tour, as well as the PGA Tour Canada, PGA Tour Latinoamérica, and formerly the PGA Tour China. The PGA Tour is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, a suburb southeast of Jacksonville.

Heidrick & Struggles International Incorporated is an international executive search and management consulting company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The firm also has a consulting practice focused on leadership and shaping corporate culture.

L. Kevin Kelly is currently the Chief Executive of Halo Privacy, a cyber security organization that focuses on digital security for high profile individuals and Fortune 500 companies.

Tom Long is a lawyer and political activist. He is a director of the Manning Centre for Building Democracy. He chaired former Ontario premier Mike Harris’s victorious 1995 and 1999 election campaigns and was one of the authors of Harris' Common Sense Revolution platform. Long was president of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario from 1986 to 1989.

Spencer Stuart is an American global executive search and leadership consulting firm based in Chicago, Illinois. It was founded in 1956, operates 70 offices in 33 countries and is privately owned, making SSI the largest privately held search firm in the world. The firm generates over 1 billion dollars in revenue annually, passing this threshold for the first time in 2021. In 2009, the Wall Street Journal described the firm as the U.S. government's main resource for finding replacement executives for companies bailed out during the Great Recession.

Edward Randolph "Randy" Jayne II is an American retired government official, business executive, military officer, and combat pilot. During his career, he worked in the defense industry and served in the White House Office under three successive United States presidents. Prior to his business career, Jayne spent over ten years on active duty in the United States Air Force, including two tours as a fighter pilot in Southeast Asia. Jayne served in the Air National Guard and retiring after 34 years of service as a major general. From 2015 to 2017, he was chairman of the board of the US Air Force Academy Foundation, the fundraising organization for that institution. In 2019, Jayne was named an Outstanding Graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, an honor bestowed as of that time on 41 alumni over the more than sixty years of the Academy's existence.

Zehnder is a German-language surname, mostly Swiss in origin:

Claudio Fernández-Aráoz is an Argentinian author, international speaker and global expert on talent and leadership, ranked by BusinessWeek as one of the most influential executive search consultants in the world. He is currently a senior adviser of Egon Zehnder. Before joining Egon Zehnder in 1986, he worked at McKinsey & Company in Europe. He is a frequent lecturer at the Harvard Business School. In 2008 he also won the Konex Award as one of the most importants executive of that decade in Argentina.

Diligent Corporation is a software as a service company that enables groups to share and collaborate information for board meetings. Headquartered in New York City, and incorporated in Delaware, the company has offices in Galway, Ireland; London, UK; Washington, D.C.; Munich, Germany; Budapest, Hungary; Hong Kong; Bangalore, India; Sydney and Vancouver.

Russell Reynolds Associates (RRA) is a management consulting firm. Established in 1969, the firm assists international and domestic companies develop leaders, assess business processes, and recruit new executives. It provides leadership advisory and executive recruiting services.

Amrop Partnership is a Belgium-based global partnership of executive search firms. The largest executive search firm in Europe and a top-3 globally with 59 offices worldwide as of 2018, Amrop was founded in 1977.

References

↑ "Hunt Scanlon Big 5". Hunt Scanlon Media.
↑ "Top 50". Hunt Scanlon Media. April 22, 2022. Retrieved June 7, 2022.
↑ "America's Best Executive Recruiting Firms 2022". Forbes. May 3, 2022. Retrieved June 7, 2022.

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[1] "Hunt Scanlon Big 5". Hunt Scanlon Media.

[2] "Top 50". Hunt Scanlon Media. April 22, 2022. Retrieved June 7, 2022.

[3] "America's Best Executive Recruiting Firms 2022". Forbes. May 3, 2022. Retrieved June 7, 2022.

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