We know how to hire a CTO. The postcode doesn't change that.
mad doesn't prospect the market. mad knows it.
Executive search for startups and scale-ups. CROs, CTOs, Country Managers, and the teams they build. Based in France, hiring wherever your business needs it.
Success-based : 25 % of annual package, 3-month replacement guarantee.
The expertise is the role, not the country
Knowing how to assess a CTO, structure a CRO's variable pay, or tell a real Head of Growth from a title inflation, that doesn't change between Paris, Miami and Dubai. Local agencies know their postcode. We know the job.
We know the roles
Hundreds of leadership and tech mandates. We know what separates a builder from a scaler, which questions expose a weak candidate, and what a package should look like at each stage.
More → 02We know how to reach them
The best people are in post and never apply. Direct approach is a craft, a precise context, a structured package, someone who speaks their language. That works in any market.
More → 03We handle what follows
Visas, relocation, spouse employment, schooling. Most search firms stop at the offer letter. That is exactly where international hires fall apart.
More →Our office is wherever the mandate is
Everyone accepts that a great engineer can work from anywhere. Somehow a search firm is still expected to have a tower in your city. We took the other route: two bases in France, and a boarding pass whenever a mandate deserves one.
Client briefings, candidate interviews, on-site immersions. Most searches run by video, that is simply how you reach someone who already has a job. But the hires that decide a company's next five years usually deserve a flight, and we take it.
Direct approach works anywhere
Every candidate we place is someone already in post, contacted individually. That conversation has been remote for years, in every market. A local office changes nothing about whether a CTO takes your call.
85 000 profiles, mostly European
If you need bilingual leadership with EMEA experience, wherever you are based, that database is an asset most local agencies simply don't hold.
France, when it's France
Employer charges near 45 %, three-month executive notice periods, candidates who are approached rather than applying. Our home market, and the one foreign companies most underestimate.
No grey areas.
25 %
Of the annual gross package. Our fee, invoiced on success.
20 %
Deposit on signing the mandate, deducted from the final invoice. It commits both sides.
3 months
Replacement guarantee. If it doesn't work out, we restart the search at no charge.
Almost no executive search firm in France publishes its fees. We do, and our salary benchmarks are public too.
See the benchmarkWritten for foreign executives
What we wish every company knew before opening a French entity.