EXECUTIVE SEARCH · SYDNEY

Executive Search in
Sydney

Senior leadership for Australia's commercial and financial capital — the regulatory pivot point for APRA-supervised banking and superannuation, and the principal corridor for ANZ-South-Asia mandates post-AI-ECTA.

Brief Us On A Mandate See Our Process

120+

CXO Mandates Closed

Last 24 months, global

94%

On-Shortlist Retention

After first slate

95–120 Days

Time-to-Placement

Typical retained mandate

12 Months

Candidate Guarantee

Replacement included

Cost Structure

ASX-grade rigour. India-based cost structure.

Our research desk and senior partners operate from India, so our retainer carries a different overhead curve to a Barangaroo or Martin Place boutique. The output you see — the calibration memo, the slate, the assessment dossiers, the partner who runs the search — is the same as you would receive from a global retained firm. The economics are not.

Proof

Senior partner on every search

The named partner runs the longlist, the approach and the offer construction — the work is never quietly delegated to a coordinator.

Proof

12-month replacement

If the placed candidate departs in the first twelve months, we re-run the search at no additional retainer.

Proof

No outsourced research

The talent map is built in-house by our research desk; we do not buy lists or rent offshore sourcing pods.

Typically 30–45% lower retainer than equivalent Barangaroo or Martin Place boutiques

Two Tracks

How a Sydney-anchored mandate runs

Two operating tracks for two distinct mandate types — chosen at the calibration stage, not after.

India → Sydney leadership hiring

For Indian-headquartered groups scaling an Australia or ANZ presence — an APRA-supervised insurer, an ASX-listed holding entity, a superannuation-investee operating company, or a regional commercial headquarters — leadership has to read INR-AUD economics and the APRA-ASIC perimeter from week one. We hire executives who already operate between Mumbai, Bengaluru and Sydney, and who understand APRA, ASIC, AUSTRAC and ASX continuous-disclosure obligations.

Cross-border governance — ASX continuous-disclosure, APRA supervision and SEBI dual-track readiness
Returning-diaspora benches — senior India-origin operators currently inside Australian banks, super funds and ASX-listed corporates
Time-zone discipline — AEST sits 4.5 hours ahead of IST; board cadences require deliberate scheduling rather than ad-hoc calls
Currency and treasury fluency — INR-AUD corridor pricing, hedging programmes and transfer-pricing posture

Discuss a cross-border mandate

Sydney local leadership hiring

For a Sydney-domiciled business — an APRA-supervised bank or insurer, an ASX-listed corporate, a super fund or a North-Shore-anchored asset manager — we run a city-anchored search. Compensation benchmarks, regulator history and the hyperlocal reputational graph are calibrated against the Sydney market itself, not a broad ANZ average.

Hyperlocal calibration — comp benchmarks built off ASX-listed and Sydney-domiciled peer comparators
Regulator-aware shortlists — clean APRA, ASIC, AUSTRAC and ASX continuous-disclosure histories validated, not assumed
Greater-Sydney talent flow — bench across the CBD, North Sydney, Barangaroo, Parramatta and Macquarie Park
Sector specialism — banking, superannuation, asset management, insurance, mining services HQ, media

Discuss a Sydney mandate

What We Search

C-suite roles we search in Sydney

CEO / Managing Director

CFO

CHRO

CTO / CIO

CMO

COO

CRO (Revenue)

Chief Strategy / Legal Officer

Chief Product Officer

Board & Non-Executive Director

Sectors we serve from Sydney

Banking & Capital Markets
APRA-supervised major-bank, mid-market and ASX-listed-broker leadership — the regulatory pivot point for Australian financial-services supervision.
Superannuation & Asset Management
Industry-fund, retail-super and asset-management leadership — Australia's superannuation pool is one of the world's four largest pension-capital systems.
Insurance & Reinsurance
General-insurance, life and specialty-reinsurance leadership — anchored by Sydney's APRA-supervised carriers and Asia-Pacific reinsurance branches.
Mining Services & Resources HQ
Mining-services, engineering and resources-HQ leadership — Sydney hosts the corporate centres of global mining majors with East-Coast Australia footprints.
Real Estate & REITs
A-REIT, real-estate-investment-trust manager and developer leadership — anchored by ASX-listed REIT vehicles and Sydney CBD developers.
Media, Telecommunications & Tech HQ
Media-group, telco and APAC-tech-HQ leadership — Sydney's tech-HQ cluster has become the regional centre for global software and platform groups.
Healthcare & Aged Care
Hospital-operator, health-insurance and aged-care leadership — a regulated economy with consolidating provider cohorts and significant LP capital.
Pharma & MedTech APAC HQ
Asia-Pacific headquarters-side leadership for global pharma, MedTech and managed-care groups whose regional centres sit in Macquarie Park and the North Shore.

Market Context

Why leadership hiring in Sydney is different

Sydney is one of a small number of cities where leadership hiring is a regulator-aware exercise from the first conversation. Every senior appointment in APRA-supervised banking, superannuation or insurance is read against APRA's Banking Executive Accountability Regime and FAR perimeter — and ASX-listed corporates carry continuous-disclosure obligations on senior appointments. We treat both as search inputs from the calibration memo onwards.

The talent flow into and out of the city is increasingly bidirectional with Mumbai, Bengaluru and Singapore — particularly post-AI-ECTA, where Australian superannuation capital has begun deploying directly into Indian infrastructure and listed equity. The senior Indian-origin operator pool inside Australian banks and super funds is concentrated in CFO, Group Risk and platform-CTO roles. For Indian-headquartered groups, that returning-diaspora bench is often the fastest route to a credible Sydney leader.

Compensation in Sydney is structured around cash plus LTI equity vesting under AASB-compliant governance — a different shape to a London LTIP or New York deferred-bonus package. APRA's accountability-statement requirements add a regulatory layer to senior offers, and post-employment restrictive covenants under Australian employment law sit inside the offer calibration, not after it.

TIME ZONE

AEST/AEDT (UTC+10 / +11)

PRIMARY REGULATORS

APRA, ASIC, ASX, AUSTRAC

ANCHOR SECTORS

Banking, Superannuation, Insurance, Mining HQ

TALENT FLOW

Bidirectional with Mumbai, Bengaluru, Singapore (post AI-ECTA)

COMP CURRENCY

AUD — cash + AASB-compliant LTI equity vesting

The Process

Six steps. One discipline.

Our six-step retained search process is the same across every location — what changes is the talent map and the cultural lens. We start by understanding the operating cadence between your headquarters and the markets the leader must serve.

Mandate Calibration

We read the operating cadence between your headquarters and the markets the leader will serve, then convert the brief into a written calibration memo with the success measures the slate will be judged against.

Week 1

Talent-Map Build

Our research desk constructs a city-anchored talent map covering incumbents at the role plus high-potential next-rung candidates. The map is shared before approach begins, so you see which lanes we hunt and which we skip.

Weeks 1–2

Targeted Approach

A senior partner approaches the longlist personally, off-platform, with the same discretion the role itself will demand of its eventual holder. We never publish the search.

Weeks 2–4

Assessment & Calibration

Each candidate is evaluated against the calibration memo. Structured references and a written assessment dossier are shared with your selection committee — no candidate enters the slate without one.

Weeks 4–7

Slate & Selection

We present a five-name shortlist with a slate ranking, an attempt-to-hire view, and the trade-offs we would accept or reject ourselves. The committee meets the slate; we do not.

Weeks 6–9

Offer & Onboarding Bridge

We carry the offer construction, manage the resignation runway, and stay engaged through the first hundred days. The 12-month replacement guarantee runs from the candidate's start date.

Weeks 8–12+

From The Boardroom

What clients say about Sydney mandates

Archetype attributions — never real names, never real companies.

“We needed a Group CFO who could hold a Mumbai operating committee and a Barangaroo audit committee in the same week, in the same register. The slate carried four operators we should already have known about and one we did. The hire is from the four; nine months in, the cadence between the two boards is finally working.”

Group CFO archetype · India-listed industrials group · Mumbai → Sydney mandate

A cross-border CFO mandate covering an Indian listed parent and its ASX-listed Australian subsidiary.

“What earned the engagement was the calibration memo. The partner had written down the disagreement the board was carrying privately about the role's accountability-statement scope, in language none of us had used. By the time we briefed candidates, the conversation with the regulator was the same conversation as the conversation with the candidate.”

Board Chair archetype · APRA-supervised general insurer · Sydney HQ

A first-time-professional CEO appointment at a Sydney-domiciled APRA-supervised general insurer.

“The economics drew us in; the work is the reason we are running the next mandate with them. The senior partner ran the offer construction personally — the AUD package, the LTI roll-forward and the accountability-statement language — and it landed first time.”

Group CHRO archetype · Industry-fund superannuation platform · Sydney

A Group CHRO appointment for a Sydney-headquartered industry-superannuation fund.

FAQs

Frequently asked — executive search in Sydney

Answers to the questions boards most often ask before retaining a search partner for a Sydney-anchored mandate.

Most retained CXO mandates close in 95–120 days from calibration to signed offer. We have closed urgent CFO searches in eight to ten weeks where the brief was tight and the nominations committee moved on slate-day; complex CEO and board-level searches can run sixteen weeks where APRA FAR registration timelines or LTI-vesting analysis extend the offer cycle.

We charge a flat retainer billed in three tranches across the search. The structure mirrors what a global retained firm would quote, but the absolute number is typically 30–45% lower than equivalent Barangaroo or Martin Place boutiques — a function of our India-based research desk, not a discount on quality. We share the fee schedule before any work begins.

We invoice in AUD, INR or USD at the client's election. Australia-domiciled entities typically invoice in AUD against the local entity; Indian parents often prefer INR billing against the holding company. The retainer structure is identical across currencies.

Yes — that is one of the two operating tracks the practice is built around. The calibration memo names the talent lanes we will hunt in both geographies, and a single senior partner runs both streams so the slate arrives as one shortlist, not two.

Yes. We treat the APRA FAR and ASX RegCo perimeter as a search input from the first conversation. Each candidate's regulatory history is validated through structured references and public-record review before they enter the slate, and the offer is structured to anticipate registration timelines rather than collide with them.

If the placed candidate leaves the role within twelve months of start date for any reason other than a board-led restructuring, we re-run the search at no additional retainer. The guarantee runs from start date, not signed offer, so the onboarding window is genuinely covered.

No. Gladwin International is an independent retained search firm with its own research desk, partner bench and intellectual property. We are not a sub-contractor to any global retained firm and do not share candidate data with one.

Yes — that is one of our densest mandate categories in Sydney. The brief and the slate are calibrated for the trustee-board reality, with attention to APRA RSE-licensee accountability, member-best-interest duties and post-Royal-Commission governance posture.

Engage

Brief us on a Sydney-anchored mandate

Conversations are confidential, partner-led, and carry no obligation to retain. A senior practice partner reviews every enquiry personally and responds within four business hours.