finding people & talent leaders for ambitious businesses

About
The Search

We’re a small but mighty team committed to connecting ambitious businesses with exceptional People and Operations leaders.

Our Team

Founder
Penny Daniels

Penny has worked in People leadership hiring since 2013, starting at Hays before moving into Executive Search. She has built a reputation for placing the most commercial People leaders into top tech companies, and a lot of the leaders she has placed have developed into COO roles.

Penny launched The Search in 2021, passionate about helping Founders and CEOs find exceptional people leaders. She lives in the countryside with her Husband, children, and their dog, Sausage.

Penny leads on all C-level People & Operations hires.

Connect with Penny

Operations Lead
Tim Manson

Tim is Operations Lead at The Search, supporting the back-office functions as the business scales. He's the person quietly making sure the systems, processes and people side of things all hang together — and he genuinely loves the variety of it, from rolling out a new tool one day to shaping a hiring process the next.

Before joining The Search, Tim has 8 years experience working across the staffing sector leading successful sales teams for Phaidon International and most recently operating as the Director of Operations at Metric Search, where he helped scale the team across the UK & US.

Connect with Tim

PA to the Founder
Jade Kirby

Jade works behind the scenes ensuring everything runs smoothly day to day supporting Penny in her role as Founder & Director of The Search, allowing Penny to focus all her energies on delivering for her clients.

Jade values strong relationships, attention to detail, and providing a high level of personal support. Prior to joining The Search, she spent over five years supporting a HNW family, managing a wide range of responsibilities with professionalism, discretion, and dedication.

Connect with Jade

Our Story

The Beginning

In the midst of a Covid lockdown with two children under two, Penny decided to set up The Search. She was frustrated with the lack of innovation and commercial awareness in traditional HR, and saw a disconnect between the talent available and the needs of tech companies looking for impactful and creative people leaders.

She was in the shower when the company name, The Search, came to her. In her first financial year she took the business to almost £1 million in revenue while working from a laptop in her kitchen and juggling being a single mum. The Search is now a team of five, and known for being one of the most respected people search firms in the market.

Our Company

We’re trusted as experts by top tech companies like Booksy, Wheely, Nothing.Tech, Multiverse, Kraken, Zego, Copper and more. We’ve hired exceptional leaders and witnessed them make a huge impact. We were named Best New Agency at The Recruiter Awards in 2023, and started expanding into Europe and the US in 2024.

Our values are at the heart of how we operate. We believe in being authentic, taking ownership, being brave and, most importantly, making an impact not only to our customers but to the charities we support. We want to make a positive change, which is why we donate 1% of our profit to Women’s Aid and Children with Cancer every year.

Our Philosophy

We’re dedicated to improving the quality of executive search and of leadership. We believe in raising the bar, and in order to do so we’re highly selective. Our approach is to dive deep when it comes to assessing people, operations and marketing leaders to really understand their commercial awareness, impact and approach.

We build trust based on feedback, collaboration and speed of delivery. Not only do we find the right leaders, we offer valuable advice and insights to clients on how to assess and track their performance and ensure their success. Our track record speaks for itself, and we’re committed to keep improving what we do as we scale.

Values

Be Authentic

We love what we do, and value connection. We bring our true selves to work, and we aren't afraid to be vulnerable. It’s important that our clients trust us — so what you see is what you get.

Take Ownership

If we say we’ll deliver something, we’ll move mountains to make sure that happens. If we make a mistake, we'll own it. We aren't the kind of firm that will give up on a search.

Prioritise Impact

We focus on results. We want to make a difference to the industry, to our candidates and clients, and to our charity partners: Children with Cancer and Women's Aid.

Embrace Discomfort

We’re high-challenge and believe in saying what needs to be said, even when it’s difficult. We’re constantly pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone because that's where growth happens.