Hiring a leader for a rocket-ship startup isn’t the same as hiring one for a company navigating a turnaround—or preparing for an acquisition, or re-aligning after a failed product launch.
Each of these business phases demands a different type of leadership, mindset, and operational playbook.
Yet many executive search firms still treat hiring like a formula, recycling the same candidate pools without adapting to the unique context of the company.
That’s a dangerous miss.
A Chief Revenue Officer leading a company from $10M to $100M ARR needs to build scalable systems, manage explosive growth, and hire aggressively.
Meanwhile, a CRO brought into a company with stagnant pipeline and rising churn needs to stabilize teams, re-earn customer trust, and rethink GTM motion from the ground up.
Both are senior leaders. But they require radically different instincts, experiences, and leadership muscle.
Image by Amina Atar
Why Executive Hiring Must Match the Moment—Not Just the Role
According to McKinsey, 50% of all large-scale transformation efforts fail due to poor leadership alignment—not poor strategy.
PitchBook also reports that nearly 40% of high-growth companies will undergo significant structural or market repositioning by 2026.
In other words, hiring based on resume bullet points or past job titles is no longer enough.
What companies need is situational hiring—matching leadership not just to a role, but to a moment in the company’s evolution.
That means evaluating not just what someone has done, but when they did it, how they did it, and why it worked in that context.
Our approach is grounded in that belief, informed by our own operator experience: having scaled, restructured, hired, and led through these exact transitions.
We don’t just source candidates—we calibrate for context, pressure, and trajectory.
Because the same leader who thrives in hypergrowth might struggle in a turnaround—and vice versa.
Situational context isn’t optional. It’s everything.
And that’s why we match people to phase, not just title.
