Specialities · Leadership Hiring
Leadership hiring and executive search for financial services and GCCs
When the role is a Chief Risk Officer, a Chief Actuary, a Head of Analytics, an Audit Director or the leader of a new capability centre, the search is different. We recruit senior and executive talent across every discipline we specialise in, with the discretion, depth and judgement that leadership hiring demands.
What leadership and executive roles does EliteRecruitments recruit for?
EliteRecruitments recruits senior and executive talent across all its disciplines: Chief Risk Officer, Chief Actuary and Head of Actuarial, Head of Analytics and Chief Data Officer, Audit and Controls Director, Head of Financial Advisory, and the leaders who run capability centres and specialist functions. It conducts these as confidential, judgement led searches, drawing on its depth across actuarial, risk, analytics and audit.
Founder led
senior searches led personally by Shagun Gupta
80%
screening ratio, candidates we submit get interviewed
85%
joining ratio, offers that become joiners
Confidential
discreet, retained, succession sensitive
Its own discipline
Where all our practices meet at the top
A senior search carries more weight, more confidentiality and more risk than a standard hire, and it turns on judgement as much as sourcing: understanding what the role really needs, reaching people who are not looking, and assessing fit at a level where a wrong hire is expensive. That is true whether the role is a Chief Risk Officer in an insurer or the leader standing up a new capability centre.
This is also where all our practices meet. Because we recruit deeply across actuarial, risk, analytics and audit, we understand the senior roles in each, and the leaders who sit above several of them. A Chief Risk Officer needs someone who knows risk and the functions around it. A capability centre leader needs someone who understands the whole specialist landscape. That cross domain depth is what makes our leadership hiring different from a generalist executive search.
The leadership roles we recruit
Senior, confidential searches, handled with care
We recruit leadership across every discipline we specialise in, and the leaders who span several.
Functional leaders
The heads of the specialist functions: Chief Actuary and Head of Actuarial, Chief Risk Officer and Head of Risk, Head of Analytics and Chief Data Officer, Audit and Controls Director and Head of Internal Audit, and Head of Financial Advisory. The leaders who own a discipline and answer for it.
Capability centre and site leadership
The leaders who build and run global capability centres in India: centre heads, function leaders setting up actuarial, risk, analytics or audit teams from scratch, and the senior hires that anchor a new site. A fast growing area where leadership judgement decides whether a build succeeds.
Executive and C suite
Senior executive and C suite roles within financial services organisations and their specialist functions, where the search needs both reach into a small leadership pool and the discretion to run quietly. Often the most sensitive mandates we handle.
Board and senior advisory
Senior advisory and board level specialist roles, where deep functional credibility matters as much as seniority, for example bringing specialist risk, actuarial or audit expertise to a leadership or oversight role.
How we run a leadership search
Discreet, thorough, built on real domain depth
A leadership search is run differently from a standard hire. It is usually confidential, so it cannot rely on advertising. It reaches people who are settled and not looking, which takes a real network and a credible approach. And it is assessed at a level where fit, judgement and how someone will lead a team matter as much as their record. We run these searches on a retained basis, closely with the hiring leaders, and we are honest about what we can and cannot reach rather than promising every search.
Some of the most sensitive searches are the ones that cannot be seen to be happening at all. We handle confidential replacement and succession sensitive mandates, where an organisation needs to line up a successor or replace a leader discreetly, without unsettling a team or signalling a change before it is ready.
What makes ours different is the domain depth underneath. Because we genuinely understand actuarial, risk, analytics and audit, we can assess a senior specialist leader on substance, not just seniority, and we know the small communities these leaders come from. See how a retained leadership search runs →
Who we serve, and how we assess
Where a wrong hire is most expensive
We hire senior specialist leaders for insurers, reinsurers, banks and consultancies, and the capability centres appointing the leaders who will build and run their India functions. At leadership level the cost of a wrong hire is high, so our assessment goes deep: not just whether someone has done the role, but whether they will lead well in this organisation, with this team, at this moment. We bring genuine domain understanding to that judgement, which is why our senior placements last. We screen at an 80 per cent rate and our candidates join at an 85 per cent rate, and since 2014 we have had to return fewer than fifteen fees, a record that matters most at the leadership level.
Founder led
Shagun Gupta
Founder, stays close to the specialist work
EliteRecruitments is led by its founder, Shagun Gupta, who built the firm out of actuarial and stays close to the specialist work across the practice. Leadership searches are led personally by Shagun, because senior hiring is where her experience and judgement matter most, and contact routes to her directly. So when you talk to us about a role here, you reach people who understand the work and the market for it, not a generalist passing on a brief.
Proof
Representative leadership searches
Leadership searches are confidential, so we describe them only in general terms, as role type and context, with no names, organisations or salaries:
Head of Risk
Capability Centre Function Lead
Head of Analytics
Chief Actuary
Kept deliberately general for confidentiality.
Related specialities
Leadership connects to every practice
Because the leaders we place run those disciplines. It draws on our actuarial, risk, analytics and audit depth, and sits closely with our capability centre work, where leadership decides whether a build succeeds. Clients often come to us for a leader and then for the team beneath them.
How to work with us
Retained, and led from the top
Leadership searches are run primarily on a retained basis, the right model for confidential, senior mandates, and closely with the hiring leaders throughout. Our placements come with a 90 day guarantee, and since 2014 we have had to return fewer than fifteen fees, a record that matters most at the leadership level, where the stakes of a hire are highest. See how a retained leadership search runs →
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
Which leadership roles does EliteRecruitments recruit?
When should an employer use retained executive search?
How does EliteRecruitments protect a confidential leadership search?
How are leadership candidates assessed?
Can EliteRecruitments map the market before an employer starts interviews?
Can leadership searches include international candidates?
Do leadership candidates pay EliteRecruitments?
Start a conversation
Discuss a leadership search with Shagun
Whether you are appointing a Chief Risk Officer, a Chief Actuary or the leader of a new capability centre, or weighing a senior move of your own, we would welcome a confidential conversation.
Thank you, we will be in touch shortly.
Your note goes to Shagun directly and in confidence.