One of the most interesting things I have learned through years of working in executive search is that some of the strongest leaders in the retail industry are often the people who are least visible in the traditional hiring market. They are not necessarily browsing job boards every evening, updating their CV every few months, or actively speaking with multiple recruiters. In many cases, they are doing exactly what makes them attractive to another business in the first place. They are running teams, solving operational problems, improving commercial performance, developing people, opening new locations, strengthening supplier relationships, managing difficult transformations, and delivering results inside their current organisation. From the outside, they may appear completely unavailable. They may even tell you that they are happy where they are. Yet when the right opportunity is presented in the right way, with the right context and the right level of understanding, that same person may become genuinely interested in having a conversation about what comes next.

This is one of the reasons I have always believed that senior-level hiring cannot be approached in exactly the same way as high-volume recruitment. When a business is looking for an experienced retail executive, commercial leader, operations director, category leader, or another senior appointment, the strongest candidate is not always sitting in an applicant tracking system waiting to be discovered. In fact, the individual who could have the greatest impact on the organisation may never see the vacancy at all. They may not be actively searching for another role and therefore have no reason to visit the platforms where the company is advertising. If the entire hiring strategy begins and ends with posting a job description and waiting for applications, a business may unintentionally limit itself to only one section of the leadership market.

There is nothing wrong with actively searching candidates, of course. Plenty of exceptional executives reach a stage where they deliberately decide that they are ready for their next opportunity. Their circumstances may have changed, they may have completed an important project, they may want a larger challenge, or perhaps the direction of their current organisation no longer matches their ambitions. However, there is another substantial group of people who are not actively looking but could still be open to the right conversation. These are sometimes described as passive candidates, although I have never particularly liked the implication that they are passive in any meaningful sense. Many of them are actually among the most active people in the industry when it comes to delivering performance. They simply are not active job seekers.

The challenge is that convincing an established executive to consider another organisation requires much more than sending them a job specification. If someone is already successful, respected by their colleagues, financially comfortable and working within an environment they understand, there needs to be a meaningful reason for them to disrupt that stability. Compensation will naturally form part of the discussion, but at senior level it is rarely the only consideration. Experienced leaders want to understand the opportunity behind the title. They want to know why the position exists, what the organisation is trying to achieve, what problems they will genuinely have the authority to solve, what kind of team they will inherit, how much influence they will have over strategy, what expectations will be placed on them and whether the senior leadership team is genuinely aligned around the changes they are discussing.

These are questions that cannot always be answered by a conventional job description. A job description might explain the responsibilities, reporting structure and experience requirements, but it rarely communicates the entire reality of the opportunity. It does not always explain why the previous leader left, which commercial challenges have existed for several years, what cultural issues may need addressing, where the greatest opportunities for growth are located or what the CEO really wants the new person to accomplish during their first eighteen months. Yet this is exactly the kind of information that strong executives need before deciding whether an opportunity deserves serious attention. They are not simply evaluating another job. They are evaluating whether the next chapter of their career is worth changing their current circumstances for.

This is also why the conversation that happens before the formal interview process can often be just as important as the interview itself. An experienced executive may initially respond to an approach by saying that they are not looking. That does not necessarily mean they are uninterested. It may simply mean that nobody has yet explained the opportunity in a way that connects with their ambitions. A thoughtful conversation about the company, the leadership challenge, the strategic direction of the business and the kind of impact the person could make can completely change that perspective. I have seen conversations begin with someone making it very clear that they are happy in their existing position, only for that same person to become genuinely curious once they understand why the organisation is searching and what the opportunity could represent professionally.

At the same time, businesses themselves need to remain open-minded about what an exceptional candidate actually looks like. One of the easiest traps in executive recruitment is becoming overly focused on finding somebody whose CV matches the specification almost perfectly. The thinking may be that the business needs an individual from a direct competitor, with a particular number of years in the same category, the same job title and experience managing almost identical commercial responsibilities. Sometimes that person is absolutely the right appointment. But sometimes a very narrow search eliminates individuals who could bring something even more valuable to the organisation.

A leader coming from an adjacent sector may have solved a larger operational problem, managed a more complicated transformation, built a stronger team or introduced a way of thinking that does not currently exist within the hiring organisation. Someone who has worked across several retail environments may bring broader commercial judgement than an individual who has spent their entire career following one established industry model. Another candidate may not have the exact title the company initially expected, but their track record, leadership ability and understanding of the customer could make them significantly more capable of delivering the result the business is ultimately hiring for. Executive search should therefore create perspective rather than simply reproduce a company's first assumption about who they think they need.

Understanding the difference between experience and capability becomes especially important during periods of change. Retail businesses today are operating in an environment where customer expectations, digital behaviour, labour pressures, supply chains, commercial models and technology continue to evolve. The leader who succeeded in a particular environment ten years ago may not automatically be the person best positioned to lead the business through the next five years. Hiring decisions need to consider not only what someone has done previously but also how they think, how they respond when conditions change, how effectively they build teams and whether they can make difficult decisions without losing sight of the customer or the commercial objective.

This is why I also believe that executive hiring should rarely become a volume exercise. Seeing fifty CVs can sometimes create the illusion of choice without necessarily improving the quality of the decision. At senior level, I would much rather see a company spend meaningful time with a smaller group of genuinely relevant individuals than quickly review dozens of candidates who only partially fit the opportunity. The purpose of a strong search is not to demonstrate how many people can be identified. It is to understand the business deeply enough to know which individuals deserve a conversation and then engage those people in a way that gives both sides enough information to evaluate whether there is a genuine fit.

That quality of conversation matters because hiring a senior leader creates consequences far beyond filling an empty seat. The right appointment can influence the culture of an entire department, improve commercial decision-making, strengthen succession planning, attract additional talent and change the trajectory of a business. The wrong appointment can have the opposite effect. It can create disruption, increase turnover, delay transformation and leave the organisation restarting the same search twelve or eighteen months later. When the potential impact is that significant, the objective should never simply be to fill the role as quickly as possible. The objective should be to understand what success requires and then find the person most capable of creating it.

There is another important element that businesses sometimes underestimate: the candidate is evaluating the organisation just as seriously as the organisation is evaluating the candidate. Strong executives usually have options, even if those options are not immediately visible. They will pay attention to the quality of the conversations they have, how clearly the company communicates its strategy, whether the interview process feels organised, whether different members of leadership tell a consistent story and whether the expectations surrounding the role are realistic. An organisation that cannot explain why the opportunity matters may struggle to convince a high-performing executive to take it seriously.

This is particularly relevant when approaching somebody who was not planning to move in the first place. If a person has already built trust, credibility and influence inside their current company, leaving represents a genuine professional risk. They may be giving up strong relationships, a good reputation, financial certainty and an environment where they understand how decisions are made. A new position therefore needs to offer more than an attractive title. The individual needs to see a compelling reason to make the move, whether that is greater influence, a larger challenge, stronger long-term potential, the opportunity to build something significant or the chance to work with a leadership team whose vision genuinely resonates with them.

Ultimately, that is why some of the most successful executive searches begin with a very different question from a traditional recruitment process. Instead of asking, “Who is currently available?”, the better question is often, “Who would be exceptional for this business?” Once that question has been answered, the work becomes identifying those people, understanding what might motivate them and creating the right conditions for a meaningful conversation.

The strongest candidate for your next retail leadership position may not have applied anywhere this year. They may not have updated their CV for several years. They may be concentrating entirely on delivering results for someone else. They may even tell you initially that they are not interested in moving.

But that does not necessarily mean they are the wrong person.

Sometimes it simply means nobody has given them a sufficiently compelling reason to think about what their next opportunity could look like.

And in executive search, that first conversation can sometimes be the beginning of a decision that changes both a career and a business.

Dave Meloni
Founder & CEO, Retail Ready Insights