Executive Search in India for UK Companies
A leader in India answers to people in the UK who cannot watch the work daily. Talhive runs confidential, dedicated search for UK boards and chief executives appointing a technology, product or data leader in India.
- Confidential, dedicated search
- Milestone-based fees
- 90-day replacement guarantee
The quality of a search is determined early. Start with the role, the context, and what a strong hire looks like at 12 months.
Your details are held in strict confidence and are not shared with third parties.
Received.
A senior team member will review your enquiry and respond directly.
Appointing your first leader in India
A UK board or chief executive has usually decided before the search begins: engineering, data or product work will be done in India, and someone senior has to own it. The open question is who, and how a person you cannot meet over coffee earns the trust of colleagues in the UK.
Talhive runs executive search in India for UK employers. We recruit in India, not in the UK. The model is dedicated search with milestone-based fees. For several engineers rather than a leader, start at our hub for UK employers.
Technology, product and data heads we search for
Seniority follows the problem to be solved, not a title ladder.
Chief technology officer
Technology strategy and engineering culture where technology is the product. See hiring a CTO in India for how the role changes by stage.
Head of engineering
Delivery, hiring and team health once founder-led management is outgrown. See how a VP Engineering or CTO search runs.
Head of data or product
Leaders who turn data work, applied AI and product decisions into things the business relies on, and who hold their ground with executives elsewhere.
How a confidential search runs from brief to offer
Each stage ends with a decision from you.
- Stage one01
Frame the mandate.
- What the leader must have built by the end of year one
- Reporting line, authority and overlap needed
- Stage two02
Passive market mapping.
- Target companies and the leaders inside them
- Discretion for incumbents and your own board
- Stage three03
Assessment before shortlist.
- A written synopsis for every profile
- Production evidence for engineering leaders
- Stage four04
Close and protect.
- Offer strategy and counter-offer planning
- Notice-period tracking until the start date
- 90-day replacement guarantee on the placement
What a fintech or finance leader search must test
How we run the search, not a claim about the market.
Controls are part of the craft.
A leader in a regulated environment is asked how they ran change control, access and audit in practice. We look for what they ran, not the framework they can name.
Resilience is tested with a real incident.
Ask a candidate to walk through a failure they were accountable for: what broke, who was told, what changed. Honest answers separate leaders from spokespeople.
Conflicts and notice start early.
Competing firms, restrictive terms and long notice are normal here. References and conflict checks begin before the shortlist.
Why a contingent shortlist fails a leadership brief
Where the approaches diverge on one senior appointment.
Setting the reporting line between two time zones
Decisions to make before the search.
Decide who the leader answers to.
A single named executive with authority to decide works better than a committee. Candidates ask in the first conversation.
Design the overlap, do not assume it.
Some leaders will keep a regular shared window and some will not. Say how much the role needs, then test the shortlist.
Split decisions in writing.
Agree which decisions the India leader makes alone, which are shared and which stay at home.
Leadership search questions, answered
Plain answers to the questions we hear most often about this search.
Start a confidential mandate with a founder
Share the brief and a founder will respond.
More across the cluster