Acuity Executive Search Group places Sales, Marketing, C-Suite, Finance, and Operations executives across the United States and Canada — with zero upfront cost and the strongest replacement guarantee on the continent.
Acuity means seeing clearly what others miss. In executive search, that precision is the difference between a hire and a transformation. We operate across every major market in the United States and Canada.
100% contingency. You pay only when your executive starts. No retainers, no engagement fees, and nothing owed if we don’t deliver. Our success is entirely tied to yours.
We place executives across all 50 US states and every Canadian province. New York, Toronto, Chicago, Vancouver, Dallas, Calgary — same depth, same quality, every market.
Choose a 6 or 12-month replacement guarantee. If your executive departs within the window, we go back to work immediately at no additional charge — anywhere in North America.
Our depth is in the leadership function, not a single industry — bringing cross-sector intelligence to every search across the US and Canada.
Deep specialization across the five leadership functions that drive organizational performance — across every major US and Canadian market.
Sales leadership is our founding practice. We have built one of the deepest passive networks of commercial executives across the US and Canada. We understand the difference between a quota-carrier and a revenue architect — and we only deliver the latter.
Whether your next hire is in Dallas, Denver, Toronto, or Calgary, we reach the candidates your competitors can’t find.
Modern marketing leadership demands brand strategy, demand generation, and data fluency in equal measure. We find CMOs and VP Marketing candidates across the US and Canada who drive measurable revenue impact — not just awareness metrics.
From growth-stage startups in San Francisco and Austin to enterprise organizations in New York, Chicago, Toronto, and Montreal.
A C-Suite search is not a hiring exercise — it is a strategic decision. We work with boards, founders, and PE sponsors across the United States and Canada to place CEOs, Presidents, COOs, and other senior executives at exactly the moment they are needed most.
We understand PE-backed mandates, founder succession, cross-border leadership, and turnaround situations that most recruiters never encounter.
We place senior accounting and finance executives across the US and Canada who bring discipline, transparency, and strategic insight — from venture-backed startups to NYSE and TSX-listed public companies.
We understand the regulatory differences between the US and Canadian financial environments, and match candidates accordingly.
We place COOs, VPs of Operations, and General Managers across the United States and Canada who translate strategy into execution — reducing costs, improving efficiency, and scaling the processes that sustain growth.
From US manufacturing belts to Canadian energy and resource sectors, we understand the operational environments your leaders will step into.
The model you choose determines how much risk you carry — and how much leverage you keep.
| Acuity — Contingency | Retained Search Firms | |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront fee required | $0 | $15,000–$50,000+ |
| Total fee structure | 25–30% of comp | 30–35% of comp |
| Pay if no hire | Never | Yes — fees non-refundable |
| Replacement guarantee | Up to 12 months | Typically 90 days |
| Average time to placement | 45–75 days | 90–120+ days |
| Financial risk to client | Zero | High (paid upfront) |
| Best for | Growth companies & PE-backed firms | Large enterprise Fortune 500 |
Contingency search keeps all the financial leverage with you — same quality of talent, lower total cost, and zero upfront risk.
100% contingency-based. You pay nothing until your executive starts, whether that placement is in the US or Canada.
100% Contingency — Zero Upfront Cost. Our fee is a percentage of the executive’s first-year total cash compensation (base salary + target bonus), payable only on their start date. This applies equally to placements in the United States and Canada. No retainers, no milestone payments, and nothing owed if we don’t deliver.
Five stages. Rigorously executed. Every search — coast to coast.
Lucas Inglis built Acuity from a sales and commercial background across both the US and Canada — assessments go far beyond resume review.
Lucas Inglis founded Acuity Executive Search Group with a single conviction: the best executive recruiters aren’t those who learned recruiting first — they’re the ones who lived in the industries they serve.
With a career built in sales, marketing, and C-level business development across both the United States and Canada, Lucas brings a practitioner’s lens to every search. He understands what it takes to carry a quota, run a pipeline, and build a high-performance commercial team — because he’s done it in competitive North American markets.
That hands-on background means Acuity’s assessment goes far beyond the resume. Lucas evaluates candidates on the attributes that actually predict commercial leadership success: adaptability, accountability, competitive drive, and the ability to translate strategy into revenue — whether that plays out in Dallas, Denver, Toronto, or anywhere in between.
Real results from real searches across the US and Canada.
Lucas found us a VP of Sales who completely transformed our enterprise pipeline. The 12-month guarantee gave us confidence to move decisively — and the search was done in under 60 days.
We’d worked with retained firms before and paid significant upfront fees with mediocre results. Acuity placed our CFO in 55 days at no cost until day one. The quality was exceptional.
What set Acuity apart was that Lucas understood our business before he sourced a single candidate. The CMO he placed came from an industry we wouldn’t have considered — and it was the right call.
Practical insights on executive hiring and leadership across North America — written by someone who’s been in the seat.
Most VP Sales searches fail before they start. The brief is wrong, the comp is misaligned, and the interview process filters for the wrong attributes. Here’s what separates a successful commercial leadership hire from an expensive mistake.
Retained search firms charge large upfront fees regardless of outcome. Contingency means you pay nothing until the executive starts. Most growth companies and PE-backed firms are choosing contingency — here’s exactly why.
The most expensive executive searches are the ones that start before the organization is ready. Before you engage any search firm, these are the five questions that will determine whether you’re set up to succeed.
If you’re a senior executive in the US or Canada exploring what’s next, we work with you confidentially — no risk whatsoever to your current position.
Your profile and all conversations are completely confidential. We never share your information with any employer without your explicit prior permission — full stop.
Access senior executive roles across the US and Canada that are never posted publicly — available only through our active client search mandates.
Lucas provides frank perspective on compensation benchmarks in both US and Canadian markets, timing, and how to position yourself for your next move.
US or Canadian search — we respond within one business day.
Every inbox forwards directly to Lucas and is monitored daily. Reach the right person from the start — for clients and candidates across the US and Canada. Response within one business day, guaranteed.
Most VP Sales searches don’t fail at the offer stage. They fail in the first two weeks — when a company writes a job description that describes a past employee instead of defining the outcome they actually need. By the time the search is live, the wrong filter is already in place.
I’ve run commercial leadership searches across the US and Canada long enough to see the same four mistakes repeat themselves. Here’s what they are and, more importantly, how to fix them before the search starts.
The most common mistake: the search brief is a rewrite of the last VP Sales’ LinkedIn profile. You want someone with “10+ years in SaaS, enterprise sales experience, strong presentation skills.” That’s a resume, not a mandate.
The question that should anchor every search brief is: what does success look like in 12 months? Not what does the person look like — what problem do they solve? Is the pipeline broken? Is the team undertrained? Is the product-market fit proven but the go-to-market motion unbuilt? The answer changes who you hire entirely.
A company that needs a builder and a company that needs a scaler are looking for two different executives, even if both post the same job title. Get clear on the problem first.
“The best brief I ever received was one page. The worst was seventeen. Page count is inversely proportional to clarity.”
Most companies benchmark comp against posted job listings. That data is wrong. Posted comp reflects what companies hope to pay, not what closes offers on the candidates who actually have choices.
A VP Sales driving $5M+ ARR in a Series B SaaS company in Austin or Toronto isn’t browsing job boards. They’re being recruited. When you make an offer, you’re competing against their current OTE, a counter-offer, and at least two other conversations happening in parallel.
The typical VP Sales interview process tests for: confidence, presentation polish, how well the candidate researched your company, and whether they were likeable in a room. These are measurable proxies that feel rigorous. They are not predictive of commercial leadership success.
What actually predicts whether a sales leader will perform in your environment:
Add a structured scorecard. Decide what you’re evaluating before the first conversation. Don’t let gut feel do the heavy lifting at the final stage.
The top VP Sales candidates in any market — US or Canadian — are typically off the market within two to three weeks of entering a process. Most companies take four to six weeks just to complete first-round interviews.
If your process has more than three meaningful stages, it’s too long. If internal alignment on the hire requires a committee vote, that process needs to happen before the search starts, not after the candidate is waiting on an offer.
Speed signals conviction. The best executives want to join companies that know what they want and move when they find it. A slow process communicates the opposite — and the candidate notices.
Do the work upfront. Define the outcome. Get the comp right before you go to market. Build a scorecard that tests for what actually predicts success in your specific environment. And create internal alignment on who makes the final call — before the search begins, not during it.
If you want to talk through your specific situation, the conversation is free. That’s what we do.
When a company decides to engage an executive search firm, the first question they usually ask is: “What do you charge?” The second question — the one that actually matters — is almost never asked: “When do I pay?”
That timing question is the entire difference between contingency and retained search. Understanding it changes how you evaluate your options.
Retained search firms charge a significant upfront fee to begin a search. This retainer is typically structured in thirds: one-third at engagement, one-third at shortlist delivery, and one-third at offer. The total fee is usually 30–35% of the placed executive’s first-year compensation.
Here is the part that often surprises clients: the retainer is non-refundable. If the search fails — no placement, wrong hire, withdrawn role — you’ve still paid. In many cases, you’ve paid a significant portion of a fee for an outcome that never materialized.
Contingency search is straightforward: you pay nothing until your executive starts. No engagement fee, no retainer, no milestone payments. The fee — typically 25–30% of first-year total cash compensation — is due on the executive’s first day.
If the search doesn’t produce a successful placement, you owe nothing. The financial risk sits entirely with the search firm.
“The business model of contingency search aligns incentives in one direction: the recruiter gets paid when you get a great executive who stays.”
The retained search industry has spent decades cultivating the perception that paying upfront is associated with higher-quality work. The logic goes: retained firms are “committed” to the search; contingency firms are just spraying resumes.
That framing made sense in 1985. It doesn’t reflect how executive search actually works in 2026.
The quality of a search comes from three things: the depth of the recruiter’s network, the rigor of candidate assessment, and the strength of the replacement guarantee. None of those are a function of when payment is collected. A contingency firm with a 12-month replacement guarantee and a deep passive candidate network is meaningfully more accountable than a retained firm whose guarantee expires in 90 days.
The companies most likely to choose contingency search share a few characteristics: they are capital-efficient, they hold vendors accountable to outcomes, and they recognize that cash paid before results are delivered is cash that carries risk.
Retained search is not without legitimate use cases. For a CEO search at a public company, or a board-level mandate where absolute discretion and a dedicated team are required, a retained engagement can be appropriate. The brand of a major retained firm can also carry weight in certain candidate markets.
But for the vast majority of VP and C-suite searches at private companies — whether in the US or Canada — the argument for paying upfront before any candidates have been presented is difficult to justify on the merits.
Don’t lead with “what do you charge?” Lead with: “What is your replacement guarantee, and what triggers it?” That answer tells you far more about how accountable a firm is to the outcome than their fee structure does.
At Acuity, the answer is 12 months, covering voluntary and involuntary departures, on every placement across the US and Canada. Nothing is owed if we don’t deliver.
The most expensive executive searches are the ones that start before the organization is ready. Not because the recruiter fails — but because the company hasn’t done the internal work that makes a search succeed. I’ve seen it enough times to know: a bad brief produces a bad hire, regardless of how strong the candidate market is.
Before you engage any search firm — contingency or retained, boutique or global — get honest answers to these five questions. They will determine whether your search succeeds or becomes an expensive lesson.
Not “what does this person do?” — what does success look like? There is a significant difference between a job description and a success profile, and most executive searches are built on the former instead of the latter.
A job description says: “The VP Marketing will own brand, demand generation, and content strategy.” A success profile says: “In 90 days, the VP Marketing will have audited the current funnel, identified the two or three levers that are underperforming, and have a 12-month plan to address them with the existing budget.”
The second version attracts a different kind of candidate and gives the interviewing team something concrete to evaluate against. Get to this definition before the search brief is written.
This is the question most CEOs are least comfortable answering honestly. Compensation benchmarking based on salary surveys or posted job data is almost always low. Those sources reflect what companies hope to pay. They do not reflect what closes offers on executives who have choices.
If your comp ceiling is set before the search starts, communicate it to your search firm immediately. Searching for a candidate you can’t close is a waste of everyone’s time.
Nothing kills an executive search faster than discovering at the final stage that the CEO and the board have different candidates in mind. Or that the hiring manager and HR have different definitions of “cultural fit.” Or that two board members have strong views that conflict.
“Internal alignment is not something to achieve during the search. It is a prerequisite for starting one.”
Before the search launches, get alignment on: the success profile (question one), the comp structure (question two), who has final decision authority, what the non-negotiables are, and what you’re willing to be flexible on. Document it. If you can’t get alignment in a room, the search will surface that misalignment at the worst possible time.
The best executive candidates in any North American market are typically off the market within two to three weeks of entering a process. If your interview process has five stages, requires three rounds of committee approvals, and takes six weeks from first conversation to offer, you will lose the best candidates to companies that move faster.
Speed is not about cutting corners. It’s about doing the internal alignment work (question three) before the search begins, so that when the right person is in front of you, the decision can be made quickly and confidently.
This is the question most CEOs don’t ask because it requires the most honesty. When a strong executive evaluates your opportunity, they are not just evaluating the role — they are evaluating the team they are inheriting, the organization’s trajectory, and what it will feel like to succeed in your environment.
If the team they are joining is demoralized, under-resourced, or poorly structured, they will find out. Either during diligence — in which case you’ve lost them — or after they start — in which case you’ve made an expensive mistake.
Be honest with your search firm about the real state of the team. A good recruiter will use that information to attract the right kind of candidate — someone who is energized by a turnaround or a build, not someone who was expecting a different situation. Transparency upfront prevents misalignment after the hire.
The companies that run the most successful executive searches have one thing in common: they do the internal work before the search starts. They know what they need, what they’ll pay, who’s deciding, and how fast they can move. They are honest about their situation.
That preparation doesn’t take long. But it makes every stage of the search faster, sharper, and more likely to close with the right person in the seat.
If you’re working through any of these questions for an upcoming search — in the US, Canada, or cross-border — we’re happy to work through them with you. No cost, no commitment. That conversation is part of what we do.
Last updated: March 2025 · Acuity Executive Search Group
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Acuity Executive Search Group (“Acuity,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) is a contingency executive search firm operating across the United States and Canada. We are operated by Inglis Recruiters Inc., registered in Ontario, Canada (Trade Name: Acuity Executive Search Group).
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Lucas Inglis
Acuity Executive Search Group
Aurora, Ontario, Canada
[email protected]
www.acuityesg.com
Last updated: March 2025 · Acuity Executive Search Group
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Lucas Inglis
Acuity Executive Search Group
Aurora, Ontario, Canada