TORONTO — Adam Dean was fed up with how corporate Canada hires executives. So much so that he quit his job as an investment banking executive and created his own headhunting firm.

“For people who are naturally interested in the question of how to build the perfect beast, there’s no more exciting profession than search,” Dean said.

Dean Executive Search, founded in October 2017, aims to be the antithesis to an industry mired in what Dean calls “unprofessional” behavior. 

The company matches up candidates with the biggest players on Bay Street—clients at firms like Brookfield, Inovia, National Bank, Deloitte, BCI and Bank of Montreal. Dean knows the pitfalls of how corporate Canada hires top talent. He previously worked as an investment banker and executive director at CIBC Capital Markets, chief of staff to the vice-chairman of CIBC and later a consultant at large search firm Egon Zehnder. As an executive, he was bombarded with phone calls from headhunters asking for details about internal conflicts and compensation.

The big five global executive search firms, known as “SHREK,” a snappy acronym for Spencer Stuart, Heidrick & Struggles, Russell Reynolds, Egon Zehnder, and Korn Ferry, have long dominated the industry—especially in assisting the hiring process for bigger companies. There are a few smaller boutique firms that have emerged over the last few years in Canada, but the industry is far smaller than in the U.S., Dean said.

Growing pressure on executives, brought on by impatient investors, has pushed CEO departures to an all-time high, according to a recent report from Russell Reynolds. Worldwide, over 200 executives left their roles last year, a nine per cent turnover increase from 2023. There has also been a wave of CEO retirements over the last year, and 85 per cent of incoming leaders globally were first-time chief executives.

The business of selecting candidates for top roles is high-stakes. At his firm, Dean said only senior team members make calls and assess and attract the best talent. The firm doesn’t engage in what he calls a “bait-and-switch strategy,” where senior staffers bring in business but junior members of the team execute. 

“Can you imagine hiring a search partner for a president or a CEO role, or someone who leads the division of a multi-billion dollar asset manager, and to have an unqualified individual representing you in the market? It’s fraught with danger,” Dean said. “We’re working hand in glove with decision makers.”

Dean also doesn’t take on clients who compete with one another, because that would limit the options for where he could draw talent from. And, having a long-term partnership benefits both parties. 

Sometimes it’s very secretive. Dean’s firm has worked on investment banking profiles where an executive needed to be switched out, or where private equity firms were concerned about the founder of a company they had backed. In those instances, he couldn’t reveal the firm’s name during the search process, and had the final contenders sign non-disclosure agreements.

“Our role can feel like part-detective, part-CIA agent,” Dean said. There are tactics he’s used to maintain secrecy, like giving projects code names, password protecting documents, keeping things off email, or asking clients to use a fake name at the front desk of a hotel. In public situations, he might be required to act as if he doesn’t know someone. Dean once ran into a candidate who didn’t want to be known to be looking for a role, and had to pretend he didn’t know them—while seated at a table with 10 other people.

On Bay Street, executives have left him positive reviews. “The big differentiating factor that I saw in him compared to all the other headhunters across multiple firms, is the depth of his knowledge of the industry,” said Yanick Blanchard, a former executive vice president and group head at National Bank Financial. Dean always presented strong candidates, Blanchard said, and if someone wasn’t the right fit, he’d acknowledge it, too. Not all search firms do that, Blanchard added.

At Montreal-headquartered Inovia Capital, Dean was brought on when the CFO retired and the firm was looking to develop its platform and back office teams. Krista Skalde, Inovia’s chief talent officer and operating partner, worked closely with Dean to find candidates. With Dean, the search actually helped shape the role, while being more efficient, Skalde said. “This process tends to drag out a little bit, and this was not that.”

He “knows the pressures” of working as a banker, said Alina Osorio, president of Fiera Infrastructure, a branch of Fiera Capital. He almost “views himself as a partner in the business,” added Rob Richards, founder and CEO at Key Living, a recently launched real estate impact fund. “I found Adam to be the best experience by head and shoulders above everyone else I’ve worked with,” Richards said.

Dean has gained credibility in the industry, with over 85 per cent of his referrals through word of mouth. Senior-level networks are powerful, he said, and are far more effective than scouring through databases. “Once you land a number of clients,” he said, “it kind of snowballs.”