People Equation
Website:
peopleequation.io
Job details:
Job Description
TA Advisory Head — Forward-Deployed Consultant & Business Builder
Role : Head — Executive Search (working title; final title to be aligned with the incumbent)
Reports to : Founder & CEO, People Equation
Location : Pune/ Mumbai (with travel to client sites as engagements require)
Practice : Org. & Talent Advisory — anchored in Executive Search, extending into
organisation design and workforce advisory
Experience : 15 years, with significant depth in Executive Search on the service-provider side
About People Equation
People Equation (PE) is a boutique advisory firm focused on capability transformation — helping companies translate strategy into results. PE runs Practices across Org. & Talent, AI, and GCC (Global Capability Centre) advisory, working primarily with mid-market and other growth-oriented companies, including technology-based and engineering-focused GCCs.
Why This Role Exists
This is not a standard TA leadership hire. PE is scaling its Executive Search business — commercially, operationally, and in delivery capability — and needs a leader who has run this kind of business before: someone who knows how to win clients, price and structure mandates, build a delivery team, and be accountable for P&L-level outcomes.
At the same time, PE does not see Talent Acquisition as a standalone delivery function. The person in this role is expected to operate as a forward-deployed advisory partner — having one deep subject-matter expertise, staying close enough to the client's business to see the organisational problem behind the hiring mandate, and capable enough to shape a broader solution around it.
Over time, that scope is expected to extend into organisation design, workforce planning, and other parts of the Org. & Talent Advisory practice.
In short: this role is built for someone who refuses to let recruitment be the boundary of their contribution.
Role Mandate
The role has three connected dimensions. They are sequential in emphasis, not in importance — the business must be built for the advisory ambition to have a platform, but the advisory ambition is why the business is being built in the first place.
1. Build and run the TA business (Executive Search)
- Own commercial outcomes for the Executive Search line — client acquisition, mandate pricing/structuring, revenue and margin.
- Build and lead delivery capability — hire, structure, and manage a team of researchers, consultants.
- Run operations — client onboarding, delivery governance, quality and TAT standards, and reporting rhythm across live mandates.
- Represent PE in the market for search opportunities, including pitches, proposals, and client relationship management at leadership level.
2. Operate as a forward-deployed advisory partner
- Stay client-anchored, not requisition-anchored — understand the client's broader organisational context (structure, leadership bench, capability gaps) behind any hiring mandate.
- Shape solutions beyond the brief — where a hiring problem is really an organisation design, role definition, or workforce planning problem, say so and help solve it.
- Stay close to execution — this is not a hand-off-and-move-on advisory style; the expectation is to remain involved through delivery, not just diagnosis.
- Extend into adjacent Org. & Talent Advisory areas over time — organisation design, workforce planning, and related engagements, as capability and client trust develop.
3. Build the business and the institution
- Treat this as an important P&L — the mandate is to scale a function and a business, as a P&L, not maintain an existing one.
- Shape how the TA business is structured within PE — team design, service lines, pricing models, and go-to-market— with real latitude to build rather than inherit.
- Grow into a larger institutional role at PE as the business scales — this is explicitly framed as a path, not a fixed job.
What Success Looks Like
0–6 months : TA business (Search) operating rhythm established: active mandates under structured delivery governance, core team in place, and at least one adjacent-advisory
conversation opened with an existing client.
6–12 months : Client base and revenue for Search, growing on a repeatable (not founder-
dependent) engine; delivery team scaled and running with defined quality/TAT standards;
one or more engagements has expanded beyond a pure hiring mandate into org design or
workforce planning.
12–24 months :TA business recognised internally and in the market as a distinct, well-run line within PE's Org. & Talent practice; the role has evolved into a broader institutional leadership
position, with a credible case for further scope.
Candidate Profile
Must have
- 15 years of experience, with significant depth in Executive Search, on the service-provider (not purely in-house) side
- Direct experience setting up or running a business, service line, or team — including acquiring clients and talent, and managing day-to-day operations
- Strong commercial and business acumen — comfortable owning revenue, pricing, and delivery accountability, not just candidate pipelines
- Genuine interest in advisory work beyond recruitment — organisation design, workforce planning, or related areas— and the credibility to be taken seriously in those conversations
- Ability to build and lead a team, and to operate with the ownership mindset of someone building their own business inside a larger firm
Good to have
- An engineering degree followed by an MBA — though the quality of experience and the ability to build will matter more than the qualifications
- Prior exposure to GCC (Global Capability Centre) hiring or advisory, given PE's focus on tech-based and engineering-focused GCCs
What This Role Is Not
This is not an internal TA leadership role inside an established function or organisation, and it is not a role limited to managing recruitment delivery. It is a mandate to build — a business, a broader advisory capability, and, in time, a larger role within People Equation.
How to Apply
Interested candidates — or referrals for someone exceptional—can write in confidence to satishw@peopleequation.io
Click on Apply to know more.
