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Leadership search
Hiring the ops leader is the easiest senior hire to get wrong.
Operator led search for VP and Director roles in fulfillment, distribution, supply chain and DTC operations. Run by someone who has held the seat, not by someone matching keywords to a job description. Fixed fee, and a short slate with the weaknesses written down.
What is different
Four things, and the first one is the whole thing.
An operator, not a recruiter
Twenty five years running fulfillment and supply chain at Amazon, Walmart eCommerce, Stitch Fix, Blue Apron, Zulily and Grove Collaborative. I have hired into these seats, and I have watched some of those hires fail and understood why. I know what a strong VP of Distribution looks like on day 400, not just on paper.
A fixed fee, not a percentage of your offer
Standard retained search takes 25 to 35 percent of first year compensation, which means the person advising you on the package earns more when you pay more. My fee does not move when your offer does, so I can argue for the right number instead of the high one.
Five candidates, with the weaknesses named
Not fifteen resumes for you to sort. A short slate, each one assessed on a real operational problem from your business rather than on how their resume reads, and each one delivered with a written note on where they are weak and what you would need to build around them.
An honest read on your own process
Every firm evaluates your candidates. None of them evaluate you. If your loop is why the last two finalists took other offers, I will tell you that while the search is still running, rather than after you have lost them.
How it works
Agree what good means. Then go find it.
Deliberately simple. The detail gets worked out with you on a call, not filled in from a template.
The scorecard
Before anyone is contacted, we agree in writing what actually predicts success in this specific seat. You sign off on it.
Direct approach
I go to people already doing the job well somewhere else. No public posting by default, and no three hundred applications to wade through.
Real assessment
An actual problem from your business, put in front of the candidate. I can judge the answer because I have solved it myself.
A short slate
Four or five people, scored against the scorecard, weaknesses included. If the role is scoped wrong, you get told that instead.
Most failed searches fail in step one. The client and the search firm never agreed what good meant, and they find out in week nine while arguing about a finalist. Moving that argument to week one is most of the value.
Alignment
Why I am pointed at a hire that lasts.
Incentives are more honest than promises. Here are mine.
The fee does not scale with your offer
I am not paid more when you pay more, including when a candidate asks for more than the seat is worth.
Search is the front door, not the business
ReifCo is an operations advisory practice. A leader still succeeding at month eighteen becomes the next engagement. One who washes out ends the relationship. My horizon is longer than the placement.
I run very few searches
A handful a year, in one function. There is no volume model to hide a bad outcome inside.
I stay in this industry
I am in an operating seat in DTC supply chain, in the same rooms as the people I place and the people I place them with. I have to see them again.
Scope and questions
One kind of search. Everything else is a referral.
Director through SVP in fulfillment, distribution, supply chain, logistics, transportation and DTC operations. Roughly 200 to 2,000 employees. US, remote led. Anything outside that lane gets you an introduction to someone better, not a pitch.
What does it cost?
A fixed fee, quoted against the specific seat, and materially below the 25 to 35 percent of first year compensation that retained search charges. Exact numbers come on the call once the role is real, because quoting before that would be guessing.
You have not spent your career in search.
Correct, and it is the point. What I am selling is evaluation, which is a hiring manager's skill rather than a recruiter's. If you want the largest possible database, hire a large firm. If you want someone who can tell whether a candidate actually ran a WMS implementation or just sat near one, that is a different purchase.
What if the hire does not work out?
Ask me directly and I will put something real in writing for your search. I would rather agree that with you than publish a guarantee designed to look reassuring. What I will say here is that the ninety day industry rebate is calibrated to the wrong horizon, because executive hires do not fail at ninety days.
Are you available, given you have an operating role?
Yes, and that is the source of the value rather than a conflict with it. Being in a seat is what keeps the assessment standard and the compensation read current. A small number of searches a year is the deliberate ceiling, and if the calendar cannot support your timeline you will hear it on the first call.
Next step
Thirty minutes on the seat. No slate, no pitch.
Tell me about the role you are trying to fill. You will leave with a first read on what good actually looks like for it, and an honest answer on whether the search is your problem or the role definition is. Useful either way, whether or not you engage me.