Professional Services Executive Search
Leaders for partnership-model and advisory businesses.
Professional services businesses are the hardest kind to lead. The talent is the product, the partners are the shareholders, and the leader has to hold the balance between growth, quality and culture without breaking any of them.
Who we work with
The businesses that ring us
Managing partners, boards and owners of legal, accounting, engineering consultancy, advisory and creative agencies. 50 to 500 professionals. Growth ambition, generational change on the horizon, and a genuine appetite for a different kind of leader.
Searches we run
The roles we are trusted with in professional services
Non-partner or partner CEOs for partnership businesses ready for their next chapter.
For firms transitioning from founder-led to institutionally led.
The operator who runs the business so the partners can run the practice.
CFOs who understand utilisation, WIP, lock-up and the economics of a talent business.
Growth leaders for firms where the partners are the sellers.
How we work in this sector
The professional services searches we win are the ones where the incumbent partnership trusts us to protect their culture while stretching it.
We are not the search firm that will send you fifteen partner CVs from your direct competitor. We are the one that will find you the operator who can hold your partnership together while growing it.
Frequently asked
Questions founders ask us about professional services search
Lex Gordon Executive runs confidential CEO, Managing Partner, COO and CFO searches for legal, accounting, engineering, consulting and advisory firms. We work with partnerships of 50 to 500 professionals across Australia.
Yes. Non-partner CEO appointments are one of the most delicate transitions a firm can make, and one of the most valuable. We have run several and know what makes them stick.
Carefully. The best Head of Growth or Head of BD hires in professional services amplify the partners, they do not replace them. We screen for that pattern first.
Companies we have placed leadership into