2/26/2020
Take me to a leader - Corporate headhunters are more powerful than ever | Briefing | The Economist
Like Matthieu, the search industry is secretive, and numbers are hard to pin down. Estimates from aesc , a trade body, suggest that the business has enjoyed strong growth for much of the past 30 years—with the exception of slumps after the dotcom bust in 2000 and the nancial crisis of 2007-09 (see chart 1). aesc reckons global executive-search revenues grew by 12% in 2018 and that many rms had their best year ever in 2019 (for which it is still crunching the numbers). Today, the biggest search rms hold sway over who rules many of the world’s most potent organisations. The best deserve their hefty fees, clients say. But the industry is facing increased scrutiny, amid suspicions that it may be holding back performance and diversity at the top. Executive search—headhunting, in the vernacular—emerged in the post-war boom, when fast-growing rms in Europe and America began ghting over experienced leaders. The battle intensi ed in the 1970s as the internationalisation of business turned a consulting backwater into a mainstream profession. One recruiter’s ex-boss recalls opening 30 outposts that decade, from Singapore to Sydney. Just as quickly, the business earned a reputation for sloppiness. Recruiters were “golf-course, back-slapping sales guys”, as one veteran admits. Candidates in their Rolodexes were lazily recycled. Criteria for drawing up shortlists were often a mystery, says Angeles Garcia-Poveda of Spencer Stuart, a search rm.
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https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/02/06/corporate-headhunters-are-more-powerful-than-ever
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