Executive Search
Leadership search in Japan.
We place Country Managers and go-to-market leaders for global technology vendors and consulting firms in Japan.
- 100%Retention rate, Country Manager and executive appointments
- 3–4Months for a typical leadership search
- 2003In Japan executive search since
Markets
Who we work with.
Our roots are in the enterprise technology vendors and that is still most of what we do. More of the demand now comes from the consulting firms working in the same three areas: cloud, data and AI, and cybersecurity. Murray Clarke leads the technology practice and Hiroshi Torobu the consulting practice.
01
Enterprise technology
Country Manager, President and go-to-market leadership for global technology companies in Japan. Sixteen leadership builds, and every client will take a reference call.
- Cloud and infrastructure
- Data and AI
- Cybersecurity
- Enterprise software
02
Technology consulting
Partner, Managing Director, Director and Senior Manager appointments inside consulting and technology services firms. The population is mapped by firm, practice and grade before anyone is approached.
- Cloud and infrastructure
- Data and AI
- Cybersecurity
Where to start
Three scenarios where we help.
Starting from nothing in Japan, replacing a Country Manager in an established office, and deciding whether the hire is possible at all are three different pieces of work. Which one you are in decides the brief, the pool and the offer.
Situation one
No entity or light footprint, net new hire
You are selling into Japan from Singapore or the US and the decision is whether to put someone on the ground before the structure exists. The first appointment sets the business up as much as it sells.
- The entity question comes before the search, not after it
- The hire has to sell and build at the same time
- An EOR is usually the bridge while the entity is set up
- Budget set from a US or Singapore benchmark is normally wrong
Situation two
An established business, backfill or replacement
The entity exists, there is a team, and the seat either needs filling or needs changing. Usually this is a confidential replacement of a role that matters, run while the incumbent is still in it.
- Confidentiality is the constraint that shapes the whole search
- The shortlist has to be real before anyone internal is told
- The new leader inherits a team, so retention is part of the brief
- Counter-offers get managed before the resignation, not after
Situation three
No search signed off yet, and you want the map first
The seat is not approved, or you want to know whether the person you have in mind exists at the number you have in mind. We recommend starting with the map. It improves the odds on the hire, and it makes the search work more accurate when it starts.
- The named population by firm, practice and grade, each name traced to a source
- What the market is actually paying at that level, not the headquarters benchmark
- Where your own people already overlap with the names on the map
- A dated list you keep, whether or not a search follows
Before a search, or instead of one
Confidential succession planning
We map the people in Japan who could run your business and benchmark each one against your current country manager, scored on the same criteria. Results stay on a private page you control, and nobody in the market is approached.
Some clients repeat the review every year. If the country manager announces their departure, the search starts from a map that is already done.
How it works →Our method
How our search works.
A leadership search takes three to four months. The first month is spent on the story and the market map, then discreet outreach and deep interviews. Senior people in Tokyo are careful about their reputation, so nothing goes to a candidate until the story is right.
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Brief and intelligence
A real-time market audit on the seat, the package and the companies you are hiring against, before the brief is fixed.Output: market brief and value narrative
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Scoring criteria
The profile defined against both technical capability and cultural fit, agreed before anyone is approached rather than discovered halfway through a shortlist.Output: an agreed scorecard
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Leader ranking
The addressable pool identified and tiered on local data and peer-level insight, so you are looking at a full map of your competitive landscape rather than a list of who happened to reply.Output: the full market map
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Sequential engagement
Approaches made through peer-level introductions, so the mandate arrives through trust rather than as cold outreach. In this market that is the difference between a reply and silence.Output: engaged, qualified candidates
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Final appointment
Offer construction, negotiation and onboarding managed through to a start date, with counter-offers anticipated before the resignation rather than handled after it.Output: a leader who starts, and stays
We start with a story the candidate can act on. A generic job description gets ignored by the people you most want.
How we find your people
What we prepare for every search.
Instead of a job description, we build research and pitch material that maps the market, qualifies candidates and answers the local questions before the first interview. Four things sit behind every search.
01 · Market mapping
The Target 100
Exhaustive research on your Tokyo competitors to identify the hundred or so leaders who could actually do the job, mapped by organisation, function and seniority rather than estimated as a pool size.
02 · Client Brief Pages
Your story, in English and Japanese
A Client Brief Page on the company, the role and the opportunity. It answers the objections a Japanese executive will have about a foreign employer before we even speak, and every approach carries the same page.
See Client Brief Pages03 · Executive Profiles
Evidence beyond the resume
Each shortlisted candidate gets an Executive Profile: career history, the CV, public work and a score against the scorecard you agreed, so you can check the judgement rather than take it on trust.
View a sample Executive Profile04 · The network
Twenty years of introductions
Two decades of senior candidate relationships in Tokyo, which is what makes a peer-level introduction possible instead of a cold approach that gets ignored.
Client Brief Pages
One message to market, and you can see who read it.
Most roles go to market as a job description and a link to the careers site. A Client Brief Page covers the company, the role and the opportunity in English and Japanese, and answers the questions candidates ask before a first interview.
On a search, every approach carries the same page, so candidates arrive at the first conversation already informed. Each unique view is tracked, so you can see who has read it.
- Candidates decide on the real story, not a forwarded JD.
- Common questions are answered before the interview, so first meetings go deeper.
- Tracked views show who has engaged with the role before the first call.
Candidate feedback
A sample of the feedback we receive from candidates. Names and identifying details are withheld to protect candidate confidentiality.
“It’s genuinely the best recruiter briefing I’ve ever received. It was thorough, well structured, and gave me a very clear picture of the opportunity.”
“I could understand the requirement perfectly thanks to your page. It was really helpful!”
“That was really interesting - a fresh approach. Most agents just send the JD, which is very basic.”
How this is made. The research and page-building tools behind these four are our own, and we use them in research, drafting and analysis. That is how a narrow market can be enumerated properly and a source put under every figure. A person reviews everything before it reaches a client or a candidate, and a named partner is accountable for each page. No candidate is ever scored, ranked or set aside on a model's output alone.
Search quality
Why searches fail in Japan.
For a Country Manager hire, the recruiter represents your brand in this market. If that is done badly, the best candidates will not engage and you never find out why.
| Where searches lose people | What it should be |
|---|---|
| Outreach run from offshore | Local representation with standingA Tokyo executive judges the approach before the opportunity. An offshore first contact answers the question for them. |
| Generalist recruiters | A committed executive recruiterIf the person calling cannot discuss the market at the candidate's level, the call ends politely and nothing follows. |
| Double handling through TA only | Direct access to the decision makersSenior candidates want the hiring stakeholder, not a relay. Every extra hop costs days and interest. |
Even with a clean process, your market narrative decides the hit rate. If you are not reaching the top 1 percent, the story is not landing with the Tokyo executive circle. That is fixable, and it is usually the first thing we look at.
Terms
What it costs.
One model. Fees are set against the seniority and difficulty of the role.
The fee
Engaged search
30%
Of first-year OTE, with the engagement fee deductible from it
- Engagement fee
- On commencement
- Balance
- On placement
- Account lead
- Founding partner
- Guarantee
- 120 days
Every search
What is included
100%
Market map coverage, and you keep the map either way
- Market mapping
- 100% coverage
- Reporting
- Full shortlist intel
- Market exclusivity
- Total priority
- Consultant
- One, end to end
The guarantee means that if someone we place leaves inside 120 days for reasons down to them, we run the replacement search at no further fee. Inside a search we do not charge for the market map separately. It is part of the work and you keep it either way. Commissioned on its own, without a live role, the map is a separate piece of work and is scoped in the statement of work.
Questions
Common questions.
If yours is not here, book a call.
- How do you hire a top Country Manager in Japan?
- It starts with a story the candidate can act on. The best people in Tokyo are careful about their reputation, so the first job is making the move look like a sound decision.
- What does executive search in Japan cost?
- Fees are set against the seniority and difficulty of the role. In a market as tight as Tokyo, most of what you are paying for is the work of moving a high performer out of a stable position. The fee and the guarantee are set out above.
- Should Japan report to APAC or Global?
- For a new market entry or a turnaround, direct reporting to Global is often better. It signals to local candidates that Japan has a seat at the table, and the executive sponsorship required to move fast and clear internal hurdles.
- How long does a leadership search take?
- Three to four months is typical. Before the first candidate is contacted, we confirm the brief, decision criteria, refine the story and map the market. When candidates are motivated, it is often on the client side that delays occur. This is why we strongly advise clients to have their executive recruiters lead the project.
- Why do foreign tech companies fail to hire in Japan?
- Most underestimate the trust gap. If your outreach feels transactional, or your job description is a generic copy-paste from the US, top-tier talent will assume you are not serious about the market and will not engage at all.
Next step
Book a call.
Forty-five minutes with the partner who would run the search. Tell us the role you most need filled and we will tell you what the market will support.
If the person you want does not exist at the budget you have in mind, you will hear that in the first conversation, not in month four.