Executive search & specialist recruitment · India

Finding exceptional talent. Before everyone else does.

Eleven years of building leadership teams for India's fastest-growing companies — across luxury, retail, technology, healthcare and beyond. Powered by AI. Closed by humans.

72hfirst shortlist
96%client retention
800+placements made
20+cities covered

Trusted by leaders across

LuxuryRetailTechnologyHealthcareBeautyConsumerEcommerceReal EstateFinancial ServicesGlobal Capability CentresLuxuryRetailTechnologyHealthcareBeautyConsumerEcommerceReal EstateFinancial ServicesGlobal Capability Centres

The numbers

Eleven years, measured honestly.

0+Years of excellence
0+Candidates interviewed
0+Successful placements
0%Of luxury brands in India served
0+Active clients
0+Cities covered
0%Client retention
0hAverage first-profile delivery

Industries

Built for every critical hire. Across every industry.

From the first specialist on the floor to the leader who owns the P&L — ten industries, one standard of search.

Luxury

The advisors, boutique leaders and country heads behind India's most exacting maisons.

SpecialistLeadership

Luxury Store AdvisorClient AdvisorLuxury Sales ConsultantBoutique ManagerStore ManagerCRM ManagerRetail TrainerLuxury Brand ManagerRegional HeadMarketing HeadCountry HeadCEO

Why Placemewell

Chosen for speed. Kept for judgement.

Speed

First shortlist in 72 hours. Momentum is a hiring strategy.

Quality

Every profile is interviewed by us before it reaches you.

Network

Eleven years of relationships that databases can't replicate.

AI-powered search

Machine-scale sourcing, ranked and explained — never a black box.

Dedicated account managers

One person who knows your business, end to end.

CXO access

Direct lines to leaders who don't answer InMails.

Confidential search

Sensitive mandates run quiet, from brief to offer.

National reach

Twenty-plus cities, one standard of delivery.

Market intelligence

Salary, talent-supply and competitor maps with every mandate.

High conversion

Four in five offers accepted. We close what we open.

Philosophy

Databases tell you who exists. Relationships tell you who's ready. We've spent eleven years learning the difference — and building a firm around it.

Relationships first

We knew most of our candidates before they were candidates.

Network over databases

The best people aren't applying. They're being referred.

Culture is the spec

We study how your team actually works before we search.

Quality over volume

Five right profiles beat fifty résumés. Every time.

Human conversations

No candidate joins a company because of a keyword match.

Technology-enabled, AI-assisted

Machines widen the funnel. Recruiters make the call.

Hiring for the long term

We measure success at the one-year mark, not the offer letter.

Fast, yet thoughtful

Speed is respect for your time. Rigour is respect for your team.

How we work

Nine steps. One owner. Zero drift.

01Understand

Deep brief: role, team, culture, business context.

02Search

AI-assisted sourcing across our network and the open market.

03Network

Referrals activated. The quiet market opens up.

04Evaluate

Skills, trajectory and intent — mapped against your bar.

05Interview

Every candidate meets a Placemewell recruiter first.

06Present

A ranked shortlist with the reasoning behind every name.

07Coordinate

Scheduling, feedback loops and momentum — handled.

08Close

Offer strategy, negotiation and acceptance.

09Onboard

We stay close through day one — and the first ninety.

Speed

The market moves in weeks. We move in hours.

Benchmarks from our last twelve months of mandates against typical agency timelines in India. Watch the race.

First profilesshorter is better
Industry
10 days
Placemewell
72 hours
Time to closeshorter is better
Industry
60 days
Placemewell
28 days
Offer conversionhigher is better
Industry
45%
Placemewell
80%

Placemewell Intelligence

Machines widen the funnel. Humans make the call.

Every mandate runs on our search-intelligence stack — market mapping, a live talent graph and explainable match scoring. You always know why a candidate is on your shortlist.

Recruiter intuition

Pattern recognition from 8,000 interviews across eleven years.

Network referrals

Trusted introductions no algorithm can generate.

Behavioural assessment

How people actually operate under pressure.

Employer branding

Telling your story so the best people lean in.

Because no one ever joined a company for a keyword match.

What clients say

Trusted in rooms where reputation is everything.

We gave them a country-head brief that had been open for six months. They asked harder questions than the global firms did, and closed it in five weeks.

Chief Human Resources OfficerEuropean luxury maison, India

I was sceptical about the 72-hour shortlist. Three of the five profiles reached final rounds. That has not happened with any other agency we've used.

Founder & CEOSeries B consumer technology startup

They tell us when we're wrong about a role. Twice they've talked us out of a hire we would have regretted. That is worth more than the placements themselves.

Head of Human ResourcesNational fashion retail chain

Boutique staff are the brand in luxury. They are the only partner who screens for how someone makes a client feel, not just what's on the CV.

Chief Executive OfficerLuxury jewellery house

Our centre didn't exist eighteen months ago. Site leader, HR business partners, the first sixty engineers — one partner, one point of contact throughout.

Site LeaderFortune 500 GCC, Bengaluru

What I value is the follow-up after joining. They check in at thirty and ninety days without being asked. When one hire wasn't working out, they flagged it before we did.

Director of OperationsMulti-speciality hospital group

Case studies

From brief to business outcome. Step by step.

Luxury Retail

The complete retail team for a European luxury brand entering India

Challenge

Flagship launches in Delhi and Mumbai with zero existing brand presence — and a luxury-grade service bar from day one.

Search strategy

Confidential search across competing maisons and five-star hospitality, protecting the launch date.

Talent mapping

400+ client advisors mapped across India's six premier luxury destinations.

Hiring

27 client advisors, 4 boutique managers and a national retail head — every hire personally interviewed.

Outcome

Both flagships opened on schedule. 92% of the team retained after year one.

32hires · 90 days
Technology

Engineering, QA and Product for a technology startup in rapid scale-up

Challenge

Series B closed, roadmap stalling — a six-month feature backlog and no engineering managers.

Search strategy

Build the delivery spine first: backend, frontend and QA in parallel tracks, then managers.

Talent mapping

1,800 engineers mapped; 140 interviewed by our recruiters before any reached the client.

Hiring

21 engineers, 4 QA engineers, 3 engineering managers and 2 product managers.

Outcome

Release cycle down from six weeks to two. Backlog cleared inside the quarter.

30hires · 2 quarters
Beauty

The growth team for one of India's fastest-growing beauty brands

Challenge

D2C revenue outgrowing the team — marketing still run personally by the founders.

Search strategy

Hire the revenue engine as one unit: brand, ecommerce, digital and social, sequenced to work together.

Talent mapping

Talent pooled from beauty, FMCG and marketplace leaders across Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru.

Hiring

Marketing head, ecommerce head, two brand managers, and a digital and social team of six.

Outcome

Online revenue up 2.1× within three quarters of the team landing.

11hires · 100 days
Real Estate

An institutional leadership team for a developer going mixed-use

Challenge

A residential developer moving into mixed-use — with no institutional-grade leadership bench.

Search strategy

Quiet, referenced CXO search; no public postings, no market noise.

Talent mapping

60 senior leaders benchmarked across India's top ten developers.

Hiring

Projects director, design head and CFO — all closed within eight weeks.

Outcome

The new team took the flagship mixed-use project from approval to groundbreaking.

3CXOs · 8 weeks
Consumer & Ecommerce

Category leadership for a marketplace expanding into new verticals

Challenge

Two new categories launching in one year; proven marketplace P&L owners are scarce.

Search strategy

Target sitting category leaders with a growth story, not a job description.

Talent mapping

220 category and growth leaders benchmarked across India's top ecommerce companies.

Hiring

Two category heads, a growth lead and a supply chain head — average close of 45 days.

Outcome

The first new category reached number two in its segment within two quarters.

45days avg. close

Insights

Serious hiring intelligence.

Reports, benchmarks and field notes from 800+ closed searches — written for the people who make the hiring decisions.

Featured report
Hiring ReportJul 202612 min read

India Hiring Trends 2026: the definitive report on leadership and specialist hiring

Salary movements, time-to-hire benchmarks and demand signals across luxury, retail, technology and consumer — built from 8,000 interviews and 800+ closed searches.

placemewell.com/insights/india-hiring-trends-2026Read the report
AI × SearchJun 20267 min

AI vs recruiters is the wrong question. Here's the right one.

What machine sourcing actually changes in executive search — and what it never will.

Executive SearchJun 20268 min

The future of executive search in India is quieter than you think

Confidential mandates, referenced networks and why the best searches never hit a job board.

LuxuryMay 20266 min

Why luxury hiring is nothing like retail hiring

Clienteling, theatre and trust: what maisons actually screen for in India's talent market.

Latest articles

DataJun 202610 min

Salary benchmarks 2026: retail, luxury and consumer India

placemewell.com/insights/salary-benchmarks-retail-luxury-2026
LeadershipJun 20266 min

Leadership hiring: the 90-day test most companies skip

placemewell.com/insights/leadership-hiring-90-day-test
GCCMay 20267 min

GCC recruitment in India: the quiet leadership boom

placemewell.com/insights/gcc-recruitment-india
StartupsMay 20266 min

Startup hiring: sequencing your first twenty leaders

placemewell.com/insights/startup-hiring-sequence
CraftApr 20265 min

Seven interview mistakes that cost you great people

placemewell.com/insights/interview-mistakes
RetentionApr 20266 min

Retention starts in the interview room

placemewell.com/insights/retention-starts-in-the-interview

Popular topics

Executive Search IndiaRetail RecruitmentLuxury HiringCXO HiringTechnology RecruitmentGCC RecruitmentHealthcare HiringStartup HiringSalary BenchmarksLeadership HiringEmployer BrandingTalent Intelligence

Reports & guides

Hiring Reports

Quarterly demand-and-supply reports across our ten industries.

Get the Q3 report
Salary Guides

Role-by-role compensation benchmarks for India's key hiring cities.

Download 2026 guide
Industry Insights

Deep dives on the talent markets our clients compete in.

Browse the library

Culture

Happy recruiters build happy companies.

We're a young, high-performance team that treats recruitment as a craft — celebrated loudly, coached quietly, and trusted to work from anywhere. Ownership isn't a poster on our wall. It's how every desk is run.

Ownership

Every recruiter runs a desk like a P&L. Your searches, your relationships, your number.

Bias towards action

We move fast. Decisions beat discussions. Momentum compounds.

Learning

Weekly market teardowns. The day you stop learning is the day you start losing searches.

Celebrations

Every closure rings the bell. Every record gets its story told.

Recognition

Wins are public and loud. Coaching is private and honest.

Freedom with accountability

Run your own day, own your own outcomes. Nobody watches the clock — everybody watches the scoreboard.

Work from anywhere

Measured on closed searches, not chairs filled.

High performance

A young team held to senior standards. The bar doesn't bend.

Fun, not casual

We laugh a lot. We never wing a client call.

Presence

One network. Twenty-plus cities.

Headquartered in Bengaluru, with recruiters and market intelligence spread across India. Local understanding in every city. One national standard of delivery.

Bengaluru · HQMumbaiDelhi NCRHyderabadChennaiPuneKolkataAhmedabadJaipurChandigarhLucknowIndoreNagpurKochiCoimbatore
BengaluruMumbaiDelhi NCRHyderabadChennaiPuneKolkataAhmedabadJaipurChandigarhLucknowIndoreNagpurKochiCoimbatore

Start a search

Ready to build your dream team?

Tell us about the role. You'll hear from a specialist recruiter within one business day — and see your first profiles within 72 hours.