EXECUTIVE SEARCH · SEATTLE

Executive Search in
Seattle

Senior leadership for the world's densest cloud, e-commerce and large-scale-engineering ecosystem. Retained CTO, CEO and CRO mandates across cloud platforms, marketplaces, aerospace, biotech and gaming.

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

Hyperscale-grade rigor. India-based cost structure.

Seattle retainers for cloud and platform-engineering CTO searches are quoted at coastal benchmarks and routinely run into seven figures at the named-partner level. Our retainer is meaningfully lower because our research desk and senior partners operate from India. The output discipline is the standard a Seattle board would apply to any retained firm.

Proof

Senior partner on every search

The named partner runs the longlist, the approach and the offer; nothing is delegated to a coordinator after the brief.

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 — we do not buy lists or rent third-party sourcing pods.

Typically 30–45% lower retainer than equivalent Bellevue or Seattle boutiques

Two Tracks

How a Seattle-anchored mandate runs

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

India → Seattle engineering leadership

For Indian-origin software, e-commerce and infrastructure groups operating from Seattle, and for Seattle-headquartered platforms running large Bengaluru and Hyderabad engineering centres, leadership has to read both an India operating cadence and a Pacific-Northwest engineering culture. Our practice has built a deep cross-border bench for that lane.

Hyperscale engineering benches — leaders credentialed at cloud-and-marketplace scale
GCC-aware mandates — Seattle HQs running large Indian engineering and shared-services centres
Returning-diaspora pool — senior India-origin operators inside US hyperscalers and platforms
Cross-border equity literacy — RSU, ESPP and Indian ESOP plans modelled in offer construction

Discuss a cross-border mandate

Seattle local leadership hiring

For a Seattle-headquartered cloud platform, marketplace, aerospace prime, biotech or gaming business, the search is anchored in the Bellevue–Redmond–Seattle peer set. Compensation comparators are calibrated against the local listed and pre-IPO comparators, and the talent map names the institutions people actually move between.

Bellevue-Redmond-Seattle calibration — comparators built off the genuine Seattle peer set
Hyperscale platform leadership — CTO, VP Engineering and head-of-platform mandates
Marketplace and e-commerce specialism — CRO, head-of-revenue and chief-merchandising roles
Aerospace prime-and-supply leadership — chief operating, chief technology and chief financial mandates

Discuss a local Seattle mandate

What We Search

C-suite roles we search in Seattle

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 Seattle

Cloud Hyperscalers & Infrastructure
Hyperscale platform, observability, security and developer-infrastructure leadership — Seattle remains the deepest cloud-engineering pool in the world.
E-Commerce & Marketplaces
Marketplace, fulfilment-network and consumer-commerce leadership — chief revenue, chief merchandising and chief operating mandates dominate the segment.
Aerospace & Defence
Prime-and-sub aerospace leadership — Seattle's commercial-aviation cluster remains a defining anchor of the metro's industrial economy.
Logistics & Last-Mile
Fulfilment-network, last-mile and supply-chain leadership — chief supply-chain, chief operating and chief technology roles.
Biotech & Therapeutics
Pre-clinical, clinical-stage and commercial biotech leadership — Seattle hosts a distinctive immuno-oncology and computational-biology cluster.
Gaming & Interactive Media
Studio, publisher and platform leadership for gaming and adjacent interactive-media businesses headquartered in or anchored by Seattle.
Industrial Automation & Robotics
Robotics, automation-platform and adjacent industrial-tech leadership across the Pacific-Northwest engineering ecosystem.
Enterprise SaaS
Late-stage and listed enterprise-software leadership — CRO, CTO and CPO mandates across Seattle's growing software cluster.

Market Context

Why leadership hiring in Seattle is different

Seattle is the only US metro where hyperscale cloud and marketplace-scale e-commerce are simultaneously dominant. Leadership briefs here routinely call for executives who have operated at a scale most other US metros cannot reference — and the talent map is correspondingly narrow at the very top. We treat that scarcity as a calibration input, not a constraint.

It is also the largest concentration of senior India-origin engineering and operations leadership in the United States after the Bay Area. The bench is bidirectional with Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune, and we have spent years tracking who is genuinely operating cross-border versus who is simply Pacific-Northwest-resident. For India-headquartered groups, those distinctions are decisive.

Equity-heavy compensation at hyperscalers and large platforms produces a distinctive offer-construction problem: refresh cycles, performance-vesting overlays and post-IPO RSU schedules all interact in non-trivial ways. We model that economics-first reality before any candidate sees a number.

TIME ZONE

PT (UTC−8 / −7 DST)

PRIMARY REGULATORS

WA state, SEC, FAA

ANCHOR SECTORS

Cloud, E-Commerce, Aerospace, Biotech

TALENT FLOW

Heavy India-engineering rotation, intra-Bellevue churn

COMP CURRENCY

USD — equity-dominant, multi-tranche RSU schedules

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 Seattle mandates

Archetype attributions — never real names, never real companies.

“Our brief was for a head-of-platform who had run hyperscale and could read an Indian engineering centre. That bench is small; everyone says they have it. This team built the slate around real cross-border operators, not LinkedIn proxies for them. The hire is in seat and the engineering org is no longer running on two parallel cultures.”

Group CTO archetype · Listed enterprise SaaS platform · Seattle HQ with Bengaluru centre

A head-of-platform mandate covering both Seattle and a major Bengaluru engineering centre.

“The equity bridge was non-trivial. The partner ran the offer construction himself, modelled the candidate's existing RSU schedule against ours and proposed a structure that closed the candidate without breaking our equity guidelines.”

Group CHRO archetype · Pre-IPO marketplace platform · Seattle

A CRO appointment with a complex multi-tranche equity bridge.

“We have used the global firms before. The work product here is comparable, the partner read of the company is sharper, and the economics let us run two parallel mandates instead of one.”

Lead Independent Director archetype · Aerospace systems platform · Seattle

A first-time-professional CFO appointment at an aerospace systems platform.

FAQs

Frequently asked — executive search in Seattle

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

Most retained mandates close in 95–120 days. Hyperscale-engineering CTO and head-of-platform searches can run sixteen weeks because the diligence and reference work is more involved; commercial leadership and aerospace mandates typically close inside twelve weeks.

Equity is modelled before the brief is finalised. We map the candidate's existing RSU, ESPP and option position against the target company's stock plan, model the vesting cliff and refresh schedule, and propose an offer construction that bridges the economic gap. The partner runs that conversation directly.

Yes. For Seattle-headquartered platforms running Bengaluru or Hyderabad engineering centres, we routinely run a single search whose slate spans both geographies, with one senior partner accountable for the whole map.

Yes. Aerospace prime-and-sub leadership — chief operating, chief technology and chief financial roles — is a distinct segment of the practice with separately maintained talent maps. The same senior partner can run either aerospace or platform-engineering mandates.

Our retainer is typically 30–45% lower than equivalent Bellevue or Seattle boutiques. The structure is identical — a flat fee billed in three tranches across the search — and we share the schedule before any work begins.

Either, at the client's election. India-headquartered groups usually invoice INR against the parent entity; US-domiciled clients invoice USD against the local entity.

No. Gladwin International is an independent retained search firm with its own research desk and partner bench. We do not act as a sub-contractor and do not share candidate data with any global retained firm.

If the placed candidate departs the role within twelve months of start date for reasons other than a board-led restructuring, we re-run the search at no additional retainer. The guarantee runs from start date.

Engage

Brief us on a Seattle-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.