Diagnostic Protocol · Sercxi IMPACT IP

Diagnose your leadership before you search.

A two-week pre-search diagnostic. We map your existing C-level, VP, and Director-level leadership against the AI, infrastructure, and transformation capability the next phase actually requires, then tell you what to hire, what to develop, and what to replace.

A rigorous technical vetting instrument — used to measure an executive's capacity to liquidate accumulated technical debt under GDPR, EU AI Act, PDPA and PDPL constraints. Not automated sourcing. Not a personality test. Proprietary IP.

GDPR · EU AI ActPDPA (SG)PDPL (UAE/KSA)
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For CEOs, CTOs, CIOs, and boards calibrating leadership before committing to a search or transformation programme.

Mandate Context

Built For

CEOs, CTOs, CIOs and boards calibrating an existing leadership cohort before committing to a search, a transformation programme or a board paper.

Most leadership reviews at this level are either too political to be honest or too theoretical to be useful. The IMPACT pre-search diagnostic is two weeks of structured work against your specific operating context - not a personality test - and produces a single artefact: a written read on which leaders to invest in, which to support with new hires, and which gaps pose immediate risk.

Typical Mandates
Pre-search calibration · Post-funding leadership review · Pre-board succession paper
Sector Focus
C-level, VP and Director-level operators across AI, infrastructure and transformation
Geography
Singapore · Amsterdam · Dubai · APAC and EMEA
Engagement Model
Fixed two-week diagnostic · Confidential · Written read delivered to sponsor only

The Method

Seven Questions. Six Dimensions. Most firms ask seventy.

Our IMPACT Framework is deliberately narrow: six diagnostic dimensions plus a seventh standalone question on Pattern Recognition. Each surfaces a single, high-signal data point. Not a checklist — a diagnostic.

I

Integration

IMPACT · Integration

Can this person navigate a matrix organisation's politics while still having the conviction to pull a request when the data demands it?

II

Motivational Archaeology

IMPACT · Motivational Archaeology

The leader driven by the problem itself — not the title it comes with — is the one who stays through the hard middle.

III

Precision Under Ambiguity

IMPACT · Precision Under Ambiguity

Structured reasoning under incomplete data — non-negotiable in distributed infrastructure and regulated FinTech.

IV

Accountability Architecture

IMPACT · Accountability Architecture

Scar tissue from staying when others left — the strongest predictor we have of future performance.

V

Conviction Depth

IMPACT · Conviction Depth

The quiet variable that determines whether a placement transforms an organisation or merely fills a seat.

VI

Trust Mechanics

IMPACT · Trust Mechanics

How reliably a leader builds trust across functions, levels and time zones — the compounding surface every other dimension sits on.

VII

Pattern Recognition

IMPACT · Pattern Recognition

How a leader reasons when the problem has no precedent — separating candidates who have navigated scale from those who have only read about it.

The Process

Structural Alignment. Signal Calibration. Conviction Delivery.

01

We define what this role actually needs to unlock - not the job title, the organisational problem. The search is designed around the answer.

02

We identify the three or four signals that will answer our specific context. Each candidate is then measured together with our team, based on the IMPACT Assessment.

03

Every introduction is a mandate, not a submission. We present only the candidates we would hire ourselves. Conviction, unlike hope, compounds.

The result is conviction - not hope - that this person will deliver. And conviction, unlike hope, compounds.

Quantifiable Outcomes

250+

Placements delivered

8 in 10

Twelve-month retention

7%

Counter-offer rate

35 days

Median shortlist

6

Concurrent mandates, maximum

Figures reconciled across engaged mandates since 2000. Category norms drawn from AESC and Heidrick & Struggles published averages.

The problem

Most senior appointments fail before the search begins.

The usual causes are structural rather than personal: a role defined by job description instead of outcome, decision authority that sits somewhere other than where the brief assumes, and stakeholders who have never had to reconcile their versions of the role with each other.

None of that is visible in a shortlist. All of it is visible in a two-week diagnostic, before a single approach is made in your name.

Seven questions. Seven things they expose.

Is the role defined beyond the job description?

Precision under ambiguity — whether the mandate survives contact with a real market.

Who holds final decision authority?

Decision power — where the appointment is actually approved, and by whom.

What depth of consensus exists?

Stakeholder architecture — who must agree, and what happens when they do not.

How are trade-offs weighted?

Value mechanisms — what the organisation will concede to secure the right leader.

Which hiring patterns keep repeating?

Pattern recognition — recurring failure modes and legacy decision bias.

What does the funding cycle allow?

Timing — fiscal windows and approval cycles that govern hiring velocity.

Can stakeholders describe the work?

Operational literacy — whether the requirement stated is the requirement performed.

The deliverables

Three outputs that reshape the brief.

  1. I

    Mandate readiness report

    A go, no-go, or prepare-and-retry recommendation with the blocker analysis behind it.

  2. II

    Stakeholder map

    Decision tree, influence matrix, consensus requirements and the risk zones inside them.

  3. III

    Compensation benchmark

    Market data on ranges, equity and total compensation for the role across Singapore, Amsterdam and Dubai.

Engagement basis

Engaged work only. Scope, deliverables and terms are agreed in writing in the engagement letter before the diagnostic begins. Nothing starts on an assumption.

The Precision

Three signals the assessment is specifically designed to surface

Most organisations discover their capability gaps after the problems compound. We've identified three specific signals that predict whether your current leadership can execute on your AI strategy.

Pattern Recognition Under Novelty

Your CTO has managed infrastructure for years. But has she scaled data centres while navigating energy constraints and AI-specific cooling requirements? We assess whether your leaders have the pattern recognition for problems they haven't seen before.

IMPACT: Precision Under Ambiguity

Bilingual Fluency

AI transformation requires leaders who operate credibly in two rooms: the boardroom discussing ROI timelines and the engineering stand-up discussing model convergence. We assess the gap - because the leaders who can't translate between these worlds create friction that compounds silently.

IMPACT: Integration

Operational Honesty

Your strategy deck says 'AI-first company.' Your technology roadmap is still optimising last generation's infrastructure. We assess whether your leaders can articulate the gap between ambition and capability without defensiveness.

IMPACT: Trust Mechanics

Deliverables

Three outputs that reshape your hiring strategy

Delivered as a single ~2,000-word written assessment to the sponsor: executive summary, per-leader capability map against the seven diagnostic questions, and a prioritised remediation plan. No deck, no dashboard — one artefact you can circulate to a board.

The Honest Assessment

For each executive in your leadership cohort, you'll understand exactly where they're ready - and where they'll need support. Which executives to invest in, which to support with new hires, and which gaps pose immediate risk.

Precise Role Definitions

Forget generic 'Chief AI Officer' job descriptions. We define the specific capability gaps that will prevent your AI strategy from succeeding - then design roles around those gaps.

The Realistic Roadmap

Which roles to hire first. Which capabilities to build internally. What timeline is actually realistic given your constraints. A practical guide, not a consulting engagement.

Two weeks.

Lasting clarity.

We assess your leadership team against the specific challenges that derail AI transformations - not generic competency frameworks. Each assessment is calibrated to your industry, your regulatory environment, and your competitive reality.

The insights last years. We reverse the sequence: diagnose first, then hire with conviction.

The Through-Line

From Diagnosis to Placement

The Assessment doesn't end with a report. It reshapes every decision that follows.

01

Assessment reveals the real gap

Most clients arrive wanting a Chief AI Officer. The Assessment typically reveals a more specific, more solvable problem.

02

Search with a brief that holds

The role definition built from Assessment findings doesn't change mid-search. No scope creep, no candidate pivots.

03

Placement that compounds

Clients who start with the Assessment account for our 8-in-10 twelve-month retention record.

Search in Context · Infrastructure · Singapore

"A Singapore-based infrastructure scale-up approached us to find a Chief AI Officer. The two-week Assessment revealed their engineering organisation lacked the ML infrastructure layer that would make any AI strategy executable. We placed a Head of AI Infrastructure instead. Eighteen months later, the role is still the lever everything else runs on."

The assessment completely reframed our search. We arrived thinking we needed a CTO - we left knowing we needed an infrastructure architect first. That clarity saved us a year.

Board Member, Enterprise SaaS Platform · Amsterdam

From Diagnosis to Search

Related Services & Perspectives

The Evidence

Before You Search, Know What You're Searching For.

Two weeks of precision diagnostic mapping leadership against actual AI capability needs.

Confidential · 30 minutes · Partner-led · No obligation

Three candidates, every one we would hire ourselves.

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