Advisory & Coaching
The Placement Is Not The Finish Line.
Most search firms disappear after the handshake. The real work, the politics, the pace, the first hard conversation with the board, starts on day one. We stay for that part.
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Mandate Context
Built For
Newly placed C-level operators, the boards that hired them, and CEOs supporting a critical executive through their first 12 months.
Most placements fail in the integration window, not the selection window. Advisory is the structured, low-noise extension of the search: a small number of confidential conversations with the executive and the sponsor through the first year, focused on the political, organisational and decision moments where new leaders quietly come unstuck.
- Typical Mandates
- First-100-days operating cadence · Board readout coaching · Conflict and integration support
- Sector Focus
- Recently placed CTOs, COOs, CDOs, VP Engineering and succession-grade leaders
- Geography
- Singapore · Amsterdam · Dubai · remote across APAC and EMEA
- Engagement Model
- Fixed-term advisory retainer · Strict confidentiality · Continuation of search relationship
The Reason
Why We Added This.
Executive search firms measure success at placement. We measure it at impact. After placing hundreds of technology leaders across APAC and EMEA, we noticed a pattern: the quality of the hire was rarely the variable. The variable was what happened next.
A CTO joins a company where the engineering org doesn't trust HR. A COO steps into a role where the previous person left under difficult circumstances. A VP Engineering is hired to modernise a stack that the founding team is emotionally attached to.
These are not search failures. They are integration challenges, and no one in the market is paid to help with them. We decided to be.
Advisory is not a new product. It is the honest extension of what we have always done, just formalised, and available to those who need it independently of a search.
For Whom
Two different needs. One consistent commitment.
For Placed Leaders
Executive Transition Coaching
The first 90 days define the next three years.
You were chosen for what you've already built. But this organisation, this team, this political landscape, is new. The decisions you make in the first quarter set the conditions for everything that follows.
We work directly with executives we have placed, and with leaders referred to us, to navigate the transition with intention. Not with a playbook. With a thinking partner who knows the organisation you've just joined, because we helped build it.
What this looks like
- -Bi-weekly 60-minute sessions, 90-day programme
- -Stakeholder mapping and first-impression audit
- -Communication strategy for first board or leadership meeting
- -Ongoing availability between sessions via voice/message
This is not executive coaching in the traditional sense. We don't work on 'leadership presence.' We work on specific, live decisions you are facing this week.
For Talent Leaders & Founders
Hiring Advisory
You don't just need to find the right person. You need to know how to interview them, close them, and build a function around them.
We advise CHROs, Heads of TA, and founders who are doing something for the first time at scale, building a senior leadership team, entering a new market, or rebuilding a TA function after a period of over-reliance on agencies.
This is not training. It's access to a senior practitioner, on a retainer basis, who will tell you exactly what they would do in your situation, and why.
What this looks like
- -Monthly strategy sessions (2 hours, structured agenda)
- -Access to Sercxi's talent mapping methodology for live searches
- -On-call input on specific searches your team is running
- -Annual calibration of your hiring process against market benchmarks
Available as a standalone retainer or as an extension of an Executive Hiring Lab engagement.
The Formats
Three ways to engage. One standard of depth.
Format 1
90-Day Programme
For newly placed executives. Fixed duration, structured milestones, clear exit point. Most clients extend.
Format 2
Engaged Advisory
Ongoing access for talent leaders and CHROs. Monthly rhythm with on-call availability. No fixed end date. The engagement ends when the need does.
Format 3
Search + Advisory Bundle
For clients running an executive search with Sercxi who want post-placement support built in from day one. Priced as a combined engagement.
What This Makes Possible
Two scenarios. Two commitments.
A CTO placed into a 400-person fintech in APAC. Engineering org carries 18 months of technical debt and a culture of avoiding difficult conversations with the founding team.
Advisory focus: Stakeholder sequencing, first all-hands positioning, and how to frame a replatforming proposal to a non-technical board.
Target outcome: CTO establishes board trust within the first quarter. Replatforming framed and approved. Relationship with founding team preserved.
A Head of TA at an infrastructure company in the Gulf, six months into a mandate to reduce dependency on external search fees.
Advisory focus: Building an internal executive search process, evaluating and briefing hiring managers at VP level, and developing a counter-offer prevention framework.
Target outcome: First internal senior search closed within 90 days. External search fee dependency reduced. Internal capability established.
These are the engagements Advisory is designed for. When the first programmes complete, results will replace projections.
If you're not sure whether you need this, that's probably a signal that you do.
The executives and talent leaders who benefit most from advisory are the ones who are already capable, and who want a thinking partner, not a consultant with a methodology deck.
Conversations are confidential. There is no proposal stage. We talk, we see if there's a fit, and we agree a scope.