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Best of Blog

Best of Blog features the latest, greatest posts of the Executive Search Blog written by The Good Search CEO Krista Bradford. Our Best of Blog posts are here to help make executive recruiting smarter, easier, and less stressful for you. Without a doubt, executive searches are incredibly important. A senior executive hire can make or break a company. But it doesn’t have to break you.

A former Emmy-Award-winning investigative reporter and television journalist, Headhunter-in-Chief Ms. Bradford digs deep to share leadership talent acquisition secrets and best practices. She reports on the latest recruiting trends, provides advice to top executives, shares her favorite software tools, and talks about the meaning of work (and life.)

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When to Use an Executive Search Firm

The Strategic Case for Retained Executive Search: Navigating High-Stakes Talent Acquisition

In the modern economy, the delta between functional and transformational leadership is the primary driver of institutional alpha. This strategic briefing outlines the diagnostic framework for de-risking executive acquisitions, identifying the critical triggers—from market complexity to information integrity—that necessitate a professionalized, retained approach to secure a definitive competitive advantage.

The Client Blockage Paradox: Navigating Structural Constraints in Global Talent Acquisition

The Client Blockage Paradox: Navigating Structural Constraints in Global Talent Acquisition

In the high-stakes world of executive leadership, “Client Blockage” is a systemic inefficiency that compromises the ROI of large-scale search. This analytical briefing deconstructs how structural constraints at global giants create talent blind spots, and why the boutique model provides the strategic “freedom to hunt” required to secure transformational talent in 2026.

How to Hire a Chief AI Officer illustration of floating brain

How to Hire a Chief AI Officer (CAIO) in 2026

The race to appoint a ‘symbolic’ AI leader has ended; the era of operational orchestration has begun. Discover why the 2026 mandate for the Chief AI Officer has shifted from experimental pilots to governing autonomous agentic workflows and safeguarding enterprise data integrity.

AI in Executive Search The Strategic Limits

The Strategic Limits of AI in Executive Search

Artificial Intelligence has reached an inflection point where it is no longer a differentiator in executive search; it is the baseline. Discover why information ubiquity is forcing a shift toward investigative research to maintain a true strategic competitive advantage in 2026.

Executive Leadership in the Era of Permacrisis photo of drone

Executive Leadership in the Era of Permacrisis

In 2026, change is existential: everywhere, all the time, and all at once. Discover why the era of ‘stably unstable’ leadership—the permacrisis—requires a fundamental shift in executive search and how to identify leaders who can navigate the overlapping threats of drone war, oil volatility, and H5N1.”

The Agentic AI Executive: Why Your Next CEO Might Not Be Human

The Agentic AI Executive: Why Your Next CEO Might Not Be Human

Artificial Intelligence could become your next CEO. While that once felt like a dystopian rabbit hole, in 2026, it is becoming a documented governance standard. As the Founder of The Good Search, I have recruited senior executives in technology since the dawn of the Internet and luminaries in AI for the past decade. I have seen leadership transition through many phases, but the rise of the “Agentic Executive” is the most profound shift yet.

What Adoption Did to Steve Jobs

What Adoption Did to Steve Jobs

In so many ways, Steve Jobs’ iconic persona seems a product of the adoption experience. Adoption made Steve Jobs who he was. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin conveys that influence in this scene featuring Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs and Jeff Daniels as former PepsiCo-turned-Apple CEO John Sculley. The scene laid me bare.