We’re Essenta

We empower our clients to hire, lead and grow with confidence.

We work at pace, but don’t believe in quick fixes. We go above and beyond to identify the people who’ll transform your business, drive growth and advance your approach to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Welcome to a fresh approach to talent

Executive search

Search | Mapping & Benchmarking

Find the leaders your business needs to grow and transform.

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Executive interim

Solve your urgent interim needs

We deliver rigorously vetted executive interims at speed, leveraging deep industry expertise for critical leadership needs.

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Leadership advisory

Build a high-performance leadership team

We drive leadership team performance through offsites, executive coaching and succession planning to future-proof your leadership bench.

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Leadership assessment

Make talent decisions with confidence

We assess leadership capability, readiness and fit with the unparalleled accuracy of the Essenta Discovery Process®

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Working with Essenta and the team on a recent VP Finance and Strategy role was an absolute pleasure. Their proactive approach and dedication to providing high-quality candidates made the entire process seamless. Essenta’s deep understanding of candidate expectations and skilled negotiation ensured everything ran smoothly, and their professionalism throughout was truly appreciated. I highly recommend their services for anyone looking for top-tier executive search support.

Selina de Ruiter

Senior Director, Head of Global Talent Acquisition

Deliveroo

The Essenta team is hands down the best partner we have ever worked with in not only identifying and recruiting top talent but combining it with deep analysis of our needs and gaps that completely transformed what we thought we were looking for. Their unique leadership assessment tools and ability to draw insights from executive teams shaped our plans for our revamped executive team. Armed with that knowledge they brought us stellar candidates and were an onboarding and transformation partner.  It's a new model combining the best in organizational psychology and leadership development with executive search and I can't recommend them highly enough.

Jonathan Rosen
Chief Executive Officer, Orchestra

I’ve worked with Essenta for a number of years across different industries. What sets them apart from the pack is that they operate as a true business partner in my pursuit of talent. Their team consistently deliver top-tier candidates who truly align with our culture and long-term goals. They bring market insight, are strategic in their approach and never lose sight of candidate experience.

Deborah Lee
Group Chief People Officer, Compass Group

Essenta are a strategic and thoughtful recruitment resource, asking the right questions to help guide quality decision making for building teams with longevity. Finding gaps in skill sets, and matching long term growth objectives to recruiting is part of their key skill set. Beyond that Essenta also completes thorough market sweeps with their team to find the best candidate for any given role providing the full range of services a GP might need for a
high-quality recruitment outcome.

Gemma Braithwaite
Partner, All Seas Capital

We have worked with Essenta for a number of years and feel they have become a true partner to us. They understand our business, how we invest and the relationship we have with our portfolio companies. We have worked with them for their expertise in consumer industries whilst also being experts in private equity. The team have provided us a lot of support in hiring a great pool of management into our assets.

Emilio Di Spiezio Sardo
Founding Partner, BlueGem

Our global reach

Offices in London and New York

Clients across Americas, Asia and EMEA

13 partners – all leaders in their markets

24 consultants and research associates

Our clients

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A/O Proptech
Access
ACT
ActiveCapital
Aesop
Alchemy
Allies of Skin
Apax
Apollo
Autocab
AutoScout
BainCapital
Battery
BeautyHealth
Benefit
Bluegem
Bowmark
Brakes
Bridgepoint
Bridges
BUUK
Cadogan Tate
Cairngorm
Carlyle
CBRE
Ceres
Charlotte Tilbury
Churches
Cinven
Cognita
Costain
Coty
CVC
Delinian
Deliveroo
DeterTech
Diversey
ECI
Edrington
EQT
Etam
EuroMoney
Experian
FaceTheory
Farfetch
Five Arrows
Fresh
Freshstream
GCP
General Atlantic
Glow Recipe
Great Point
Gymshark
Hanover
Hellman and Friedman
HIG
Horizon
illy
Inflexion
Insight Partners
Inspired
JAB
Kantar
Kate Spade
KKR
L-Catterton
L’Occitane
Lipton
Liquid IV
Living Proof
M&P
Mews
MML
Mobeus
Montagu
Mous
My POS
N Family Club
NEP
Nkuku
Nutrafol
Old Navy
Onex
Ontario Teachers
Orchestra
Oxx
Paco Rabanne
Partners Group
Patchworks
Paulas Choice
Piper
PUIG
PVH
QMS
Quanex
Rent Ready
Serco
Shade Store
Soho Capital
Storskogen
Summer Fridays
Sweaty Betty
Synova
TA Associates
Tapestry
Taxwell
Tory Burch
Trilantic
Triton
TSG Consumer
Unilever
Unilever Prestige
Utopia
Value Retail
Verlinvest
Vet Partners
Warburg Pincus
Wattbike
Whyte
xe
Yondr
Zego
ZPG