Services
Executive and leadership search
Confidential search for executive and senior leadership mandates, with structured stakeholder reporting.
Executive overview
What this service addresses
The problem
Senior leadership vacancies carry outsized business risk - a prolonged gap or a misaligned hire affects strategy execution, team retention, and board confidence. Ad hoc executive search often runs in email threads and personal networks that leave no institutional record.
When to use it
Use this service when a mandate requires confidentiality (an active incumbent, a sensitive reorganisation, or a competitive market), when the search spans multiple stakeholders who need a shared view, or when the board or executive committee expects a documented, defensible process.
Business impact
A structured search reduces the risk of a leadership gap extending unmanaged, gives the hiring committee a consistent basis for comparing candidates, and leaves a governance record that supports board and compliance review.
Who it is for
Built around these stakeholders
Every engagement is scoped with a named decision owner from your organisation - Mars Elite operates inside your structure, not around it.
- Chief executives and board search committees
- Chief human resources officers (CHROs)
- Function heads hiring their direct leadership team
- Private equity and investor stakeholders overseeing portfolio leadership changes
Engagement & governance model
How the engagement is structured
- Engagement structure
- Scoped on-platform, under the same requisition, permissions, and reporting model as your other open roles - not a parallel process run outside the system.
- Stakeholder ownership
- A named internal owner (typically talent acquisition or the hiring executive) retains decision authority throughout; Mars Elite recruiters operate inside that structure, not around it.
- Approval path
- Shortlist and offer decisions route through a defined committee, with compensation and terms visible only to authorised approvers.
- Governance
- Role-based access limits visibility to assigned reviewers and stakeholders; every status change and assisted action is attached to the record it affects.
- Auditability
- Decisions carry the reasoning and reviewer attached at the time they were made, producing a record your compliance or legal team can review without reconstruction.
- Reporting expectations
- Confidential milestone updates to the search committee at each stage, without exposing candidate identity beyond authorised reviewers.
Delivery methodology
How delivery runs, phase by phase
Expand a phase for the detail. Every phase runs on the same governed platform your other requisitions use.
01DiscoveryAlign the committee on mandate, market positioning, and success criteria.
- Role charter, reporting line, and mandate scope
- Compensation philosophy and approval boundaries
- Confidentiality requirements and stakeholder list
02Market mappingIdentify and confidentially approach a defined candidate universe.
- Target company and role-family mapping
- Confidential outreach, not public posting
- Early-stage interest and availability signals
03Structured evaluationAssess candidates against the agreed mandate, not general impression.
- Structured interviews mapped to the role charter
- Reference and background verification coordination
- Comparative evidence prepared for the committee
04Committee decisionPresent a defensible shortlist for committee review and selection.
- Side-by-side comparison with documented reasoning
- Compensation modelling for the preferred candidate
- Recorded committee decision and rationale
05Offer and transitionManage the offer, acceptance, and confidential transition period.
- Offer approval routing and issuance tracking
- Confidentiality maintained through announcement
- Handover record for onboarding
Deliverables
What you receive
- Documented mandate and success-criteria record
- Confidential candidate slate with structured evaluation notes
- Committee-ready comparison with reviewer attribution
- Compensation approval trail
- Full audit record of the search, retained on-platform
Harmony AI support for this service
Harmony, the Mars Elite AI assistant layer powered by Mars Aura, is reserved for a future release of this workspace to assist with market-mapping summaries and interview-note synthesis. No assistant functionality is active in executive search delivery today - every summary and comparison in the current process is prepared by your search team.
Related industries
Sectors that use this service
Schedule a Service Briefing
Tell us about the mandate, the committee, and the confidentiality requirements, and we will outline how the search would run on-platform.