Marking 20 years since its founding in 2006, AltoPartners reflects on its evolution into a global executive search partnership built on trust, local insight, and cross-border collaboration. In this perspective, Founding Partner Jana Martinová shares how deep relationships, shared values, and entrepreneurial partners have shaped AltoPartners’ ability to deliver impactful leadership solutions in an increasingly complex, global talent landscape.

Back in 2006, I was a Search consultant and had just completed a management buyout of the firm I still own today: I had suddenly become entrepreneur in Prague and had to now define how my partners and I across CEE could continue working together, and increasingly internationally.

At this time, our region just stopped being a zone of interest for direct foreign investment, which helped us and many competitors (including the integrated global firms) create a solid base of large international corporate clients. Businesses interested selling their products to new CEE markets where already present, and many new businesses moved their manufacturing capacities more due to state incentives and subsidiaries, and less with regard to the decreasing delta in cost of labour vs. productivity.

On the other hand, some local CEE business champions were reaching out to new, international markets.

It was within this context that our main objective in founding AltoPartners was to be recognized by our clients as having the ability to work in international business while understanding their culture and priorities. And we found partners in “old Europe” and Asia that were fully aligned with our objectives. I remember well, how a visit to a Board member of the largest Czech-owned insurance company, that was searching for non-executive Board members for their upcoming IPO, with Albert Froom (Netherlands), Ian Lloyd (UK) and I, resulted in multiple searches, including the appointment of a CEO of that same company.

It was a very successful and promising start of the alliance, which started from 16 founding member firms, and has grown today to 36 member firms with 60 offices in 37 countries.

Have we always kept our commitments towards AltoPartners over the last 20 years?

Yes and no. In terms of members and their spread we are much larger today, and due to a professional branding effort (thanks to Julia and her team), we seem to be visible even in a world overwhelmed by communication of very different quality.

With Jakub and his team based in Prague, we were able to propose a secure and solid information platform creating awareness and the sense of community, enabling us to exchange business information and share news and knowledge.

Launched in 2008, it gave all members (+500 users) access to the directory, a BD database with 28 000 business cases of which 1000 are cross-border assignments. The platform connects data from the AltoPartners website, AESC external and internal sources and internal knowledge from all 60 AltoPartners offices.

In terms of cross-border business, one of the declared reasons for being of the AltoPartners alliance, the result has been behind the expectations for many of us.

The reasons for this are certainly to be sought after in all our partner offices, our diverse local positioning, and our focus on local clients, who might not always have cross-border interests and needs.

However, while some seeds are lost, some germinate and amongst many meetings and initiatives that sadly didn’t materialise in the way we hoped, some invaluable good has grown: a deep trust amongst some partners based on personal relationships and friendship. The readiness to go the extra mile for your AltoPartner, who entrusted you with their client relationship.

The world of Executive Search has changed a lot with the rise of social networks and the use of English as a first or second business language: we all experience headhunters calling from abroad and selling candidates skimmed from online sources. Internal Talent acquisition operates the same way. Sometimes our commitment not to compete in another AltoPartners market may seem outdated, especially if our client does not mind the location of the position to be filled.

And yet, as we position ourselves against this kind of competition with our deep knowledge of specific markets and talent pools, able to search across time and space, we can succeed in promoting our AltoPartners as consultants reaching out to beyond candidates presenting themselves on social media, and able to evaluate them in the context of their countries’ business environments.

Knowing and trusting each other has become a real “hard currency” or “gold standard” we can rely on in case opportunities present themselves at once: I had the chance to work partners in Canada, Italy, Germany and India for one and the same client.

As my colleagues have done the “extra mile” for me, I am regarded as a consultant with a strong international network today and credible in discussions for other international and domestic mandates.

These are the moments I can see a return on a long investment of time and efforts into AltoPartners!

But there are other benefits coming from those same trustful relationships to fellow AltoPartners: I could call on partners changing ownership or exiting the business on their advice and experience regarding business models and local set-ups.

I could share tools, new approaches and failed attempts with peers who have been there before me.

To me, this means we have succeeded in creating a community I like to be a part of, helping me to position myself and to reach out for skills and cooperation.

This is quite a lot in these days, is it not? Happy Birthday to you AltoPartners! I wish you a lot of open and positive minded partners ready to invest their time and effort into making you even stronger!

And none of us should forget the time and effort put into our AltoPartners by both the professional team and the volunteers at OCO level keeping the alliance alive with a reasonable budget!