EXECUTIVE SEARCH · NEW YORK

Executive Search in
New York

Senior leadership for the city where capital, regulation and global headquarters intersect. Retained CEO, CFO and board-level mandates across banking, asset management, insurance, media and the legal-services economy.

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

Wall-Street-grade rigor. India-based cost structure.

Our research desk and senior partners operate from India, which means our retainer carries a different overhead curve than a Park Avenue boutique. The output you see — the calibration memo, the slate, the assessment dossiers, the partner who runs the search — is identical to what 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 — 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 Manhattan or Stamford boutiques

Two Tracks

How a New York-anchored mandate runs

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

India → New York leadership hiring

For Indian-headquartered groups setting up or scaling a New York presence — listed-vehicle holding companies, captive subsidiaries, or front-office representative offices — leadership has to read three time zones at once. We hire executives who already operate across Mumbai, London and New York, and who understand the SEC, FINRA and NYDFS perimeter without a learning curve.

Cross-border governance — listed disclosure, SOX-equivalent and SEBI dual-track readiness
Returning-diaspora benches — senior India-origin operators currently inside US institutions
Time-zone discipline — leaders who can run an Indian board cycle and a US fiscal cycle in parallel
Currency and treasury fluency — INR-USD operating models, hedge policy, transfer-pricing posture

Discuss a cross-border mandate

New York local leadership hiring

For a New York-domiciled business — a Manhattan-headquartered investment platform, a tri-state insurance carrier, a US-listed media or law-firm holding entity — we run a city-anchored search. Compensation benchmarks, regulator history, and the hyperlocal reputational graph are calibrated against the New York market itself, not a coastal average.

Hyperlocal calibration — comp benchmarks built off NYC-listed and NYC-domiciled peer comparators
Regulator-aware shortlists — clean SEC, FINRA, NYDFS and CFPB histories validated, not assumed
Tri-state talent flow — bench across Manhattan, Stamford, Princeton and Jersey City
Sector specialism — banking, asset management, insurance, media, legal services, real estate

Discuss a local NYC mandate

What We Search

C-suite roles we search in New York

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 New York

Banking & Capital Markets
The densest concentration of bulge-bracket and mid-market banking leadership talent globally — and the regulatory pivot point for SEC, FINRA, NYDFS and the New York Fed.
Asset & Wealth Management
Long-only, hedge, multi-strategy, private credit and registered investment advisor leadership benches — anchored by New York-domiciled GP and LP capital.
Private Equity & Private Credit
Operating-partner and CFO talent for portfolio platforms, with deep cross-pollination between the New York and Greenwich GP ecosystems.
Insurance & Reinsurance
Property-casualty, life and specialty leadership — the New York and Hartford-axis carrier and broker market.
Media & Entertainment
Streaming, publishing, news and ad-tech leadership — the city's headquartered media holding companies remain a global gravitational centre.
Legal & Professional Services
C-suite mandates inside Big Law, Big Four and consulting holding entities — chief operating, chief financial, chief technology and chief talent roles.
Real Estate & REITs
Commercial REIT, REIT-management-company and real estate private equity leadership — anchored by New York-listed vehicles.
Pharma & Healthcare HQ
Headquarters-side leadership for global pharma, MedTech and managed-care groups whose corporate centres sit in the metro.
Enterprise SaaS & Fintech
Series-D and listed software leadership — the New York fintech and enterprise-SaaS ecosystem now rivals the Bay Area for late-stage CXO depth.

Market Context

Why leadership hiring in New York is different

New York is one of a small number of cities where leadership hiring is a regulator-aware exercise from day one. Every senior appointment in banking, asset management, or insurance is read against SEC, FINRA, NYDFS or Federal Reserve perimeters — not as a check at the end, but as part of how the brief is calibrated. We treat that as a search input, not a closing diligence step.

The talent flow into and out of the city is bidirectional with London, Mumbai, Singapore and the Bay Area, and the senior Indian-origin operator pool inside US institutions is unusually deep here. For Indian-headquartered groups, that returning-diaspora bench is often a faster route to a credible New York leader than a green-field local search. We map both lanes simultaneously and let the brief decide.

Compensation benchmarks in the city carry a long tail of equity, deferred carry and post-employment restrictive covenants that take the search outside a clean cash-and-bonus comparison. We model the full economics, including the runway cost of moving a candidate from one institution's vesting cycle to another's, before a number is shared with the candidate or with you.

TIME ZONE

ET (UTC−5 / −4 DST)

PRIMARY REGULATORS

SEC, FINRA, NYDFS, NY Fed

ANCHOR SECTORS

Banking, Asset Mgmt, Insurance, Media

TALENT FLOW

Bidirectional with Mumbai, London, Bay Area

COMP CURRENCY

USD — heavy deferred & equity components

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 New York mandates

Archetype attributions — never real names, never real companies.

“We needed a Group CHRO who could read a Mumbai operating committee and a New York audit committee in the same week. The slate was four people we should have known about and didn't, plus one we did. The hire is from the slate; we are nine months in and the cadence is steady.”

Group CHRO archetype · India-listed financial services group · Mumbai → New York mandate

A cross-border CHRO mandate covering an Indian listed parent and its New York subsidiary.

“What I valued most was the calibration memo. Before we saw a single candidate the partner had written down the things we were privately disagreeing about as a board, in language none of us had quite used. Half of that document is now in the role's first-year objectives.”

Board Chair archetype · US-listed enterprise software platform · New York HQ

A first-time-professional CEO appointment at a Series-D US software business.

“The economics were honestly the reason we picked them, but the work is the reason we are working with them on the next mandate. The senior partner ran the offer construction himself. That alone earned more trust than the price.”

Group CFO archetype · LatAm-facing US-domiciled insurance carrier · New York

A regional CFO appointment for an insurance carrier with a US listing and LatAm operations.

FAQs

Frequently asked — executive search in New York

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

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

We charge a flat retainer billed in three tranches across the search. The structure is comparable to what a global retained firm would quote, but the absolute number is typically 30–45% lower than equivalent Manhattan or Stamford 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 either INR or USD, at the client's election. Indian-headquartered clients typically prefer INR billing against the parent entity. US-domiciled clients invoice in USD against the local entity, with the same flat retainer structure.

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 regulator-perimeter roles as a search input from day one, not a diligence step at the end. 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 delay 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 — particularly for first-time-professional CEO and CFO mandates where governance is being formalised ahead of an institutional capital event or generational transition. The brief and the slate are calibrated for the founder-board reality, not the listed-company template.

Engage

Brief us on a New York-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.