Finding a Needle in a Haystack
Recruiting leadership roles for professional services firms requires a deep understanding of the environment and context. Whether its law, engineering, accounting, consulting, health, or other professional and advisory disciplines, there are common considerations that materially affect hiring outcomes.
For this blog, we focus on small to medium professional services firms (typically under 200 employees). These businesses often share similar characteristics and have relatively small support or non-revenue-generating functions (more than 80% of staff directly connected to revenue or client service delivery). Productivity is defined by fees generated, billable hours, utilisation, and realisation, and equity ownership is usually shared among a group of partners or principals. In many cases, board, general management, or functional leadership roles may be shared or rotated, or firms may take the step of bringing in external talent into General Manager or Chief Executive and functional tier 2 leadership positions.
When hiring, it is critical to understand the distinctions between professional services firms and other business environments. These differences matter enormously when selecting, developing, or onboarding senior leaders. Professional services firms (PSFs) operate very differently from commercial or corporate enterprises, with some of the most significant differences arising from the nature of the work delivered, governance models, and management structures.
Managing professionals and owners has often been likened to “herding cats.” PSFs are full of technical experts and subject matter specialists who excel at responding to client needs and delivering high-value work. In PSFs, client relationships, technical credibility, partner or owner governance, and billable-time economics are central. In contrast, corporate environments more often emphasise operational scale, P&L control, centralised decision rights, and line management of non-specialist teams. ¹
David H. Maister argues that PSFs differ from other business enterprises in two fundamental ways: they provide highly customised services, and as a result, many management principles from product-based industries do not apply. Professional firms therefore compete not only for clients but also for talented professionals. Maister simplifies the imperatives of all PSFs, stating that:
“Every professional service firm in the world, regardless of size, specific profession, or country of operation, has the same mission statement: outstanding service to clients, satisfying careers for its people, and financial success for its owners.” ²
Key Considerations
1. Ownership & Governance
Professional services firms are commonly partnership or equity-based models. Decisions are influenced by revenue-generating partners, meaning decision-making is distributed and consensus-driven. By contrast, corporate decision-making is typically faster and more centralised.³
The implication: leaders in a PSF context must be persuasive coalition builders rather than directive decision-makers.
2. What Drives Value
Revenue is usually generated through client work delivered by named professionals—billable hours, utilisation, realisation, and client origination (business development). Incentives reward both winning and servicing clients.
Leaders must therefore balance selling and client work with firm management (or bring in management expertise), whereas corporate leaders tend to focus more heavily on operational KPIs and ROI. ¹
3. Managing Multiple Owners
Leaders in PSFs manage diverse stakeholder groups: partners, technical experts, aspiring owners, and highly autonomous professionals. This requires a high level of credibility, political awareness, tact, and comfort with ambiguity.
4. Strategy & Execution Gaps
Professional firms are often highly resourced in client delivery and technical expertise, but under-resourced in strategy development, enabling functions and disciplined execution of growth initiatives. Profitability and operational effectiveness can vary significantly from firm to firm. As a result, firms may seek external leadership capability to fill gaps in commercial, financial, or functional expertise—and often hire expertise from outside the firm’s core professional discipline.
5. The People-Driven Business Model
Professional firms are fundamentally people-driven enterprises. Attracting, developing, and retaining top talent is central to long-term success. Leaders must be highly attuned to the people side of the business, with a strong understanding of attraction, retention, and building high-performance teams and cultures.
Three Critical Factors When Recruiting Leaders for PSFs
1. Talent Management
Any successful PSF understands that it is only as strong as its people. Large firms invest heavily in the war for talent, while smaller firms must compete fiercely and creatively for high-calibre professionals.
Senior leaders often spend significant time on recruitment, retention, and capability development—sometimes at the expense of fee-earning hours. Strengthening the firm’s talent foundations is frequently a core deliverable for incoming executives and extends beyond recruitment into the broader employee value proposition, development programmes, and culture.
Short-term billing pressures can crowd out longer-term talent initiatives. Appraisals, performance reviews, and other HR processes are often absent or not prioritised when left solely to partners or fee-earners.
2. High Performance
Executives must understand how to build and sustain high-performing teams. Finding talent is one thing; leveraging it effectively is another.
High-performing PSF leaders excel at:
building human capital
ensuring quality service delivery
deploying the right people to the right projects
providing stretch and development opportunities
balancing development needs with financial and client demands
Professionals want challenging work, development, and recognition. Leaders must create environments where people can grow and deliver results under the constant presence of productivity and billable hours, business development expectations, and partnership dynamics.
Regardless of discipline—law, engineering, accounting, or consulting—high performance is often underpinned by shared values, client service excellence, technical credibility, collaborative behaviours, and sustainable profitability per partner.
3. Strategic Leadership and Management
In corporate/business environments, strategy is typically set at board and CEO level. In professional firms, strategy often emerges in a more collaborative, bottom-up, and client-driven way. Leaders must ensure:
clarity of long-term strategy and direction
development of leadership capability
a “one-firm” approach to management
appropriate modern support structures, systems, and processes
alignment across partners and teams
effective use of client insights
inspiration and engagement of technical professionals
Professionals resist micro-management. They want clarity, autonomy, purpose, and confidence that leaders understand their world.
Summary of Factors That Influence Selection (depending on role)
Client-centric practice & business development
Ability to win and retain clients through credibility, networks, and consultative selling.Technical credibility and judgment
Sufficient domain understanding to evaluate quality, mentor senior staff, and reassure clients.Influence & coalition building
Ability to persuade partners and peers without relying on positional authority.Commercial acumen in a fee-for-expertise model
Understanding utilisation, leverage, pricing, margins, and project economics. ⁴People leadership & talent development
Coaching, career design, and balancing professional development with billable demands.Firm life cycle awareness
Understanding what leadership capability is required at each stage of the firm’s evolution.Ethics, confidentiality & reputation management
Integrity and confidentiality are existential. ³Adaptability & systems thinking
Ability to innovate how work is delivered while preserving trust. ⁵Operational capability in matrixed environments
Managing project economics, resourcing, and delivery without undermining autonomy. ⁴
Conclusion
Professional services firms are complex and distinctive. They require leaders who understand the nuance and ambiguity inherent in the model and who fit both culturally and commercially.
For example, hiring a CEO or GM for a law firm or professional services firm is fundamentally different from hiring for a corporate environment. The difference is not primarily about sector knowledge, but about power, incentives, and how leadership legitimacy is earned. Authority often sits with equity partners rather than the CEO, meaning leadership must be exercised through influence rather than control.
Legitimacy is earned through commercial credibility, respect for professional expertise, and demonstrable value to individual partners. Command-and-control leadership styles or aggressive transformation agendas frequently fail. Successful change must be incremental, well-socialised, and led through persuasion and peer advocacy.
The leadership style that succeeds in professional services firms is collaborative, patient, and politically astute—combining high emotional intelligence with commercial discipline. One of the most common hiring mistakes is assuming a strong corporate leader from a different sector can simply “professionalise” a PSF. Without a deep understanding of partner dynamics and influence-based leadership, these appointments often fail despite strong credentials.
Takon understands what it takes to scope and define leadership requirements, attract, and appoint leaders for professional services firms. With a proven track record recruiting Chief Executives, General Managers, and senior functional and practice leaders across New Zealand, our mission is to deliver optimal talent outcomes and tangible results through creative, transparent, and tailored solutions.
Endnotes
Groysberg, B., Lee, J., & Nanda, A. (2013). When Professionals Have to Lead. Harvard Business Review.
Maister, D. H. (1993). Managing the Professional Service Firm. Free Press.
Wikipedia contributors. Professional services. Wikipedia.
BMS School of Management. Professional Services Firm Management and Project Economics. bms.ac.lk.
University of Nevada, Las Vegas Library. Professional Services Firms: Strategy, Structure and Innovation. UNLV Primo Library.
