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How to Build a Company List

One of the keys to a proactive executive career strategy is building a company list. A target company list is the foundation of every executive search and as a candidate you should also use this strategy to your advantage. A company list allows you to clarify which types of industries, ownership structures, and size of companies you are looking for and then begin pro-active networking. 

Lead5 has a custom-built database of 40,000 US based companies. This includes all NYSE and NASDAQ listed public companies, all Private Equity backed companies, well-funded VC backed companies, along with fast growing and significant private companies. You can use the Lead5 company database to build your own list segmented by the Lead5 filters to track your networking progress along with contact emails for key executives and talent/recruiting contacts within each organization.

Learn more here on how to Build a Company List!

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How to Search for PE Deals and PE Firms

Lead5 tracks the appointments and departures of C-level executives at over 40,000 public companies using public data sources and intel from the Lead5 network. The Lead5 brand is built around the five main filters by which an executive views his or her career: Industry, Function, Region, Ownership, and Market Cap. 

Lead5 tracks US based PE firms and PE deals. A PE deal is a leading indicator of C-level opportunities as PE firms will change out senior leadership for over half of the companies they acquire. Watch this video on How to Search PE Deals which is the fourth in a series of videos designed to empower Lead5 members to discover intel and opportunities relevant to their career journey.

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How to Search for Recruiters

Lead5 tracks the appointments and departures of C-level executives at over 40,000 public companies using public data sources and intel from the Lead5 network. The Lead5 brand is built around the five main filters by which an executive views his or her career: Industry, Function, Region, Ownership, and Market Cap. 

Did you know Lead5 maintains a database of active retained executive recruiters you can sort by region, industry, and function? Lead5 also has a database of corporate executive recruiters working directly for Fortune 1000 companies with oversight for VP and executive level roles across the organization. Watch this video How to Search for Recruiters which is the third in a series of videos designed to empower Lead5 members to discover intel and opportunities relevant to their career journey.

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Saving Search Queries in Lead5

Lead5 tracks the appointments and departures of C-level executives at over 40,000 public companies using public data sources and intel from the Lead5 network. The Lead5 brand is built around the five main filters by which an executive views his or her career: Industry, Function, Region, Ownership, and Market Cap. 

This is the second in a series of videos designed to empower Lead5 members to discover intel and opportunities relevant to their career journey. Saving Search Queries in Lead5

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How to Search Opportunities Using My5 Jobs

Lead5 tracks the appointments and departures of C-level executives at over 40,000 public companies using public data sources and intel from the Lead5 network. The Lead5 brand is built around the five main filters by which an executive views his or her career: Industry, Function, Region, Ownership, and Market Cap. 

This is the first in a series of videos designed to empower Lead5 members to discover intel and opportunities relevant to their career journey. How to Search Opportunities Using My5 Jobs

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Q4 2023 Update on Executive Appointments & Executive Openings

Lead5 tracks executive openings and executive appointments for leading US based companies. Analysis for Lead5 for Q4 of 2023 shows executive appointments finished the year on a solid pace and up significantly year-over-year from Q4 of 2022. Q4 YOY numbers for executive opportunities were up 52% from Q4 2022 and executive appointments were up 47%. 

In total, 2023 executive opportunities were up 45% from 2022 which remains a low point since Lead5 started tracking annual numbers. We did not see any softening of the market in Q4 of 2023 and the strong bounce back in the overall numbers from 2022 to 2023 bodes well for a strong start to Q1 of 2024. 

The first of the year is a great time to engage with a pro-active strategy for your executive career. Join Lead5 today to stay connected to ever-changing market intel from the Lead5 community. Familiarize yourself with the Indicators of Management Changes, Negotiating Executive Compensation, How to Best Approach Executive Recruiters, How to Best Approach In-House Corporate Recruiters, Advice for Resignations, and Sample Email Templates to Send Direct to Hiring Managers.

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Q3 2023 Update on Executive Appointments & Executive Openings

Lead5 tracks executive openings and executive appointments for leading US based companies. Analysis for Lead5 for Q3 of 2023 shows executive appointments were down 7% from Q2 and Q3 executive opportunities were up 3% over Q2 2023. The YOY numbers remained elevated as Q3 opportunities tracked were up 47% over Q3 2022. Executive appointments for Q3 YOY were up 13% over Q3 2022 numbers. 

What does this all mean? While executive movement tracked by Lead5 remains below pre-pandemic levels 2023 is shaping up to be a solid year for executive opportunities and appointments. Q3 in 2023 has held steady at a similar rate to Q2. We will continue to monitor the numbers to see if there is any evidence of softening of the market in Q4 as we did notice a slight downtick in the numbers for September 2023. 

Now is a great time to research and prepare a pro-active strategy for your next executive career move. Join Lead5 today to stay connected to ever-changing market intel from the Lead5 community. Familiarize yourself with the Indicators of Management Changes, Negotiating Executive Compensation, How to Best Approach Executive Recruiters, How to Best Approach In-House Corporate Recruiters, Advice for Resignations, and Sample Email Templates to Send Direct to Hiring Managers.

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Executive Recruiter Advice for Resignations

Lead5 is the platform built to equip, inform, and educate executives on their entire career journey. One of the major inflection points for any executive is the resignation process. In today’s market it is common for an exec to work for 4 or 5 companies across a 25-year C-level career. That means likely 2 or 3 awkward and often contentious moments of informing your boss or the board of your resignation.

With the Lead5 team we have decades of executive search experience and have summarized the best practices for resigning from your C-level position:

  • Approach the resignation with a focused, firm, and disciplined approach. Rehearse the conversation with your boss and do everything possible to resign in-person not via phone or zoom. Be clear and efficient – do not get into a long, drawn-out discussion.
  • Keep the reasons for departing your company focused on your new position and be gracious and appreciative of the growth and opportunity you have been afforded at the company you are leaving. It is common to keep your future company name confidential as there are multiple legitimate reasons for confidentiality (new deal coming together, timing of announcement of your appointment, etc.)
  • Assure your boss you are not going to a competitor (if that is accurate). If they press you for the company name of where you are going it is best to let them know you can share this information at a later date. If you are going to a competitor, it is best to have had a lawyer review the non-compete prior and make sure the company you are joining will support you against any action taken to enforce a non-compete.
  • While a two-week notice is a common time frame for most jobs, at the C-level the average is a 3-to-4-week notice. You want to leave well and balance working hard through your transition but also join the new company with energy and a sense of urgency.
  • Do not accept a counteroffer! While this is self-serving advice coming from executive recruiters, the reality is you are leaving your current job for reasons beyond compensation. When accepting a counter, these reasons remain. Once a counteroffer is accepted, the relationship between the company and executive is never the same. The company perceives loyalty and trust have been broken and executives often comment, “If they valued me in this way for my compensation (or job level) why did it take resigning to get it?” No one wants to advance their career by extortion. This is never a good long-term strategy!

Do you have additional advice and tips from resigning? If so, join Lead5 today and share with the Lead5 community to discover the intel you’ve been missing to advance your executive career!

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Introducing the Next Generation of Lead5

We created Lead5 to empower executives with traditionally hidden opportunities and career advancing intel. Today we’re excited to announce the next generation of Lead5, with a new and improved user experience and more complete functionality than ever before to help executives manage the lifecycle of their executive journey. 

The next generation Lead5 platform provides:

  • Access to verified and potential leads for thousands of executive jobs.
  • Tracking of PE firms and PE deals that often indicate leadership changes.
  • Search project functionality to build target company lists, access the Lead5 recruiter database, follow executive moves, and build/save customized queries.
  • Easier to navigate saved items feature that replaces the legacy Lead5 playbook.
  • Full work email contact information for thousands of companies and corporate executives. 
  • More seamless integration of the Lead5 Community for members to share opportunity leads, add comments, invite peers, and contribute to trending market discussions. 

You can access all these features and more by logging into Lead5 for the new and improved user experience. If you have any questions or feedback we’d love to hear from you, email us at info@lead5.com or take advantage of Lead5’s complementary career consultations where we can demo the next generation of Lead5! 

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Negotiating Executive Compensation

In my 20 plus years of executive search experience, I have worked on hundreds of C-level assignments and navigated countless compensation negotiations through the “offer stage”. Here are 5 tips for executive candidates to keep in mind when closing the deal:

  1. Think like an owner. Value long-term awards and creating value over time as the key drivers for your compensation. Forgoing cash for more equity sends a strong message of leadership and “buy-in” to the board and/or C-suite. This indicates you are committed to the future success of the company and have confidence in the value creation you can drive. If the opportunity is available and you are in a position to do so, ask to purchase stock on your own beyond the equity grant or put your own money in the PE or VC round of financing. 

  1. If you negotiate, go one turn and then accept the counter offer. There is nothing wrong with accepting the initial offer if you believe it is strong and it meets your expectations. Yes, you may be able to negotiate marginal percentage points higher in base, bonus, equity, or sign-on, but do not underestimate the momentum of a positive, team oriented start. In my experience, one round of tweaks or negotiations is common, but if you push beyond that, it is generally poor form. 

  1. Communicate your compensation expectations to the company and/or recruiter prior to receiving the formal offer.  Many candidates think they are weakening their bargaining power by sharing expectations. They think keeping things “close to the vest” until the actual negotiations will provide the best outcome, but this can work against them. If the company is not clear on the expected compensation range, they may low-ball the candidate at offer stage (often a red flag for a dysfunctional company culture). Ultimately, the deal needs to be compelling for both the candidate and the company. Lack of communication of expectations prior to the formal offer stage can undermine the deal and be perceived as unprofessional. 

  1. Share your current and past compensation with the recruiter and company if they ask. Note, it is now illegal in a number of states to ask a candidate’s compensation. In the states where it is legal, withholding this information is regarded as a lack of understanding of how executive deals are structured. As executive recruiters, we are not asking your previous compensation history to lessen your negotiating power. We are asking these questions to ensure the best fit for both you and the company in an effort not waste either party’s time. For example, if your base salary is $400,000, you will ultimately not take a job offering a $275,000 base. There are exceptions, but in my 500+ executive searches over two decades, candidates are rarely willing to take pay-cuts in cash compensation. A candidate squeezing into a role with less than ideal compensation, usually means the role is not the right fit and the candidate leaves the company within 24 months. The exceptions tend to be candidates who forgo cash for more equity, aligning with point number 1. 

  1. Focus your identity as an executive on the value you create, not being the highest paid in your industry. Value creators are discovered and rewarded over time – keep this in mind in negotiations. You want to exceed the expectations of the CEO and board and create value and wealth for everyone in the organization. The experience of doing this is far more valuable, fulfilling, repeatable, and lasting than a certain base salary or sign-on bonus. 

Interested in more career advice? Sign-up for Lead5 and take advantage of the free career consultation plus gain more insight, intel and career tips from the Lead5 Community.