Case studies.

Hedge fund · London

Nine HR appointments for a scaling hedge fund

A rapidly growing hedge fund needed to build an entire human capital function from a standing start — nine mandates spanning HR leadership, business partnering, talent acquisition, reward and people operations — without running nine separate search processes.

Process

1. 01Ran a single discovery phase with the COO and founding partners to define the target operating model, then sequenced the nine roles by dependency so the leadership hires landed first and shaped their own teams.
2. 02Built one consolidated market map of human capital talent across hedge funds, private markets and investment banking, allowing candidates to be assessed against several mandates rather than one.
3. 03Standardised the assessment: a common competency framework, calibrated interview panels and a shared scorecard, so the fund could compare across the programme and move at pace.
4. 04Managed offers centrally to protect internal equity on compensation, with staged start dates to avoid overwhelming onboarding.

Outcome

All nine roles filled within two hiring cycles, every appointment retained beyond the first year, and a human capital function able to support the firm's next stage of growth.

Series B technology company

Restructuring an in-house engineering organisation

A Series B software business had tripled headcount since its last round. Engineering had grown organically around individuals rather than around the product roadmap: delivery had slowed, key-person risk was concentrated in two early engineers, and the CTO seat had been vacant for months ahead of a Series C process.

Process

1. 01Conducted a confidential organisational review — capability mapping, interviews across product, engineering and commercial, and an honest assessment of where engineering effort was actually going.
2. 02Redesigned the structure into clear pillars — core product, data and platform infrastructure, and enterprise systems — each with defined ownership and succession cover.
3. 03Ran the CTO search against the new structure rather than the old job description, alongside two lead engineering appointments and an internal promotion into a newly created platform lead role.
4. 04Advised the board and founders on transition sequencing, equity and retention terms for critical engineers, and a build-versus-buy view that removed two duplicated workstreams.

Outcome

An engineering function aligned to the roadmap, key-person risk materially reduced, and platform delivery back on schedule within a quarter — ahead of the next funding round.

Multinational financial organisation

Optimising hiring operations through advisory

A multinational financial organisation was hiring reactively across several jurisdictions — inconsistent processes between regions, heavy agency spend, slow decision-making and offers being lost to faster competitors. The requirement was advisory, not search.

Process

1. 01Audited twelve months of hiring data across regions: time to offer, source of hire, agency spend, decline reasons and interviewer load across front office and corporate functions.
2. 02Rebuilt the process end to end — role scoping templates, a two-stage interview architecture with defined decision rights, and a compensation framework benchmarked against the relevant peer set in each market.
3. 03Introduced a lightweight pipelining discipline so priority seats were mapped continuously rather than opened cold, and trained internal talent teams to run their own market conversations.
4. 04Provided fractional oversight through the first two quarters, chairing calibration sessions across regions and stepping in only on the most sensitive mandates.

Outcome

Time to offer reduced by roughly half, external agency spend cut substantially, and a consistent internal hiring capability the organisation now runs independently across its markets.