Approach
Search-as-discipline. The method is visible from the first conversation.
Every mandate is led by the principal directly. Every assessment is designed for the demands of the specific role. The reasoning behind every recommendation is scrutable to the client.
Executive Search
Retained search, principal-led throughout.
Salomons & Partners is retained by clients to identify and place senior specialists and executives in consumer-focused businesses. Mandates typically sit at the country GM, functional director, or C-level; single-market and multi-market European roles.
The principal reads the mandate, conducts the search, sits every longlist and shortlist interview, and closes the offer. There is no research-team handover between what the client discussed and what the client is presented.
Where our reading of the brief differs from the brief as presented — because the role is under-scoped, or because the described profile does not match the described outcome — we flag it in writing before we start.
Assessment
Case-based, designed per mandate.
An assessment centre designed for the actual demands of the specific role. Candidates are evaluated on substance — through cases, structured interviews, and a Saville-accredited instrument set — not on how well their CV reads against a competency library.
The output is a written recommendation with the reasoning shown. Clients see what we saw, and why we recommend what we do. Assessments can be commissioned as part of a search, or standalone for internal succession and development.
Conducted in Dutch, English, French, and German.
The method, in full
Four steps, each with a written artefact.
Understand
A working session with the mandating executive and stakeholders. Output: a written mandate brief, including where our reading differs from the brief as presented.
Assess
Case-based assessment centre designed for the role. Output: individual assessment reports and a comparative shortlist reasoning document.
Advise
Structured recommendation with reasoning shown. Output: a shortlist paper the client can question, challenge, or push back on.
Deliver
Offer negotiation and close. Output: a closed offer, and transition support through the first 90 days of the appointed executive's tenure.
Where the practice walks away
The practice does not claim what it cannot demonstrate.
No sales warmth as a substitute for method. No claims to intuition — the recommendation is evidence-based, and the evidence is shown. Assignments outside the consumer-focused remit are declined rather than accepted with a research-team handover. Where the practice cannot add substance, it says so and refers.