Insights
Written by Jeremy Holland, Founder & Managing Partner. For operators, by operators. Every figure we cite is consolidated in the Data Reference.
Leadership Pipeline
CFO turnover is on pace for 18.3% in 2026, and interim CFOs doubled to 12% of new hires. Fix, bridge, stay fractional, or search: the four doors for an open finance seat.
Advisory
Gartner expects 40%+ of agentic AI projects cancelled by 2027; KPMG finds 49% already pulled back. The expected write-off on one agent build, worked out, and four lines that lower it.
Executive Search
Spencer Stuart: 84% of new S&P 1500 CEOs in 2025 were first-timers, and experience wins mainly in turnarounds. Two searches for the same title, followed from the brief to year five.
Leadership Pipeline
AlixPartners: ~65% of PE firms replace the portfolio CEO during the hold. Russell Reynolds: 54% of those exits land in months 18-24. The timeline, mapped month by month.
Advisory
IDC's 2026 benchmark: only 1 in 6 self-identified AI “thrivers” actually score as mature. The five-question diagnostic to run before scoping any fractional CAIO search.
Executive Search
100 requisitions, an 8% fill rate, a 40% industry failure rate: the worked calculation behind why volume executive search costs more than it looks like.
Executive Search
22 S&P 500 boards have rehired a former CEO since 2010. MIT Sloan found their companies underperformed peers by 10% on average. Why familiarity isn’t verified fit.
Advisory
Gartner puts 2027 AI spend at $3.64T. Deloitte found a quarter of $1B+ companies approve major AI investment on mandate alone, with no process to measure it.
Leadership Pipeline
Deloitte's 2026 global survey: only 37% are highly confident in next-gen leadership readiness, and only about half of succession plans are thorough.
Search Methodology
3,000 managers surveyed, 60% caught a candidate lying, only 19% extremely confident their process would catch fraud. The five rungs of verification, and the two a hundred-requisition search structurally skips.
Advisory
CAIO adoption tripled in a year per IBM. But orchestration-led governance, not the title, is what predicts the ROI. Schneider Electric, Heineken and IBM itself all answered the hiring question differently.
Leadership Pipeline
The FTC's ban is dead. The state patchwork left behind sets its thresholds almost exactly at the executive line — and two states now price mobility restrictions rather than granting them for free.
Leadership Pipeline
CFO turnover hit 60% in H1 2026, nearly 20 points above the 8-year average. 64% of new CFOs are first-timers. Russell Reynolds' data, and the underwriting question boards keep skipping.
Advisory
84% of PE firms have appointed a Chief AI Officer, per EY. But an AI Operating Partner and a fractional CAIO answer different questions. The decision framework for which one you need.
Executive Search
46% of counteroffers keep the person on paper. 40.8% leave within 12 months anyway, and 40% who stayed say they regret it. The math on why counteroffers rarely fix the reason someone left.
AI Leadership
Most mid-market companies hire AI technical skill before AI leadership, then wonder why the pilots never reach production. The fix is sequencing, not headcount.
AI & Advisory
80% report AI made them personally more productive. 37% of organisations see any EBIT impact. 6% see 5% or more. On a 220-person company the unbanked capacity is roughly $1.15M a year.
Executive Search
15 project announcements in 2025 against five in the prior two years combined. 3,880 jobs. And metro job growth fell from +2.7% to +1.6% while the senior demand concentrated.
Leadership Pipeline
83% of directors trust the new CEO's ability. 10% say they actually know them. Half started too late, half played it safe, and 70% skipped the 360. The Connection Ledger.
Private Equity
32,000 unsold companies worth $3.8 trillion and holds stretched to seven years. Bain says deals that needed 5% EBITDA growth now need 10–12%. Nobody re-hired the CEO for the second job.
AI & Advisory
58% of companies with fully integrated AI report revenue growth from it. 15% of those still piloting do. Both groups are spending. The variable is whether one named person owns the outcome.
Executive Search
Four years, 6,000 companies, 640 million applications. Volume more than doubled, teams halved, and the share of jobs that closed with a hire moved five points. Screening was never the constraint.
AI & Advisory
The Federal Reserve published firm-weighted AI adoption at 18% and employment-weighted adoption at 78% in the same quarter. 95% of U.S. firms have under 50 employees. The denominator test, and what it means for sizing AI leadership.
Executive Search
June 2026 JOLTS: 7.4 million openings, 5.3 million hires, 5.4 million separations. More people left jobs than started them. Quits in finance and insurance fell to 0.9%. Five rules for searching a market that has stopped moving.
Private Equity
74% of US portfolio company leadership roles are filled externally and 68% of portfolio companies hire a leader every year. Across a five-to-six year hold that is roughly four searches per company — priced into almost no entry model.
Advisory
The AI wage premium is now 62% — $111,600 a year on a $180,000 base, every year. What the premium alone buys, and the three questions to answer before you pay it.
Executive Search
$15,000 to fill an executive seat, up from $10,600. Time-to-fill did not move a day. And 80% of companies will never check whether the person they bought was worth it.
Advisory
82% of mid-market companies run AI in production; only 26% have it governed. That 56-point spread is the governance debt — and the barrier respondents ranked last is the one causing the three they ranked first.
Leadership Pipeline
Span of control went from 8.2 to 12.1 direct reports — roughly 32% fewer first-line manager seats for the same headcount. That rung is where people learn to lead, and Wharton already measured what happens when it disappears.
Executive Search
89% of new-hire failures trace to attitude; 11% to technical skill. The résumé measures the 11% — and external hires are paid 18–20% more precisely because the company knows least about them.
Revenue Operations
Gartner puts just 7% of companies at 90%+ forecast accuracy, and fewer than a quarter above 75%. The problem is not rep discipline. It is that the forecast is built from opinion and stored in fields nobody verifies.
Executive Search
Searches rarely fail in sourcing. They fail at the offer, where a budget set from internal equity meets a price set by the external market. The 2026 compensation data, and how to close the gap before it costs you the finalist.
Executive Search
One hire now takes ~291 applications, 11.7–17.6 interviews, and 44+ days — roughly double 2022's intensity — and the right person still isn't in the pile. The 56–90 hour internal ledger nobody runs, and when a credible search firm becomes the cheaper path.
Private Equity
65% of PE firms replace the portfolio company CEO during the hold — and the exits cluster at year two. The timing is the diagnosis: the résumé matched the job description, but nobody underwrote the fit to the deal. The two-year tax, priced at roughly three points of IRR.
Executive Search
The fee gap between the two models is maybe $20K. The mis-hire exposure on the same role is $1.25M. A side-by-side on fee structures, incentives, and the math that decides which model is actually cheaper — including where contingency genuinely wins.
AI Leadership
Full-time Chief AI Officers run $350K–$450K in first-year comp. A fractional CAIO delivers the same executive accountability at a fraction of the load. Here is how the retainer economics actually work — and what the $9,500 diagnostic replaces before you sign anything.
AI Leadership
AI consultants sell strategy. Fractional heads of AI ship systems. The two are not competing versions of the same thing — they are different products. Here is when each is the right answer, and the operating conditions that decide.
AI Leadership
Six operating signals that make a fractional head of AI (fractional CAIO) the right next hire — and three that mean the real problem is upstream. The sequence that separates the 12% of AI initiatives that ship from the 88% that stall.
Supply Chain
Tariffs forced mid-market leaders to restructure their supply chains. Then they discovered they couldn't hire the talent to execute it. The gap between the plan and the people — and how to close it.
Manufacturing
Smart manufacturing is installed. 2.1 million jobs will go unfilled by 2030. The workforce required to operate it doesn't exist at the volume the industry needs — and the automation investment itself disrupted the pipeline that used to produce it.
Private Equity
PE mid-hold is the highest-risk window for a leadership mis-hire. A fractional executive deployed as a bridge — while the precision permanent search runs in parallel — is how the best operators de-risk it. Here is the framework.
Sales Leadership
A vacant CRO or VP Sales seat doesn't just slow the quarter. It compounds: pipeline erodes, reps drift, and top performers leave for somewhere with a leader. The verified math — and what it justifies doing differently.
AI Leadership
The board wants an AI answer. Here is the month-by-month reality — the diagnostic, the three unglamorous first systems, the governance, and the 90-day review that actually counts.
Revenue Operations
Almost everyone is spending on AI. Almost no one can show the return. 88% of pilots never ship — and the 12% that do return 171%. The gap is operating discipline, not model quality.
Market Analysis
The executive search market is reorganizing around advisory, not execution. AESC, LinkedIn, SHRM, and WEF data — verified — show why, and what advisory-first search actually looks like in practice.
Executive Search
Most executive placements that fail don't fail in the search. They fail in the first ninety days after signing — quietly, structurally, and almost always for reasons the firm that ran the search never sees.
Search Methodology
If a search firm hands you twenty-five résumés to "compare," they are not delivering a slate. They are transferring the work back to you, and presenting it as service.
Search Methodology
There is a difference between a recruiter who has read a job description for the role they are filling, and a recruiter who has personally held that role. That difference compounds.
Market Analysis
$98 per day per open role in measurable productivity loss. Most senior leadership searches run 90+ days. The compounding math of an unfilled seat — and what it justifies spending to fill it right.
Executive Search
Executive recruiting costs have risen 113% since 2017. A bad hire costs up to $240K per employee. The retained search fee is less than 6% of the downside it prevents. Here's the math.
Market Analysis
113% increase in exec recruiting costs. 70% of recruiters can't find the right skills. $98/day per open role. The verified 2026 hiring market data — and what it means for how you hire next.
Advisory
The fractional executive market is $5.7B and growing 14% per year. Most founders using it are doing so at the wrong stage, in the wrong function. The framework that tells you which answer fits your org.
Revenue Operations
40–60% of B2B deals are lost to "no decision." 53% of companies have a broken marketing-sales handoff. The pipeline looks like the problem. Here's what the problem actually is — and how to fix it.
One thoughtful piece per month. No tracking, no funnels, no AI listicle filler. Email us to be added.