Director Executive Search

Job Description TA Advisory Head Forward-Deployed Consultant & Business Builder Role : Head Executive Search & RPO (working title; final title to be aligned with the incumbent) Reports to : Founder & CEO, People Equation Location : Pune/ Mumbai (with travel to client sites as engagements require) Practice : Org. & Talent Advisory anchored in Executive Search and RPO, extending into organisation design and workforce advisory Experience : 15 years, with significant depth in Executive Search and/or Global RPO on the service-provider side About People Equation People Equation (PE) is a boutique advisory firm focused on capability transformation helping companies translate strategy into results. PE runs Practices across Org. & Talent, AI, and GCC (Global Capability Centre) advisory, working primarily with mid-market and other growth-oriented companies, including technology-based and engineering-focused GCCs. Why This Role Exists This is not a standard TA leadership hire. PE is scaling its Executive Search and RPO business commercially, operationally, and in delivery capability and needs a leader who has run this kind of business before: someone who knows how to win clients, price and structure mandates, build a delivery team, and be accountable for P&L-level outcomes. At the same time, PE does not see Talent Acquisition as a standalone delivery function. The person in this role is expected to operate as a forward-deployed advisory partner having one deep subject-matter expertise, staying close enough to the client's business to see the organisational problem behind the hiring mandate, and capable enough to shape a broader solution around it. Over time, that scope is expected to extend into organisation design, workforce planning, and other parts of the Org. & Talent Advisory practice. In short: this role is built for someone who refuses to let recruitment be the boundary of their contribution. Role Mandate The role has three connected dimensions. They are sequential in emphasis, not in importance the business must be built for the advisory ambition to have a platform, but the advisory ambition is why the business is being built in the first place. 1. Build and run the TA business (Executive Search & RPO) Own commercial outcomes for the Executive Search and RPO line client acquisition, mandate pricing/structuring, revenue and margin.Build and lead delivery capability hire, structure, and manage a team of researchers, consultants, and RPO delivery staff.Run operations client onboarding, delivery governance, quality and TAT standards, and reporting rhythm across live mandates.Represent PE in the market for search and RPO opportunities, including pitches, proposals, and client relationship management at leadership level. 2. Operate as a forward-deployed advisory partner Stay client-anchored, not requisition-anchored understand the client's broader organisational context (structure, leadership bench, capability gaps) behind any hiring or RPO mandate.Shape solutions beyond the brief where a hiring problem is really an organisation design, role definition, or workforce planning problem, say so and help solve it.Stay close to execution this is not a hand-off-and-move-on advisory style; the expectation is to remain involved through delivery, not just diagnosis.Extend into adjacent Org. & Talent Advisory areas over time organisation design, workforce planning, and related engagements, as capability and client trust develop. 3. Build the business and the institution Treat this as an important P&L the mandate is to scale a function and a business, as a P&L, not maintain an existing one.Shape how the TA business is structured within PE team design, service lines, pricing models, and go-to-market with real latitude to build rather than inherit.Grow into a larger institutional role at PE as the business scales this is explicitly framed as a path, not a fixed job. What Success Looks Like 06 months : TA business (Search + RPO) operating rhythm established: active mandates under structured delivery governance, core team in place, and at least one adjacent-advisory conversation opened with an existing client. 612 months : Client base and revenue for Search/RPO growing on a repeatable (not founder- dependent) engine; delivery team scaled and running with defined quality/TAT standards; one or more engagements has expanded beyond a pure hiring mandate into org design or workforce planning. 1224 months :TA business recognised internally and in the market as a distinct, well-run line within PE's Org. & Talent practice; the role has evolved into a broader institutional leadership position, with a credible case for further scope. Candidate Profile Must have 15 years of experience, with significant depth in Executive Search or Global RPO, on the service-provider (not purely in-house) sideDirect experience setting up or running a .