Most senior hires are made for the company that briefs the search. The role is shaped by current headcount, the present operating model, the immediate challenge, and the way the team works today. The result is leaders who fit brilliantly for two years and then face an awkward, expensive parting as the business changes around them.

Our search work proceeds from the opposite assumption: that a senior leader should serve more than one phase of a company's growth, and that the assessment should be shaped by the long arc of the business rather than the immediate brief. This changes almost every search decision, from how we frame the role to how we weigh experience against potential to where we look for candidates.

• A leadership profile should support the team as it is now, the team it will become, and the harder version of the role two stages out
• The brief should anticipate the next phase of scale, the next operating model, and the next set of challenges the leader will face
• Assessment should value adaptability and learning as highly as proven experience, because the role itself will change

Searching for the second phase

Every senior brief we develop now includes a 'second phase test': would a different version of this company, at a different stage of scale, still be well led by this candidate without a disruptive change? Where the answer is no, we revise the brief and the assessment until it is yes. This is rarely about hiring someone overqualified; it is usually a matter of disciplined assessment of adaptability and judgement rather than chasing a bigger title.

• A scaling fintech, London: a CTO assessed for the team at 200 engineers, not just the team at 40 they were inheriting
• A healthcare group: a commercial leader chosen for the launch stage ahead, not just the pre-launch business that briefed us
• An asset manager: a CFO selected to lead through an IPO and beyond, not just the private company at the point of hire

"A senior hire who needs replacing every time the company changes shape is a hire that fails the long-term test. We search for the second phase from the day we take the brief."