It is rarely about their numbers.
Anyone who has run a P&L of €500m+, delivered 5 to 10 % in customer margin in a crisis and taken post-merger integrations all the way to a successful exit has done their homework.
The real problem for these top 10 % executives is something else entirely:
The traditional headhunting market thinks in silos.
Once a CEO has spent ten years successfully scaling a tier 1 automotive or industrials business, the system files them away as an “automotive specialist”.
That their real strength, uncompromising commercial impact, revenue growth management and operational transformation, would carry over one to one to consumer goods, medtech or PE portfolio companies is lost entirely in standardised CV screening.
The result?
Top CEOs slip into passive dependency. They wait for the one search assignment that matches their past industry exactly, instead of positioning their universal value creation capability in the hidden market.
As someone who knows both the corporate engine room and the logic of advisory boards and executive search, I look at profiles like these differently:
Not by what is on page one of the CV.
But by the impact lever this leader can pull for an owner or a PE fund.
My offer to decision makers in my network:
If you are a CEO or MD operating at the top level, but you sense that your current market positioning does not reflect your real power to transform:
Let’s talk.
