Discipline · Post-Placement
Most firms close the mandate when the contract is signed. We close it after the second board meeting.
An executive who churns at month nine does not just cost a fee. It resets the transformation clock and hands eighteen months of strategic ground to a competitor already through their integration window.
The executive-search industry has organised itself around a single moment of value transfer — the offer accepted, the invoice issued, the file closed. Everything downstream of that moment is treated as the client's problem. The retention data reflects it.
The Integration Protocol is the discipline that runs in the twelve months after signature. It is not coaching. It is not onboarding support. It is the principal staying accountable — quietly, in scheduled paired debriefs — for the outcome the mandate was engaged to produce.
The 8-in-10 Number, Explained
8 in 10
Sercxi 12-month retention
~60%
Industry aggregate at 18 months
Source: AESC / Hunt Scanlon aggregate reporting.
The gap is not the result of better assessment alone — assessment is upstream, and it matters. The gap is the result of what happens after the executive arrives. Most integration failures are legible by month four and irreversible by month nine. Neither party — sponsor nor executive — reliably raises the flag in time, because raising it looks like admitting the wrong hire was made.
The protocol exists to make that flag structural, scheduled, and low-cost to raise. It is the reason our retention curve does not collapse in the second half of the first year.
The Protocol
Four phases. Sixteen months of accountability, front to back.
01
Weeks −4 to 0
Pre-Arrival Calibration
Before the executive walks through the door, the sponsor and the placed candidate are aligned — separately — on the first-ninety-day framing, the stakeholders whose sign-off is genuinely required, and the three visible early wins that will not be optional. The gap between what the offer letter says and what the organisation actually expects is closed here, not later.
Artefact
Stakeholder map · first-90-days framing memo (2 pages)
02
Weeks 1–6
Landing
The principal runs paired debriefs — the executive privately, the sponsor privately — at week two and week six. What the executive is actually reading in the room, and what the sponsor is quietly starting to worry about, are surfaced early and cross-checked. Most integration failures are legible by week four; the debrief cadence is designed to catch them there.
Artefact
Paired debriefs at week 2 and week 6 · sponsor-side calibration note
03
Months 2–4
First Two Board Meetings
The two most predictive events in the first six months are the placed executive's first two board meetings. We debrief both, on both sides. This is the phase where a mandate that looked strong at signing quietly starts to slip — or where an executive whose first ninety days felt uneven consolidates into the operator we assessed. The distinction is almost never obvious to the sponsor in real time.
Artefact
Post-board debrief · sponsor alignment check
04
Month 12
12-Month Anchor
A single conversation at month twelve, with the sponsor and the executive separately, closes the mandate on the record. The retention figure the firm publishes — 8 in 10 at twelve months, materially above the industry aggregate of roughly 60% at eighteen — is measured here. It is not a projection.
Artefact
12-month retention checkpoint · outcome recorded to the firm ledger
What This Is Not
It is not executive coaching. There is no methodology being sold to the placed executive, and no billable hours downstream of signing.
It is not interim leadership, transition consulting, or a leadership-advisory retainer disguised as post-placement care.
It is not HR handholding. The debriefs are with the sponsor and the executive individually — the calibration is directional, not therapeutic, and the artefacts stay inside a two-page ceiling for a reason.
It is the principal, still on the hook, twelve months after the invoice cleared. Nothing more, and nothing less.
If a mandate is live and the concern is what happens after signature, initiate a confidential briefing. The protocol is included in every engaged mandate. It is not a separate retainer, and we will not offer it as one. See also our forensic assessment methodology, which sits upstream of it.