Inside Q2's Leadership Hiring Market

We are halfway through 2026, a natural point to pause and take stock. Across our Board & Executive Search practice, our partners spend every week inside the conversations that shape leadership hiring in life sciences: with boards, with investors, and with the candidates navigating their next move.

This quarter, we asked our partners across EMEA, North America, and APAC to share what they are genuinely seeing in live search mandates. What follows is a direct account of how C-suite recruitment decisions are being made in 2026, what boards and investors are prioritising, and what it takes for senior leaders to stand out in a market that has become more selective, not more sluggish.

It also builds on findings from our Global Life Sciences Workforce Report 2026, where our executive search specialists examined the same shift at industry level. If you have not already downloaded it, it is well worth a read alongside this newsletter.

Why Boards Are Backing Experience

Francesca Hallworth | Head of Research | EMEA & North America

We are seeing a clear shift in hiring behaviour. Boards that are still building out their leadership structure, and moving into a more complex stage of growth are leaning towards experienced executives who have managed similar transitions before. 

The key criteria? Leaders who can bring steadiness, judgement, energy and pace, all at once.

The same pattern is showing up on the non-executive side, whereby clients are not chasing a famous name when, in actuality, they want someone who has proven experience building a function, creating an organisation from a scientific idea, and can guide a leadership team through unfamiliar territory.

This isn't to say that emerging leaders are no longer valuable; they bring fresh thinking and a modern style of leadership. However, the preference for a steadier hand alongside that energy has been shown to be the type of profile companies are gravitating towards. One thing I have picked up in conversations is that, where possible, boards are pairing the two: experienced leaders who can guide the next phase of growth and emerging leaders who keep the thinking sharp. 

It may seem unconventional to have two pillars of authority leading the ship; however, it could be a practice worth taking in the long run to ensure that innovation can still happen but is managed correctly to avoid error.

This is one of the clearer trends to come out of our own Workforce Report too, where employers consistently ranked proven judgement above raw potential when scaling leadership teams.

Hiring as a Value Creation Decision

Adam Bloomfield | Managing Partner | EMEA & North America

One theme has come up consistently in client conversations this year, and it sits close to what Francesca is seeing in the wider EMEA and NA markets. It is how PE-backed businesses think about senior hiring, and clients are no longer framing a senior commercial or scientific appointment as a cost to be managed, but as one of the most direct levers they have on enterprise value.

That shift is clearest in the 12 to 18 months before an exit or a raise, because the commercial leader who builds the growth story, or the scientific leader who de-risks the platform, is very often the person who determines how highly the business is valued. As clients have come to understand that, the conversation has changed in two ways.

Firstly, on timing: Leaving a seat empty, or filling it with the wrong person during the window that matters most now carries a far greater cost than moving decisively. 

Secondly, on quality: when the value at stake runs into the tens or hundreds of millions, the search fee becomes a rounding error against the impact of getting the appointment right.

As a result, the most commercially astute clients are engaging earlier and treating executive search itself as part of the value-creation plan, which tracks with the wider market too. Operational improvement is now the primary lever PE firms pull to create value, and that is why PE and venture-backed mandates have become the fastest-growing segment of the search market. For a PE-backed business with a defined exit horizon, the senior leadership hire is ultimately an investment decision, and the clients who treat it that way are consistently the ones who see the difference at exit.

Ownership Language Is the Whole Assessment

Nicholas Sim | Managing Partner | Asia Pacific

When assessing senior leaders for executive search mandates, the strongest signal is rarely pedigree or title; it is the gap between observer language and ownership language. Some leaders are wary and choose their words carefully, and that choice tells you everything.

Observer language sounds like: “We restructured the region.” “The team delivered it.” “There was a decision to exit that market.” Ownership language sounds like: “I made the call to cut those partnerships.” “Here is where I went wrong and what I would do differently now.”

Plenty of people can stand near a big outcome however, far fewer can name the specific decision they made, the resistance they hit, and the trade-off that did not pay off. When a role demands someone who originates strategy rather than someone who executes a plan handed to them, that distinction is not a nuance. It is the whole assessment.

The Seats Are Shrinking, the Talent Isn't

Nicholas Sim | Managing Partner | Asia Pacific

One thing we have picked up in some of our recent conversations with APAC healthcare leaders is a recurring theme of restructuring. A regional innovation arm is being quietly reshaped, China's presence being scaled back while a competitor leans in harder, a commercial model being rebuilt around new procurement realities. The details differ, but the shape of the conversation is always familiar, and so is the leader on the other end of it.

They appear to have found someone who will provide stability and core leadership, but the company is now back in transition, not by choice.

What strikes us most is how rarely it comes down to ability. These are leaders with strong track records caught in decisions made several levels above them, and the market does not always make that distinction when it is looking at a CV. So the conversation we end up having is less about whether someone can do the job, and more about how they tell the story of where they have been.

Three things we are telling every executive who calls us about a Singapore-based regional role. First, the seats are shrinking while the talent pool is not. Companies are consolidating upwards, APAC GM roles are fewer, and a strong CV is table stakes rather than a differentiator. Second, think international markets rather than just APAC. 

Some of the most realistic Singapore-based senior roles now span APAC plus the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, so global or multi-hub experience may fit better than the traditional regional ladder. Third, positioning beats pedigree. The leaders landing roles are the ones who can articulate exactly which problem they solve, backed by the relationships, payer-model knowledge or turnaround scars to prove it.

The market is not weak. It is selective, and in a selective market, how a leader frames their story matters as much as the story itself.

The Common Thread

Different regions, different mandates, one underlying shift. Boards and investors are hiring to protect and create value, and they are getting sharper about how they assess the leaders who can deliver it. The candidates winning these mandates are the ones who can prove it, not just describe it.

Our Global Life Sciences Workforce Report 2026 explores this shift in more depth, with a dedicated section on how executive search is evolving across the industry. It is a useful companion to the trends our partners have shared here.

If you are planning a senior or board-level appointment in the second half of 2026, or want to talk through how your organisation's leadership story stacks up, we would welcome the conversation.

Get in touch with our Board & Executive Search team.