discovr.Executive Search
Taking new mandates

Senior hires, found with evidence.

Executive Search & Talent Intelligence

Discovr maps the whole market for a role, scores every candidate against your bar, and delivers the search as an interactive microsite your team can interrogate, not a document they have to trust.

Client microsite · anonymised
Search Intelligence

Head of Applied AI, EMEA

1,285screened
70assessed
12shortlisted
Tier 1 · 12Tier 2 · 39Tier 3 · 17
Candidate 01AVP & Technical GM, Field Engineering
Tier 194
Candidate 02VP, Field Engineering, EMEA
Tier 192.6
Candidate 03Global Head of Forward-Deployed Engineering
Tier 190.4
Scored on an 8-dimension frameworkOpen it →
97
mandates delivered through Discovr
75
run end to end, brief to placement
15
board & C-suite appointments
15
countries, across 18 organisations
How we work

Intelligence-led, so you see the whole market

Most searches show you the names that came to mind. Ours start from the full population for a role and narrow down with evidence, so the shortlist is defensible rather than just plausible.

01

Map the whole market

We screen the full field for a role, often more than a thousand profiles, not a convenient shortlist. Nothing good hides.

02

Score against your bar

Every candidate assessed on a structured framework built around the specific role, so the shortlist stands up to a board.

03

Show the thinking

Each search arrives as an interactive microsite. You interrogate the longlist, scoring and shortlist yourself.

04

Move at pace

First calibrated names in two to three weeks, and a clear, agreed timeline to shortlist from there.

Proof

A real search, shown in full

Worked example · anonymised

Head of Applied AI, EMEA

A senior search for a frontier AI company, taken from an open brief to a defensible shortlist. The brief, the market, the method, seventy assessed leaders and the approach to the person at the top of the list, exactly as the client saw it, with every identity removed.

1,285
profiles screened across Europe
70
leaders assessed and tiered
8
dimension scoring framework
12
tier-one, shortlisted
Services

Four ways to work with Discovr

01

Talent Map

The market landscape for a role or function: who is out there, where they sit, and what it will take to move them.

Decide before you hire
Most asked for

Search Intelligence

The role mapped, every candidate scored and a tiered shortlist, delivered as an interactive microsite. Your team runs the process.

Research-led shortlist
03

Retained Search

Search Intelligence plus the full mandate, end to end: approach, assessment, references, offer and close.

Brief to placement
04

Embedded & interim

Senior search leadership inside your team for a defined window, to run, build or rebuild executive hiring.

Inside your team
Track record

Every mandate, not a selection

Explore all 97 mandates →

Board and C-suite appointments down to specialist hires, filterable by function, level, region and scope. We are open about which were run end to end and which were research engagements.

Hurtigruten 32ON 16CoachHub 11Omidyar Network 10Telefónica Alpha 5Adevinta 3Bridge International Academies 3Five.AI 3African Leadership University 2Crisis TextLine 2DoSomething 2Global Innovation Fund 2BlockChain 1Empatico 1Fincaraíz 1Imaginable Future 1Luminate Group 1Ubongo 1
Research & insights

Talent intelligence, published

Market studies we have produced on the talent pools our clients hire from. They show the data advantage we bring to every search.

Candidate engagement

Pitch decks candidates remember

A candidate's alignment with your mission and vision is critical to a successful hire. We build highly personalised candidate pitch decks that bring your vision, mission and brand to life. Candidates regularly tell us they are the best they have received.

What clients say

In their words

Douglas has been a pleasure to work with. He works really hard to distil the true essence of your brand and communicate that authentically to candidates, bringing in candidates who might not have previously considered a role with your company.
Aria Finger
Aria Finger
Former CEO, DoSomething.org
He's one of the best executive search recruiters I've worked with. He has entered new markets and within a short period of time has quickly mapped the talent landscape better than any local market firms.
Penny Handscombe
Penny Handscombe
Executive in Residence, ALU · former Partner, Omidyar Network
About

Founder-led, by design

Douglas Gambling

Discovr is led by Douglas Gambling, who has spent his career in executive search and in building and scaling technology organisations, the last ten years of it running Discovr. Every mandate is led by him personally.

Most recently he led senior search for ON, the Swiss sportswear company, through a period of fast growth. His wider career includes hiring for Microsoft, Skype, Spotify, King and Apple, and Discovr has delivered for CoachHub, Omidyar Network, Hurtigruten, Telefónica Alpha, Adevinta and Five.AI.

Sectors: AI and technology, consumer, sport and luxury, marketplaces, venture and impact investing, and education. Leadership and specialist hires across engineering, product, commercial, people, legal and finance.

Get in touch

Have a senior seat to fill?

Tell us about the role. We will tell you honestly what the market looks like, and how we would run it.

Emaildouglas@discovr.work Phone+44 7961 115 595 OfficeLondon, UK