Corporate headhunters are more powerful than ever
The benefits of using them are hard to measure. They may be most useful as diplomats
FOR A FEW months last year Matthieu (not his real name) was on the most important team in finance. SWIFT, a global payments-messaging service owned by 11,000 banks, was looking for a new chief. So was CLS, an institution that settles four-fifths of worldwide foreign-exchange turnover. Each had hired Matthieu’s firm to find one. He was aware of the stakes. Both outcomes were going to “impact everything” that money touches, he told The Economist at the time. His voice barely rose over the mellow music of a Manhattan hotel’s bar but nonetheless it carried a bass note of self-importance.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline “Take me to a leader”
From the February 8th 2020 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionMore from Briefing
Why Chinese AI has stunned the world
DeepSeek’s models are much cheaper and almost as good as American rivals
The right in Congress and the courts will reshape Donald Trump’s agenda
As dominant as the new president is, there is still life in Washington’s institutions
How far will Donald Trump go to get rid of illegal immigrants?
It is his signature policy, but the obstacles are daunting
Young customers in developing countries propel a boom in plastic surgery
Falling costs and converging beauty standards spur new habits
The Assad regime’s fall voids many of the Middle East’s old certainties
What if Syria abandoned its hostility to the West and stopped menacing Israel?
Syria has exchanged a vile dictator for an uncertain future
It is not clear how stable or how benign the new regime will be