The Difference
Aquinas Search Partners is different than your last experience.
Our team is different than most executive search teams. Our partners and leadership have sat on both sides of the desk. We leverage pedigreed operational and executive search experience to help you build the leadership, teams, and culture which will drive results and lasting legacy.
Our process is different. You will hear from firm after firm that “their process” is their secret sauce. The search process is important. However, the most important input into that process is the client situation. We are proud of our world class search processes designed by improving upon best practices of some of the most successful search firms in the world. However, we understand that there is no average client, there is no standard search. Every search is unique, especially yours. Our processes have the appropriate rigor and discipline but are dynamic in nature. We conduct projects around the needs of the client, adapting our processes and deploying our resources appropriately for each unique search.
Our clients are typically very busy operating their business. Our commitment to you is to respect your time and work diligently not to distract you or your organization from the daily demand of your business. We strive to fit into your business process, unlike many firms that force you to fit into theirs. We are experts in search and stay focused on it allowing you to stay focused on your operations
We are Client Centric. We are focused on our client’s short and long term interest. We seek to understand your business allowing us to do great search work but also to assist our clients in other ways. Our partners are tenured business people with solid operational experience making us capable of truly understanding your company from a business perspective, not just a search point of view. We pride ourselves on listening closely to understand needs, problems, concerns, and opportunities. We will share “our point of view” leading to better alignment. We will challenge our clients on their thinking when appropriate. That means we are also open to being challenged on our thinking and approaches. This allows healthy use of collective Aquinas and client perspective. This candid dialogue allows us to arrive at the best possible approach for each project and many times allows to assist our clients in other ways accomplish their overall business objectives.
We are market experts. We understand the industry segments that we work within. In fact, unlike many firms we will say “no” to an engagement if we do not believe we are best choice to fulfill the project. We have designed our organization and processes to identify and leverage market and competitive intelligence across industry and sector.
We seek to understand our clients core values, culture, and business drivers to define criteria. We know the candidate universe and have real time access to senior leaders in our sectors. Aquinas Search Partners also understand the function and the roles as we have personally performed or managed many of roles.
Our fee structure is different. The standard fee structure of senior executive search has changed very little over the last 30 years, that being a percentage of the first years compensation. In reality there are different degrees of difficulty in searches at the same compensation level. We look at every search as a unique project and reflect the true costs of what we believe it take to fill the search and to make a reasonable profit for our firm. Our fees are fixed, not variable, so you can budget with confidence and never have to be concerned about that last invoice “surprise” that has become typical in the search industry. Our project based fees will always be competitive and in most instances lower than firms still operating on the % model.