About ON Partners

We built ON to do

executive search
exceptionally well.

We trained at the firms that built executive search. Then, in 2006, we left to fix what scale had broken: the partner you hire should be the partner who does the work.

Twenty years later, that single conviction has made us a top retained search firm, and the reason 85% of our clients come back.

A human-first search experience

Why we exist

The biggest firms taught us the craft. Then we left.

Executive search was built by a handful of large firms. We came up inside them. We learned how a search really works: the calibration, the market mapping, the difficult conversation that lands the right leader instead of the available one.

We also learned what scale does to a relationship. The partner who wins the engagement hands it to a team you never met. The firm you chose for its judgment delivers something closer to a process. We thought search deserved better, so we built it.

ON does one thing: retained executive search. Not consulting, not interim staffing, not leadership coaching bolted on to pad a proposal. Search is harder and more human than most firms admit, and it is the only thing we have ever wanted to be great at.

"The partner you meet on day one is the partner on day done. No handoffs. Their name is on the placement."

From 2006 to today

A boutique conviction, grown to national scale.

We grew the way we said we would, one repeat relationship at a time.

2006

Three partners, one idea

ON Partners is founded by search professionals who left the largest firms in the industry. The premise: partner-led from day one to day done, with the breadth of a major firm and the accountability of a boutique.

2007 - 2010

National reach & industry depth

Scaling across Dallas, Atlanta, Silicon Valley, Boston, and more, we established a high-impact, coast-to-coast network placing leaders across the nation's core economic sectors.

National presence established

2010–2014

Repeat business becomes the engine

Clients don't just come back. They bring us across their portfolios. The high-accountability model proves itself in the one metric that matters most in search: clients who return.

Inc. 500 / 5000 honoree · 9× and counting

2015–2020

Depth across the functions that move companies

CEO, CFO, COO, CRO, CTO/CISO, board and president searches across technology, industrial, healthcare and financial services. Partner-led never wavers as the firm scales.

2026

A top firm, still doing one thing

With an 85% client return rate and a 98% placement rate. We enter our third decade scaling depth, not breadth, exactly as we started.

Ranked 9x consecutively by Fortune as a top executive search firm.

85%

Client return rate

Industry average near 50%

113

Median days to close

Built for PE and board timelines

98%

Placement Rate

The truest test of a search

4.9/5

Client satisfaction

From clients and candidates

Where we are today

Recognized for the work, not the marketing.

The industry and the business press have taken notice. So have the clients who keep coming back.

400+

Searches Annually

Top Retained Search Firm

Named to America's Best Executive Recruiting Firms, a peer-and-client-surveyed ranking of the firms that consistently deliver.

The companies who trust us

From breakout growth-stage to the names everyone knows.

A sample of the organizations who've handed us their most important leadership decisions.

The pace of change has outrun most organizational playbooks. Leaders are being asked to make high-stakes decisions with less certainty than they've had in years, and the honest ones will tell you the picture isn't getting clearer before it gets more complex. The organizations gaining ground aren't waiting for stability. They're building the ability to move well without it.

Bryan Buck