What the Big Players Can’t Do

There’s a term that gets used quietly in boardrooms and HR circles when a senior executive search goes to one of the global giants. They call them the SHREKs: Spencer Stuart, Heidrick & Struggles, Russell Reynolds, Egon Zehnder, Korn Ferry. The name is affectionate, but the implication is clear: for the really serious roles, you call the big names. 

We have genuine respect for what those firms do. And we’ll be honest about something else: at the very top of the market, ASX board members and group executives will often default to a SHREK. There’s a logic to it. As the old saying goes, no one ever got fired for using IBM. The brand provides cover. The process is understood. The fees are expected. 

That’s not our market, and it’s not where we compete. 

Our work sits in the layer that actually drives organisations: the CPOs, the Heads of People, the HR Directors, the specialists and the teams beneath them. The people who design and deliver the people strategy. That market is broad, competitive and requires exactly the kind of deep knowledge the SHREKs don’t carry. 

They don’t know your market. We do. 

The SHREKs operate on a global model. Their researchers build lists. They work their international networks. For an appointment where a board wants a Walmart executive or a Marks & Spencer veteran, that model has genuine advantages. 

But for an Australian HR leadership role — a CPO, a Head of Culture, a GM People & Performance, ER and IR specialists and every HR professional beneath them — the best candidates are found through relationships built over decades in our specific market. 

When a client asks us to name the best HR executives for a role, we can. Not because we ran a search. Because we already know them. We know their track records, their ambitions, who’s ready to move and who isn’t, because we’ve spent 30 years of knowing the right people. 

We’ve known our candidates for decades, not weeks. 

The people we’re placing in senior HR roles today aren’t strangers we found on LinkedIn. Many of them we first encountered when they were HR Advisors and Business Partners fifteen or twenty years ago. We watched them grow and placed some of them in the roles that shaped their careers. We’ve stayed close through the pivots, the promotions and the career transitions. 

When we approach a senior HR executive about a role, we’re not a researcher sending an InMail to a stranger. We’re people they know. That access to people who are not on the market, not returning calls from firms they’ve never met, not visible on any database, is what consistently delivers the shortlists others simply cannot assemble. 

The SHREKs meet candidates at the point of a search. We’ve followed the careers of Australia’s best HR leaders from their earliest roles to the C-suite. That depth of relationship is built over decades. 

We don’t move at their pace. We move faster. 

The SHREK model is thorough. It is also slow. Researchers compile lists. Partners review them. Processes run to timelines designed for global coordination. When a business needs to move — when a restructure is live, when a CPO just resigned, when a critical function is exposed — weeks matter. 

We run lean. Our networks are direct. When we know who’s good and open to a conversation, we pick up the phone. That speed is the difference between getting the right person and getting the available person. 

Where we work, and why it matters. 

The SHREKs operate at the very top of the executive market. We operate in the functional layer of organisations: HR Directors, people leaders, specialists across reward, learning, organisational development, talent, safety, ER, IR, L&D and workforce planning, and help them build the best teams. 

That’s where the volume is. That’s where the complexity is. And that’s where thirty years of specialist market knowledge makes the biggest difference. 

For the rare appointment where a board wants a global candidate flown in from overseas, a SHREK has structural advantages we don’t. We’re honest about that. But for every other HR and People appointment in the Australian market? The brief belongs to whoever knows it best. 

That’s The Next Step.