Head of Professional Services — USA (CSO-level mandate)

Position overview

Gladwin International Leadership Advisors is representing a confidential organisation in Professional Services on a senior CSO leadership mandate anchored in USA. The remit explicitly spans Middle East, India, Australia.

This is a sector or practice-head mandate combining deep domain credibility with commercial ownership of a vertical P&L or global practice line.

This is a role for someone who has already led through at least one major inflection: restructuring, M&A, regulatory reset, or category shift.

Context you will inherit

• Market & sector: Retention of high performers — professional services firms face constant attrition of their best people to corporate roles; building compelling career propositions is a leadership challenge
• Geographic spine: Primary hub USA with explicit corridor responsibility across Middle East, India, Australia.
• Organisation stage: Growth agenda collides with legacy cost base; productivity and automation are board-level topics, not staff functions.
• Stakeholders: Owners may include PE operating partners, a promoter family office, or public-market investors — each with different tempo and KPIs.
• Secondary lens: Boutique vs Big firm differentiation — as large firms commoditise, boutique advisors need leaders who can sharply define and defend a differentiated positioning

The mandate (12–24 month arc)

1. Portfolio review: Challenge business units on defensibility of returns and capital intensity.
2. Partnerships & alliances: Structure JVs and ecosystems that extend reach without unbounded risk.
3. Innovation system: Connect venturing, R&D, and business unit roadmaps to enterprise priorities.
4. Geographic expansion: Where relevant, sequence market entry with realistic operating model and risk appetite.
5. ESG strategy: Align sustainability narrative with operations and capital plans — not parallel storytelling.
6. Executive alignment: Facilitate strategy offsites and decision forums that stick after the workshop ends.

Responsibilities (representative)

• Challenge business unit strategies for overlap and capital inefficiency.
• Align innovation portfolio with enterprise bets — kill projects that drift.
• Sequence geographic or segment expansion with realistic operating assumptions.
• Integrate ESG into strategy where material to licence to operate and growth.
• Build strategy team talent — mix of analytics, finance, and industry depth.

Leadership profile

• Judgment: High signal-to-noise under pressure; ethical clarity; willingness to halt initiatives that break risk appetite.
• Education: Strong undergraduate grounding; MBA / advanced degree / professional qualification common at this level.
• Deal or transformation fluency: M&A, portfolio moves, or major change programmes in Professional Services.
• Communication: Executive presence in English; additional languages valued where market-relevant.
• Geographic muscle: Comfort operating from USA with regular engagement across Middle East, India.

Team & culture

Silos are real. Your job is to design forums and incentives so product, technology, risk, and commercial leaders solve problems together instead of optimising local KPIs.

Success measures (examples)

• Financial: Revenue and margin vs. plan; cash conversion; capital efficiency.
• Strategic: Share in priority segments; customer retention in anchor accounts; milestone delivery on transformation.
• People: Engagement trends; regrettable attrition in critical roles; diversity of succession slate.
• Risk: Audit and regulatory outcomes; conduct events; operational resilience metrics.

First 90 days (orientation arc)

• Days 1–30: Shadow key customer journeys or operations — paper over slides where reality diverges.
• Days 30–60: Cut or pause low-value projects freeing capacity for strategic work.
• Days 60–90: Publish first integrated forecast or plan under your ownership — even if directional.
• Build trust with risk, legal, and audit through transparency — surprises erode licence to move fast.
• Pick one cultural signal (e.g. meeting hygiene, promotion criteria) and model it relentlessly.

Stakeholder map (illustrative)

• Internal: Matrix of global product houses and local P&L; tension is normal — your role is to broker trade-offs with data.
• External: Customers who influence reference deals; government or industry bodies in regulated sectors.
• Capital providers: Banks, sponsors, or minority investors — each needs a slightly different narrative on risk.

Travel & mobility

Travel weighted to priority markets and quarterly global or regional forums; flexibility for crisis windows.

Compensation

Competitive CSO compensation for Professional Services leadership: cash, incentive, benefits, and potential equity or carry (case-dependent). Discussed with finalists only.

Application status

This mandate is no longer accepting new applications. The search progressed through Q4 2025 and closed for submissions in February 2026. We retain this posting for transparency on the type of leadership work we carry in Professional Services and USA. For similar active mandates, browse open roles or submit a general profile through executive search inquiry.

Reference: professional-services · CSO · USA · Gladwin International Leadership Advisors