Without Mycelium
A leader is hired against an outdated brief and a strong CV, then meets a business no one fully mapped.
The result
- Growth targets slip, milestones missed
- Investment cases stall, momentum lost
- Teams disengage, costly re-hires follow
Leadership search · Private equity & enterprise
The right leader for where you're going, not where they've been.
Senior leadership hires fail far more often than they should. Rarely for lack of talent, almost always for lack of fit. Mycelium Search places functional, C-suite and board-level leaders who take root, deliver and stay.
London-based. Working across the UK, Europe and North America with private equity, portfolio companies and enterprise.
6 to 12
month
guarantee
Track record
Leadership environments our founders have built teams across.
The case for getting this right
A senior hire is one of the highest-stakes decisions a business makes
42%
of CEOs say their business won't be viable in ten years on its current path
PwC Global CEO Survey, 2025 →~40%
of senior external hires fail, underperform or leave within 18 months
Heidrick & Struggles · HBR →Sources: PwC 28th Annual Global CEO Survey (2025) · Heidrick & Struggles / Harvard Business Review · Spencer Stuart (2024).
The problem we solve
Capability gets people hired. Fit determines whether they last.
89% of hiring failures stem from attitude and fit, not technical skill. Leadership IQ →
Most leadership search stops at the CV. We go deeper, mapping the business a leader is actually walking into, so the appointment is deep rooted and holds.
With Mycelium
A leader is matched to the real environment, ecosystem and effect of the role, and built to succeed in it.
The outcome
- Clarity on the true brief from week one
- Faster impact, fewer false starts and re-hires
- Genuine alignment across teams, stakeholders, investors and the board
Our approach
Mycelium-Based Search
Our methodology designs every leadership role from the ground up, assessing the full system a leader must succeed within, across three connected dimensions.
Environment
The market, sector and external conditions the role must navigate to succeed.
Ecosystem
The business itself: culture, structure, team and the way decisions actually get made.
Effect
The measurable impact the leader must create. Outcomes defining the first 12 to 24 months.
Who we help
Built for complex, high-stakes leadership hires
Private equity & portfolio companies
CEO, CFO and commercial leadership through buy-and-build, scale-up and pre-exit. Leaders who drive the value-creation plan.
Large & complex enterprises
Senior leaders who operate across complexity: transformation, multi-market structures and demanding governance.
Founder-led scale-ups
Experienced operators who complement the founding team and carry the business into its next stage of growth.
Boards & investors
Chairs, Non-Executive Directors and advisors who strengthen governance, oversight and strategic decision-making.
Boutique by design
You will always deal with a founder
On a Mycelium search, the people who win the mandate are the people who run it, not a partner who pitches and an account handler who delivers. We stay deliberately selective about how many searches we take on at once, so every mandate gets genuine senior attention from first call to placement.
Partner-led, end to end
The founders run your search personally.
Deliberately selective
Few mandates at once, so depth never costs pace.
Accountable for the outcome
Our name is on the result, not an inbox.
Engagement models
Three ways to engage. One standard of rigour.
Full Search is our recommended model. Two further models bring our method where lighter touch is the right answer.
Model 01
Full Search
Flagship · RecommendedLong-term thinking, not transactional search. Our complete retained leadership search partnership.
All five stages · 6 to 12 month guarantee
Model 02
Search-as-a-Service
We identify, engage and qualify senior talent. Your team runs the interview and selection process.
Stage 2: Search
Model 03
Design & Discovery
We clarify the role, align decision-makers and equip your team with the foundations for a confident search.
Stage 1: Design & Discovery
Track record
What leaders say about working with our founders
Recommendations from leaders our founders have partnered with across their careers in talent and search. Names withheld, sector and seniority disclosed.
A new firm, not a new craft
You are not taking a risk on an unknown
Mycelium is new, and we won't claim a client list we haven't yet earned under this name. What stands behind us is two decades of building leadership teams from the inside, a documented method, and a written guarantee, with the two of us personally accountable from the very first mandate.
A written guarantee
6 to 12 month placement cover on every Full Search.
A documented method
Environment, Ecosystem and Effect, applied in full.
Founder accountability
Two operators answerable for the result, not a CV pipeline.
Our roots
Founded by operators who have built leadership teams from the inside
Adam Davies and Adam Alderton-Swart have built leadership and executive teams across in-house and search environments for over twenty years between them. Mycelium brings that operator's perspective, and a methodology drawn from how natural systems build resilience, to senior hiring.
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
Mycelium-Based Search is our methodology for senior hiring. Rather than starting from an inherited job description, we start from a clean slate and map the full system a leader must succeed within, across three connected dimensions: the Environment around the role, the Ecosystem inside the business, and the Effect the leader must create. The role is designed from the ground up, and every requirement is justified against where the business is heading.
Full Search is our flagship retained partnership: all five stages from role design through search, set-up, delivery and aftercare, backed by the 6 to 12 month guarantee. Search-as-a-Service covers the market execution phase only: we identify, engage and qualify senior talent and hand your team a decision-ready shortlist. Design & Discovery covers the strategic foundations: role clarity, stakeholder alignment and the documentation your team needs to run a confident search.
From a single C-suite appointment to a full leadership-team build, permanent and interim. That spans chief executives, CFOs, COOs, commercial, marketing, technology and people leaders; Chairs, Non-Executive Directors and strategic advisors; and managing directors, country and regional leads and functional VPs.
We partner with private equity funds and their portfolio companies, large and complex enterprises, founder-led scale-ups, and boards making advisory and governance appointments. We are London-based and work across the UK, Europe and North America, wherever a single leadership appointment can define the trajectory of the business.
Every Full Search engagement is backed by a standard six-month guarantee: if a placed leader does not remain productively employed for six months, we conduct a replacement search at no additional professional fee. For appointments navigating transformation, scale or heightened complexity, the cover can be extended to a full 12 months, payable prior to shortlist delivery.
Partnership, not providers.
Book a discovery call and leave knowing exactly what your next leader should look like.
Book a discovery callhello@myceliumsearch.co.uk · www.myceliumsearch.co.uk