Private Equity Executive Search Firm
Trusted private equity executive search recruitment with a history of successful leadership appointments for portfolio companies
Coreus is a private equity executive search firm working with UK investors and the businesses they back.
We appoint finance and operational leadership into portfolio companies, from Finance Director and CFO through to the executive team. David Dand leads these searches himself. Candidates are reached by direct approach, not through advertising.
We take on four kinds of mandate. Permanent leadership search is the core of it, where the appointment shapes the hold period. Interim finance leadership covers the gap between completion and the permanent hire. Fractional leadership gives a portfolio business the capability without the full-time cost. A team build handles the cases where one appointment will not close the gap.
Tell us the gap you want fixing and join our growing list of PE companies that have benefitted from our leadership hiring.
The specialist who takes your brief delivers your shortlist
David Dand, Founder of Coreus, runs these searches himself. Nothing is passed to a researcher once terms are agreed.
Large search firms are structured for large-cap mandates, so a lower mid-market portfolio appointment rarely holds senior attention past the pitch. Contingency agencies will not do direct approach work at all. The fee model does not pay for it.
You see the difference in the shortlist that comes back.
Storskogen and Cairngorm Capital have both engaged us on that basis, along with businesses inside their portfolios.
Private equity mandates we have delivered
Storskogen
Building a UK finance function from nothing
Storskogen is a Swedish investment group that acquires and develops businesses internationally. When it established its UK operation there was no finance function to inherit.
Coreus worked directly with the UK CEO to recruit a team of Financial and Business Controllers.
Big Four profiles were the assumption going in. What the roles actually needed were accountants who would sit alongside portfolio company management and report into Swedish partners with very little supervision. Most of the strongest candidates came from Top 20 practices.
Successful hires joined on packages of around £90,000 plus a 20% pension contribution. The group then brought us into its UK portfolio businesses.
Fabco Sanctuary, a Storskogen portfolio company
Finance Director
Fabco Sanctuary manufactures high-end partitions. Its Finance Director had to answer in two directions at once.
The business is entrepreneurial and the role sits close to the operation. An international investment group owns the reporting obligations. Very few candidates were convincing on both counts, and that is where this kind of search usually stalls.
We assessed for both. Fabco appointed its Finance Director from that shortlist.
Cairngorm Capital
Group hiring across a buy-and-build
Cairngorm Capital had acquired a network of independent builders’ merchants including Parkers Building Supplies and Stamco. Each business arrived with its own culture and its own way of hiring.
The problem was no longer individual vacancies. Head office and the branch network needed a hiring approach that worked across the group without flattening what made each business work.
Coreus delivered senior and business-critical appointments alongside urgent vacancy cover. We rebuilt the selection process and developed candidate attraction across the group, so businesses that had never hired the same way as each other could start to.
The group filled the roles it needed immediately while its hiring improved as more businesses joined.
The roles we place into portfolio companies
Finance leadership carries most of our private equity work. The Finance Director or CFO appointment decides whether an investor receives clean numbers or spends the hold period chasing them.
Finance leadership
Finance Director
Chief Financial Officer
Financial Controller
Business Controller
Head of FP&A
Executive and operational leadership
Chief Executive Officer
Chief Operating Officer
Managing Director
Chief Technology Officer
Commercial Director
How we run a private equity executive search
Brief and mapping
We agree the mandate with the investor and with the chair or CEO, then map the market to the investment case.
Direct approach
Targets are approached confidentially. Our candidates are not browsing job boards. They are performing well in current roles and selective about what they move for.
Assessment
Capability is tested against the plan. Motivation and behaviour are assessed separately, because a technically strong candidate can still be wrong for a board that meets every month.
Shortlist and offer
You receive a curated shortlist of serious options, not a stack of CVs requiring your time to filter. We manage the offer to protect momentum and stay close through the first months in role.
94% of our placed candidates accept offers and start.
Multi-hiring capabilities when one appointment is not enough
We run filling numerous vacancies as a single campaign. One team on one set of terms, working to a schedule the board can hold us to.
Investors bring us in for this when a portfolio business is:
- Building a function that does not exist yet, such as a finance team after a first UK acquisition
- Hiring against won contracts that current headcount cannot deliver
- Bringing consistent hiring into acquired businesses that each did it their own way
- Replacing scattered agency spend with one accountable partner
Where a portfolio business needs hiring capacity but not a permanent internal recruitment team, Coreus provides it for as long as the growth requires. You get an experienced talent acquisition function without adding permanent headcount, and the cost stops when the hiring does.
Choose Coreus as your private equity executive search firm
Attract Great Talent and Avoid Bad Hiring
Results
Rigorous briefing processes to ensure a match and long term success.
Quality
Hire with confidence and avoid delays, repeat interviews, and re‑advertising
Experience
We handle the heavy lifting of hiring and ensure experience is of the highest standard.
FAQs
Do you work with the fund or the portfolio company?
Both. Cairngorm Capital engaged us at group level. Storskogen brought us in through its UK CEO, and the work then moved into individual portfolio businesses.
Do you cover the whole of the UK?
Yes. Searches run nationally. Our offices are in Brighton and London. We also welcome enquiries from private equity firms abroad.
How is confidentiality protected during a live process?
Approaches are made without naming the business until a candidate is qualified and has agreed to the terms of engagement. Where an investment is unannounced, the sponsor is disclosed only at the appropriate stage.
Do you only handle senior appointments?
No. Leadership search is where most relationships start. Several have continued into functional team building because portfolio hiring rarely stops at one role.
What happens if the appointment does not work out?
Our involvement does not end at offer acceptance. We stay close through onboarding and pick up anything that needs attention before it becomes a problem.
Your next steps
Tell us about the portfolio business and the appointment you need to make. We will give you a straight view on whether Coreus is right for the mandate and move you from friction to flow.