We find the people who aren't looking.
And bring them to you.

Executive search is a targeted search for leaders and hard-to-find specialists who are not looking for a job; NEWHR uses it for roles such as CTO, CPO, Chief AI Officer and Head of AI. There is no job post: the recruiter maps the market and the companies where such people work, approaches them directly and checks their real track record in depth. Negotiating the offer and any counter-offer is a separate stage and takes a real share of a leadership search.

At NEWHR the fee for executive search is a percentage of the candidate's annual compensation and depends on the seniority of the role and how hard the market is; we quote the exact figure after a brief. It is split into a retainer at the start and the balance when the candidate starts work, and for clearly defined roles we can work on a success-fee basis. The hiring diagnostic is free: in a one-hour call we discuss what business problem the hire should solve and outline the role profile, market map and salary range, so you know the budget before the search starts.

Hiring a CTO or Head of AI with NEWHR usually takes one to six months. The brief and role profile take 1–2 weeks, we present the first candidates within 5–7 days of the brief, and then come interviews and offer negotiation; the candidate's notice period moves the start date most. For example, a mobile games company had searched for a hands-on CTO on its own for six months; we closed the role in two months. More on hiring a CTO →

To hire a first AI leader, start with the mandate, not the job post: AI in the product or AI in the company's processes. NEWHR starts every such search with that question. Then we define what must work in 12 months, who the person reports to and which data and budget already exist. Only then do we build the profile and search among people who have taken AI to production, not only run pilots. More on the Chief AI Officer role →

A Chief AI Officer owns AI across the whole company and comes in two types: AI in the product or AI in the processes. A Head of AI is a hands-on leader who builds the AI team and takes models to production. An AI Transformation Lead rebuilds processes and teams around AI, a process-focused CAIO one level down. At NEWHR we choose between them in the hiring diagnostic, because the choice decides the profile, the budget and where to look. All AI roles and how they differ →

If you are not sure who to hire, start with NEWHR's free hiring diagnostic. In a one-hour call we discuss what business problem the hire should solve and outline a role and competency profile, a market map, a salary range and a search strategy. For a US automation company launching a new AI team, redefining the role replaced two separate ML and AI searches with one profile, Python engineers with ML experience, and led to three offers in 2.5 months.

If a role has been open for more than 6–8 weeks, the problem is usually the profile, the budget or how the role is pitched, not the number of candidates. NEWHR starts such searches with an audit: we check the requirements against the real market, test the salary range and look at why candidates say no. For a B2B fintech company, changing the hiring geography to Latin America and lower-cost Europe found its first Head of Marketing in four months.

Passive candidates are found through their actual work and personal contact, not through job posts. Since 2018 NEWHR has run closed market research and in-depth interviews, built its own communities of specialists and searched by real results: open-source contributions, products and talks. Every candidate talks to a recruiter, not a bot, so we know in advance what could make a person move.

You don't always need an agency: if the role is well defined, the market is large and you have an in-house recruiter, LinkedIn Recruiter and AI sourcing are usually enough. NEWHR is worth it when the role is new or critical (a first AI leader, a CTO, a hybrid engineer), when a search has run for more than 6–8 weeks, or when you need someone who is not looking. In those searches what matters is not the long list but knowing what a candidate has actually built and what motivates them.

Yes: if a candidate placed by NEWHR leaves during the probation period for any reason, we find a replacement at no extra cost. The guarantee covers both a candidate's resignation and a company's decision to part ways, and its terms are fixed in the contract before the search starts.

Yes, NEWHR runs confidential searches to replace a current leader. We don't disclose the company name to candidates until the final stages and approach them on behalf of the agency. We agree with you in advance what can be shared and with whom, and inside your company only the decision-maker knows about the search.

Yes. NEWHR hires for US and European companies across Russia and the CIS, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Cyprus, Serbia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, the UAE and the US, with the strongest network among Eastern European and Russian-speaking engineers. For Workato, a US automation company, we built a team of ten SREs from scratch; for Tempest we hired a Chromium engineer who relocated to Germany; for Synthesized we hired a staff platform engineer in London in six weeks.