The leadership that delivers the plan
Executive search for the businesses that PE, venture and growth capital back.
Our approach
Precision search.
Portfolio leadership.
Senior-led, retained, and built exclusively for private capital-backed businesses.
Start a searchWe place executives who deliver from day one. We work exclusively with private capital-backed businesses, so every search is led by someone who understands the pace, the reporting standards, and the ownership mindset your leaders will operate within. You will not get a generic longlist. You meet a shortlist of assessed candidates, each one evaluated against your specific brief, your business’s stage, in the hold or between rounds, and the culture you are building.
Every candidate clears a structured assessment before they reach you: two in-depth interviews and seven criteria built for the private capital operating model. We look for commercial orientation, board credibility, and a track record of building rather than inheriting scale. By the time you meet a shortlist, the screening is behind you. You are choosing between people who can each do the job, not filtering out those who cannot.
Deep sector knowledge
Genuine fluency in the sectors where private capital invests, from technology and financial services to healthcare, industrials, and consumer, so every brief is scoped precisely and every candidate assessed on what actually matters.
A proprietary network
A leadership map built over more than a decade in European private equity and venture, giving us direct reach into proven operators, including those who are not active on the open market.
Genuine relationships
Long-standing, trusted relationships with leaders who understand investor-backed ownership, so approaches are credible, discreet, and warmly received.
And we move at the pace an investment thesis demands: from brief to accepted offer within 60 to 70 days, with a fully assessed shortlist far sooner, and qualified names within days where a mandate is urgent. Speed, in our work, is a function of preparation and network, never a compromise on rigour.
How we assess
Seven criteria, agreed with you before the search begins
Every candidate is scored in two structured interviews, with written evidence. Nobody reaches the longlist without clearing the threshold on all seven.
Commercial orientation
Do they define success in commercial terms rather than operational ones?
Board presence
Credibility with GPs and operating partners, which is a different skill from functional expertise.
Builder mindset
Have they built from a standing start, or inherited scale?
Pace and resource tolerance
Have they worked under quarterly scrutiny, with lean resources and real deadlines?
Value creation track record
Quantified commercial outcomes they can be credited with, not ones the market handed them.
Technical credibility
Where the role has a technical side, can they make credible build-or-buy calls?
Cultural alignment
An owner’s mindset, decisiveness, and comfort with accountability rather than process.
Our Sectors
We've placed leadership across ten sectors, from founder-led growth businesses and venture-backed scale-ups to PE-owned market leaders.
Technology & SaaS
AI & Machine Learning
Business Services
Financial Services
Fintech
Healthcare & Life Sciences
Consumer
Industrials & Manufacturing
Energy & Sustainability
Media & Entertainment
Our process
1. Briefing. We immerse ourselves in your mandate: the business, the role, the team dynamic, and the success criteria. We ask hard questions upfront so we can find the right answers quickly.
2. Search & Assessment. We run the search across our proprietary network and targeted market mapping. Every candidate is assessed against your criteria, for capability, leadership style, and PE-environment fit, before they reach you. You can follow the search at any time on a private live page: stage, coverage, the anonymised shortlist and next steps.
3. Shortlist & Selection. We present a focused shortlist within three weeks, with full assessment notes for each, or the full longlist if you would rather see it. We manage the interview process and provide candid guidance at every stage.
4. Placement & Support. The search does not end at the offer. You receive a written placement report on close, and we review with you and the executive at 30 and 90 days, while the six-month guarantee runs throughout.
Ready to move on your next leadership hire?
Tell us about your next mandate.
For investors, boards and leadership teams
Seven-Day Leadership Assessment
Is leadership risk on your radar?
Leadership problems in a portfolio business are usually obvious in hindsight and rarely obvious at the time. The Seven-Day Leadership Assessment is a leadership evaluation built for sponsors, boards and chief executives: PE, venture and growth investors, private credit lenders, family offices, and the leaders accountable for a management team.
It answers, in a week, whether the team and the plan are matched, while that is still a development question rather than a replacement decision.
Delivered with Talentpraxis Group. Assessors are Chartered Occupational Psychologists. Full written report within seven days.
Explore the assessmentWhat the assessment covers
Strategic vision and execution
The distance between the plan the business has committed to and the team that has to deliver it.
Financial command
How well the numbers that move value are understood and used: margin, working capital, cash conversion.
Operational leadership
Whether operations can scale at the pace the plan assumes.
Building the team beneath
The ability to attract and keep the people the plan actually depends on.
Change and transformation
How the team performs through growth, restructuring or a move into new markets.
Board and investor relationships
How well the board and the executive team communicate when something is going wrong.
Judgement under pressure
How decisions get made when the information is incomplete and the clock is running.
Culture and alignment
Whether the way the business is run matches what it has committed to deliver.
In their words
What our clients say
Selected feedback from sponsors, boards and portfolio leadership across private capital-backed businesses. Client and investor identities are withheld for confidentiality.
Venture-backed search
We’d raised our Series B and the plan assumed leaders we didn’t yet have. HMN took the time to understand what the next eighteen months would actually demand of the role, not just the job description, and brought us a shortlist of people who had built at exactly our stage. We hired from it inside two months, and our investors noticed the difference by the next board meeting.
Founder & CEO
Venture-backed B2B software business
Chief Financial Officer
We needed our first real finance leader, and board-ready numbers fast, across three jurisdictions and with no team beneath them. HMN understood the brief immediately and gave us a shortlist we could genuinely choose from. The person they placed has been transformative for how we report to our investor.
Chief Executive Officer
VC-backed enterprise software
Chief Executive Officer
Replacing a founder is a delicate thing to get right. HMN gave us a value-creation CEO who steadied the business and had a bolt-on closed inside the first year of the hold. Exactly the profile the thesis called for.
Managing Partner
DACH mid-market PE fund
Chief Revenue Officer
HMN found us a revenue leader who turned strong product-market fit into a predictable engine across a hard, multi-channel sales model. A year on, revenue has more than doubled. They clearly understand this market and the kind of operator it needs.
Partner
Growth-equity investor
Chief AI Officer
We wanted signal rather than noise on AI across the portfolio. HMN placed a genuinely commercial AI leader who set a strategy and governance framework we can defend to our LPs. This is clearly a real specialism for them.
Partner
PE sponsor, business information
Interim CEO
We lost our CEO mid-review at the worst possible moment. HMN had a safe pair of hands in the business within a fortnight. It preserved value and, just as importantly, kept everyone calm.
Principal
Family office
Non-Executive Chair
We needed an independent Chair to professionalise a young board and mentor a first-time CEO. HMN found exactly that, with real sector credibility and the temperament to match. It changed how our board works.
Partner
Southern European PE fund
Our Executive Searches
HMN Capital runs C-suite executive search for PE, venture, growth and private credit-backed businesses across the UK and Europe. Two specialisms with the same standard of search: choose the one that fits the business you back or run.
Private equity-backed businesses
From entry to exit
Leadership for the value-creation plan, buy-and-build and the exit, with interim cover when a seat empties mid-hold.
Explore PE-backed search →Venture-backed businesses
From Series A to exit
First institutional hires, the Series B step-up and the board ahead of exit, with advice on which hire comes next and what to offer.
- CEO search→
- CFO search→
- COO search→
- CRO and VP Revenue search→
- CTO and CPO search→
- Chief AI Officer search→
Track Record
Selected placements
From the first institutional C-suite hire to interim cover and the commercial team beneath them, a selection of senior appointments across private equity, venture and growth-backed businesses. Client and investor identities are withheld for confidentiality.
Building a venture leadership team
CFO, CRO, CPO and COO
VC-backed · one business · four C-suite appointments
Four C-suite appointments for the same venture-backed business as it scaled, followed by the people, business development and sales development hires beneath them.
4
C-suite hires, one VC-backed business
The leadership team built around the founders, then the layer beneath it.
C-suite executive search
Chief Financial Officer
VC-backed enterprise software · US venture-backed
First dedicated senior finance appointment in a founder-led business following two acquisitions in 18 months: group consolidation across three jurisdictions and board-ready packs for a US VC investor, without Big 4 support beneath them.
65
Days, brief to offer
Assessed shortlist of 5 presented; first dedicated finance leader placed in the business.
Chief Executive Officer
Buyout PE-backed · industrial services · buy-and-build · DACH
A newly acquired industrial services platform in Germany needed a value-creation CEO to lead an ambitious buy-and-build, replacing a retiring founder while holding the operating team and customer base steady through the transition.
58
Days, brief to accepted offer
A buy-and-build CEO appointed, with a completed bolt-on inside the first year of the hold.
Chief Revenue Officer
Growth-equity-backed · B2B SaaS platform
A growth-equity-backed SaaS business wanted to turn strong product-market fit into a predictable revenue engine across a demanding, multi-channel enterprise sales model.
150%
YoY growth after the hire
Revenue leadership appointed on the standard search timeline.
Chief Operating Officer
Growth-equity-backed · healthcare technology · Nordics
A growth-equity-backed healthtech scaling across the Nordics needed its first COO to industrialise delivery, bring order to a fast-growing headcount, and give the board a credible operating partner alongside a technical founder-CEO.
Placed
On the standard timeline
An operations leader placed to run the day-to-day, freeing the founder to focus on product and clinical partnerships.
Chief Product Officer
VC-backed · AI & data-products scale-up
A venture-backed data business scaling its platform needed its first Chief Product Officer with genuine AI and machine-learning product depth. When the domestic market came up short, the search widened to the United States.
US
Sourced, assessed cross-border
An AI-credible product leader, hired out of the US, to own the unified roadmap.
Chief Technology Officer
VC-backed · fintech infrastructure · Benelux
A venture-backed payments infrastructure business needed a CTO to re-architect a platform straining under volume and to stand up the engineering governance an incoming Series B investor would expect. The domestic pool was thin, so the search ran cross-border.
Sourced
Across UK & Benelux
A scale-stage CTO hired to own the re-platforming and build the engineering leadership beneath them.
Chief Marketing Officer
Growth-equity-backed · consumer subscription · UK
A subscription consumer business had grown on paid acquisition alone and needed a CMO who could build brand and retention without breaking a cost-per-acquisition model the sponsor watched closely ahead of a planned exit.
70
Days, brief to accepted offer
A full-funnel marketing leader appointed, balancing brand investment against the sponsor's payback discipline.
Chief People Officer
PE-backed · post-merger technology group
A PE-backed technology group formed through merger needed a Chief People Officer to unify two cultures, stand up a people function from scratch, and set a compensation framework ahead of the sponsor's first full-year ownership review.
30
Days, brief to signed offer
People leadership in place; two workforces integrated under one function, integration held to plan.
Chief AI Officer
PE-backed · portfolio-wide · business information · UK / DACH
A PE-backed business information group wanted a single leader to set AI strategy across the portfolio: separating genuine product opportunity from noise, standing up governance, and giving the sponsor a defensible view of where AI would create enterprise value.
First
CAIO for the group
A commercially credible AI leader placed to own strategy and governance across the group; HMN's AI leadership practice in action.
General Counsel
PE-backed · regulated financial services · UK
A first institutional General Counsel for a regulated lender approaching a step-change in scale, to build a legal and compliance function from a standing start and partner the board through heightened regulatory scrutiny.
62
Days, brief to signed offer
A first GC appointed, with the legal and compliance function stood up ahead of the next growth phase.
Board & value creation
Non-Executive Chair
PE-backed · consumer brand · Southern Europe (Italy)
A founder-led consumer business, freshly institutionalised, needed an independent Non-Executive Chair to professionalise the board, mentor a first-time CEO, and give the sponsor an experienced pair of hands between board meetings.
Chair
Independent, pre-scale
An independent Chair appointed, bringing sector credibility and a steadying hand to a young board.
Non-Executive Director
Growth-equity-backed · SaaS · UK · audit & risk
A growth-equity-backed software business preparing for its next funding round needed an independent NED to chair the audit and risk committee and lend financial rigour ahead of enhanced investor and lender diligence.
Audit
& risk chair placed
An audit chair appointed, strengthening board governance ahead of the raise.
Interim leadership
Interim CFO
PE-backed · industrial business · mid-hold
A PE-backed industrial business, 18 months into the hold, faced an ERP transformation and rising institutional reporting demands ahead of a refinancing, with a question mark over incumbent finance leadership.
Interim
cover, placed at pace
A transformation CFO placed on an interim basis, protecting the programme and the refinancing timeline without losing institutional knowledge.
Interim CEO
Family-office-backed · manufacturing · UK
A family-office-backed manufacturer lost its CEO at short notice midway through a strategic review. The backer needed a safe pair of hands to stabilise the business and preserve value while a permanent process ran.
2 wks
Interim CEO in place
An interim CEO placed at pace to steady the business and protect the review timeline.
Interim CHRO
PE-backed · carve-out · Benelux
A PE-backed carve-out needed senior interim HR leadership to migrate a workforce off the parent's systems, set standalone terms and payroll, and hold the people agenda together through separation, without committing to a permanent hire mid-transaction.
Interim
through carve-out
An interim CHRO placed to carry the people workstream through completion and into standalone operation.
Building the team beneath the C-suite
Business Development Manager
VC-backed · specialist B2B software
The first dedicated commercial hire in a specialist B2B software niche, where genuine sector fluency and a technical grasp of the product mattered more than a polished SaaS CV. That combination ruled out most of the usual pool of SaaS sellers.
65
Days, brief to offer
A sector-fluent first BD hire, in on the standard timeline.
Sales Development Representative
VC-backed · enterprise SaaS
A first SDR to stand up the outbound pipeline alongside the newly placed CRO. The role needed technical product understanding and outbound discipline in one person, unusual this early, and speed mattered to feed the CRO's build plan from day one.
30
Days, brief to signed offer
Outbound pipeline live at once, the first hire under the new CRO.
Head of AI
PE-backed · logistics software · DACH
Following a portfolio-level AI mandate, a logistics software business needed a hands-on Head of AI to turn strategy into shipped product, someone with real machine-learning delivery credibility rather than a purely strategic profile.
AI
product-depth sourcing
A delivery-focused AI leader hired to build and ship, reporting into the group AI agenda.
Finance Director
PE-backed · multi-site services · Nordics
A Finance Director to sit beneath a stretched CFO and own group consolidation, month-end, and the reporting cadence across a fast-acquiring multi-site business, freeing the CFO for capital and corporate work.
55
Days, brief to accepted offer
A group Finance Director placed to run the finance engine room beneath the CFO.