The apexof human talent.
Vertex Talent is an executive search and specialist recruitment firm placing senior leaders across technology, finance, and life sciences. London-based. Discreet. Backed by our proprietary candidate intelligence engine.
[ 01 ] Manifesto
A senior hire is a decade of consequences. The candidate the spreadsheet picks is rarely the candidate the business needs. Vertex exists to bridge that gap — with discipline, intelligence, and the unshakeable conviction that the relationship is the asset, the placement is its consequence.
Discipline
No more than four mandates per consultant. Every shortlist a function of refusal, not collection.
Intelligence
A proprietary candidate intelligence engine — built in-house — augmenting consultant judgment with structured market data.
Confidence
96% of placements remain in role at twelve months. A figure that is, in executive search, unusual.
[ 02 ] Specialisms
Six practices. One philosophy.
Each practice is led by a partner with twelve years or more of senior search experience. We accept a limited number of mandates per quarter, and never compete with ourselves on the same role.
- 01
Technology
Executive · IC
Senior technology placements across founder-led and PE-backed scaleups, late-stage privates, and FTSE-listed tech.
- 02
Finance
Capital Markets
Hedge funds, private credit, pre-IPO businesses. Senior finance, quantitative, and investment talent.
- 03
Life Sciences
Biotech · Pharma
Clinical-stage biotech through to mid-cap pharma. Medical, clinical, regulatory, and scientific leadership.
- 04
Legal
In-House · Policy
In-house legal at regulated and pre-IPO businesses. AI policy and regulatory engagement.
- 05
Sustainability
Climate · ESG
Climate-tech and corporate sustainability leadership across founder-led and FTSE businesses.
- 06
Operations
Commercial · COO
Commercial and operational leadership — perm and fractional engagements at Series A through to public-co.
Typical placements
- Chief Technology Officer
- VP Engineering
- Staff & Principal IC
- Head of Platform
- Director of Product
[ 03 ] How we work
A six-stage search cadence.
Designed to compress a senior placement to ten or twelve weeks. Not by cutting corners — by refusing to let any one of the six stages slip when the inevitable pressure arrives.
Diagnostic
A working session — not a briefing. We spend two hours with the hiring authority and the most relevant peer to interrogate the brief itself, and produce a one-page statement of the problem the hire is being asked to solve.
Long-list
Within fourteen days of engagement, we deliver a calibrated 36-name long-list. We commit to this internally — a long-list later than fourteen days is, in our experience, a search drifting into six months.
Calibration
A structured calibration session against four to five long-list candidates. The brief is refined; the shortlist criteria are written down. The calendar bends around the search, never the reverse.
Shortlist
Six to eight qualified candidates, each presented with a written assessment, structured commentary against the calibrated brief, and an honest read on the candidate's motivation and likely ceiling.
Offer
We start drafting the offer at first-shortlist stage, not at finalist stage. The compensation envelope is pre-cleared with the board, the contract is drafted, and the start date is pre-negotiated against notice periods.
Integration
A 90-day-plus-one integration cadence — structured listening, a written observation document, a deliberate week-eight win. We support every senior placement through their first six months in role.
[ 04 ] By the numbers
Discipline, measured.
01
Senior placements
Across executive and senior IC, since 2026
02
Avg. time to shortlist
From engagement to first qualified introduction
03
Retained engagement rate
Clients retaining Vertex for a subsequent search
04
12-month retention
Of our placements remain in role at twelve months
[ 05 ] Live mandates
Selected active engagements.
[ 07 ] Intelligence layer
Consultant judgment, intelligently augmented.
Every Vertex search is supported by a candidate intelligence engine we built in-house. It does not run our consultants — it sharpens them.
Anonymised market intelligence
Every interaction with the candidate market — every refused brief, every accepted introduction — is captured anonymously. Across 14,000+ data points, we model where senior talent is moving, why, and at what compensation band.
Calibrated shortlist scoring
Each shortlist candidate is scored across twelve dimensions — capability, motivation, capacity, and risk. The score augments consultant judgment; it does not replace it.
Lifecycle integration
When a candidate submits a CV through the website, the AI engine processes it within sixty seconds — extracting structured data, mapping it against active mandates, and routing the introduction to the relevant practice partner.
Built in-house. Not licensed.
The intelligence layer is proprietary. We have not licensed third-party recruitment AI; we have built our own engine, on our own data, accountable to our own consultants.
Candidate records
184,212
Active mandates
47
Companies tracked
8,400+
Compensation data points
102k
[ 06 ] In their words
The relationship is the asset.
Vertex placed our Chief Technology Officer in eleven weeks against a brief three other firms had told us was impossible. The shortlist was disciplined, every candidate was board-grade, and the post-placement integration support was the differentiator.
HLHenrik Larsson
Founder & CEO · Series C Fintech
01/06
Retained by · Index · Accel · Lakestar · Atomico · EQT — and 70+ more
Begin a conversation
A discreet
conversation, first.
Whether you are mapping the market for a senior hire, exploring a new role yourself, or simply gathering intelligence — we will respond personally, in confidence, within one working day.
Mayfair · London
14 Berkeley Street
London W1J 8DX
Direct
+44 (0) 20 7946 0188Partners' Desk
partners@vertextalent.co.uk