2025 in Review: Redefining Executive Search and Talent Strategies

Presenting 2025 in review, a summary of firsthand insights we have collected over the past year working with Fortune 500 companies, leading private equity firms, and high-growth mid-market organisations worldwide.

Geopolitical instability, unpredictable capital markets, and a generational leap in technology – particularly AI and the race to build supporting infrastructure – have fundamentally reshaped what boards and investors expect from their leaders. Rather than hiring executives to preserve the status quo, our clients are seeking leaders who can navigate disruption, accelerate transformation, and build resilience into the core of their organisations.

2025 has been anything but “business as usual” and more like a rather unusual inflection point.

CFOs and Finance Leaders: Cornerstones of Resilience

If there is one role that defined 2025, it is the Chief Financial Officer.

Global CFO turnover at public companies reached a seven-year peak in the first half of this year, with 173 finance chiefs being replaced, up from 169 in the same period of 2024. At the same time, experienced CFOs accounted for roughly 80% of external CFO hires, matching levels last seen in 2021, as boards leaned heavily towards proven leaders to steer them through complex markets.

What we are seeing in our own work mirrors these global trends:

Leadership gaps are widening. Many outgoing CFOs are long-tenured leaders retiring, stepping into board roles, or exiting after years of intense pressure.
Talent pipelines are under strain. Shrinking numbers of traditional accounting graduates, fewer rotational finance development programs, and the complexity of modern finance have significantly reduced the pool of “ready-now” candidates.
Expectations have expanded dramatically. Today’s CFO is expected to be a financial steward, strategic partner, transformation leader, and the de facto Chief Data Officer for the enterprise.

The Private Equity Surge: Value Creation at High Speed

After a quieter period in 2023–2024, private equity dealmaking rebounded strongly in 2025. Global PE deal value reached a record US$310 billion in Q3 alone, as firms took advantage of stabilising valuations, improved financing conditions, and renewed confidence.

EY’s latest outlook forecasts PE deal volumes to grow by around 8% in 2025, with overall US deal volumes above US$100 million, up 9% versus last year. Put simply, there is more capital in motion and more pressure than ever to turn that capital into returns quickly.

This has had a direct impact on the executive recruitment landscape:

Speed has become critical. The gap between signing a deal and executing the value-creation plan continues to compress. There is less tolerance for leadership gaps at portfolio companies.
Transformation experience is at a premium. PE firms are prioritising executives who have led pricing transformations, carve-outs, digital upgrades, and integration programmes – not just those with strong P&L track records.
Competition for “proven” PE operators is intense. The best candidates are being approached by multiple sponsors at once and can be highly selective.

Our digitally enabled, global model – guaranteeing candidate slates within one week of launching a search and operating on a success-based fee structure – has been particularly attractive to PE clients who cannot afford months of delay on critical hires.

For P.E. firms, the question is not, “Can we find someone?” but “Can we find THE transformational leader fast enough to impact this fund cycle?”

AI, Data Centers, and the New Infrastructure Race

While capital markets and geopolitics have dominated headlines, another revolution has accelerated underneath: the build-out of global compute infrastructure.

Research from McKinsey suggests that data centers will require approximately US $6.7 trillion in investment worldwide by 2030 to keep pace with the demand for computing power. At the same time, organisations such as the International Energy Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy expect data center electricity consumption to more than double by 2030, driven heavily by AI workloads.

For many industrial manufacturers, this “AI infrastructure race” is less foreign than it seems. As one of our clients said to us recently, “We already make all of this stuff.”

Many established industrial firms already manufacture critical datacenter components at scale. The real shift is happening not on the factory floor, but in:

Go-to-market strategy – selling into hyperscalers, colocation providers, and large enterprises rather than traditional industrial buyers
Technical and regulatory complexity – power density, grid constraints, sustainability requirements
Leadership capability – building teams that understand both industrial operations and the dynamics of the data center ecosystem

This is not a short-term “theme” but a generational shift in how value is created. The companies that are moving today to align their leadership with this transformation are positioning themselves to become long-term partners in the infrastructure powering AI and digital transformation.

Rethinking Executive Search Partners: Beyond SHREK

While leadership demand has surged, many organisations are reassessing how they engage with the executive search industry itself.

The five global giants – Spencer Stuart, Heidrick & Struggles, Russell Reynolds, Egon Zehnder, and Korn Ferry – are often grouped together under the acronym SHREK, and they continue to top rankings by revenue and brand recognition. However, in 2025, we have seen a growing number of large multinationals and private equity firms come to us after engaging a top-tier retained firm without success.

The pattern is familiar:

A traditional retained search was launched,
Significant upfront fees paid,
A six-month (or longer) process,
And ultimately, no candidate is hired or a candidate that does not meet expectations.

At the same time, several of the large firms are pivoting more heavily into advisory and talent consulting, where fee structures are higher, and deliverables are less tied to concrete outcomes.

By contrast, TXT International was built around a different philosophy: In a globally connected, digital market, access to top talent should not be constrained by “who you know” networks or inflexible and often unreasonable fee structures.

Our model is intentionally designed for this new environment:

Global, data-driven research that maps markets far beyond traditional networks.
Candidate slates within one week of launching a search – often faster than internal expectations.
On most searches, no fee is due unless we successfully fill the role, aligning our incentives directly with our clients’ outcomes.

Clients are increasingly choosing partners whose speed, flexibility, and business model match the urgency and complexity of their leadership challenges.

Looking Ahead: 2025 as a Catalyst and Not an Outlier

Taken together, the trends of 2025 point to a clear conclusion:

CFOs and finance leaders have become the anchors of organisational resilience and transformation.
Private equity firms are competing not just on capital, but on their ability to attract and deploy transformational leadership at pace.
AI and data centers are redrawing the industrial map, creating new winners among those who can pivot their leadership and go-to-market strategies.
And the way companies engage with executive search is evolving, as they look for partners aligned with the realities of a fast-moving, digitally connected world.

We believe this year has not been an anomaly; it has been a catalyst.

As you look ahead to 2026 and beyond, whether you are planning a CFO succession, refreshing your board, strengthening a portfolio company’s leadership team, or exploring opportunities in the data center and AI ecosystem, we would love to share what we are seeing in the market and discuss how we can support your plans.

If you would like to review your current leadership, discuss a specific search, or simply compare notes on the market, please get in touch using the link below, and we can arrange a time to speak.

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Have any questions? We are always open to talk about your executive hiring needs, challenges, and opportunities, and discuss how we can help you.