Today marks AltoPartners’ 20th anniversary. In April 2006, the international partnership of retained executive search and leadership consulting firms started out as a handful of like-minded professionals. It is now a global partnership of over 300 partners and consultants in 60 offices across 37 markets, routinely ranking among the top 10 global talent providers.

Not everyone would have predicted this. Commercial alliances are notoriously fickle. A McKinsey study, cited in the Harvard Business Review in 2010, found that business alliances are, at best, a 50/50 bet, a prognosis which hasn’t changed significantly in two decades. The same study found that the average lifespan of such alliances is just five to seven years. The reasons for these failures are a staple of business school curricula, but the AltoPartners story is proof that with an intentional approach, it is possible to turn an inherent structural vulnerability into an entity capable of withstanding a global financial crisis, a pandemic, hyperinflation, geopolitical upheavals, and monumental technological shifts.

This is what we’ve learned from 20 years of building a global alliance from scratch.

Be clear about the problem you are trying to solve. AltoPartners was founded to help partners support their clients worldwide. What appeared to be a problem of geography was, in fact, a trust issue: How to serve clients across borders without compromising quality?

“All the available off-the-shelf options either diluted our independence or failed to meet the level of trust our clients deserved. The real question became very clear, very quickly: Would I trust my most important client in the hands of these partners?”

Albert Froom, Founding Chair 2006-2009

Choose your partners wisely. It was clear from the start that the success or failure of the partnership would rest on the calibre of members and representation in key international markets. In the early years, the founding partners racked up impressive air miles to verify prospective partners’ expertise and values, conducting the levels of due diligence that their own clients had come to rely on. This remains the cornerstone of AltoPartners’ success.

“While we had some international bricks in place, we knew that if we truly wanted to be credible, we needed to be present in the right markets. Securing the United States was essential. At the same time, we expanded into emerging markets such as South Africa, Türkiye and parts of Asia Pacific. I remember travelling several times to Johannesburg and Istanbul to find the right partner while discovering and learning about the unique governance frameworks in these markets.”

Jean-Philippe Saint-Geours, Chair 2009-2014

Build a clear value proposition for partners. The decision to build an umbrella brand, allowing each firm to retain its local identity, proved a critical differentiator. In the AltoPartners model, firms preserve their hard-earned local brand equity without having to build or fund cross-border capability themselves. Crucially, because each firm maintains its own client list, there are no global off-limits agreements, giving clients access to a broader, deeper talent pool.

“This model rewards deep local knowledge. It has been instrumental in attracting strong local firms, such as DSG Global in the USA, The Inzito Partnership in the UK, and Search Partners International in South Africa, to name a few.”

Sonal Agrawal, Founding Partner and Chair 2020–2025

Light touch, high impact. From the outset, the governance model was based on trust, shared values, and clear behavioural norms, and not contractual obligations. The AltoPartners governance charter sets expectations upfront, but it is the day-to-day trust that truly guides interactions between partners and cements relationships. It also gives partners the freedom to build transformational advisory relationships with clients rather than pursuing transactional deals.

“This allowed us to pursue a winning formula, akin to the Star Alliance model, based on a small centralised hub to generate value for member firms while letting them stay true to their entrepreneurial nature, allowing them to determine what works best for their local markets.”

Julia Scheffer, AltoPartners’ first Executive Director

It is also what makes the model attractive to the right kind of person. The alliance was deliberately designed for entrepreneurs: limited bureaucracy, space to innovate, and a supportive environment built on trust and shared values.

“AltoPartners isn’t your typical executive search organisation. It’s a network of entrepreneurs – built for business, not bureaucracy. Governance is light, values are strong, and collaboration happens not out of obligation, but because partners genuinely want to work together. That distinction matters, especially to our clients and candidates.”

Thomas Heyn, Senior Partner

Place a premium on diversity and amplify it through engagement. In addition to the foundational aspects of executive search, all partners bring something distinctive to the table, whether deep country insights, sectoral knowledge, institutional memory, or internationally recognised expertise in key areas. Help is only ever an email or a Teams call away.

“Beyond the cross-border assignments, we cultivated social interactions marked by genuine laughter and camaraderie. Diversity – spanning age, gender, and culture – was naturally present and consistently enriching, making the collaboration genuinely enjoyable. This spirit continues today, despite the partnership’s substantial expansion and has allowed us to collectively navigate various market cycles, including periods of rapid growth and economic slowdowns.”

Corinne Klajda, Founding Partner

Professionalise key functions. Despite each firm having its own independent systems and structure, it became clear early on that the alliance needed more than just a secure internal platform to encourage collaboration. It also needed a strong external brand identity and a way to tell the AltoPartners story to a wider audience.

“A turning point came in 2014, when we professionalised the Office of the Chair, amplified the AltoPartners brand, and brought in an executive marketing assistant to help us be more visible. It was an important decision at the time as it required the operating committee to spend money in new areas. This proved to be an inflexion point for AltoPartners, setting the course for the next five years.”

Stephen Dallamore, Chair 2015-2020

Lead by example. The command-and-control orthodoxies that once defined the C-suite have given way to a more nuanced understanding of what effective leadership actually requires. As a consequence, values embedded into AltoPartners from the start, such as adaptability, diversity, authenticity, inclusion, and psychological safety, are in demand across all markets.

“In many ways, AltoPartners was ahead of its time. From the beginning, we valued authenticity and accessibility in how we work with clients and with each other. Today, even though we are multiple firms across many countries, we remain connected. We have shown resilience as markets and the world around us have changed, and even with the rapid change brought on by new technologies, we maintain our human-centric approach.”

Sorin Popa,Founding Partner

Innovation and targeted growth — the key to the next 20 years. AltoPartners has matured from a loose alliance into an interconnected partnership, which has been stress-tested by the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Both events proved, counterintuitively, to be periods of maximum opportunity, allowing members to tap into industries and geographies less affected by the prevailing shocks. It’s a model that will prove beneficial as the industry faces new headwinds that threaten to complicate cross-border hiring in ways that seemed unthinkable a decade ago. Equally, the partnership model allows partner firms to stay abreast of how generative AI is altering talent strategies by leveraging collective expertise. At the same time, the scope of what clients are willing to pay executive search firms to do is broadening, raising the premium on human judgement, contextual knowledge, and trusted relationships. In this context, local intelligence, relationship depth, and values-based collaboration make the AltoPartners model more relevant than ever.

“The next chapter of AltoPartners must be about innovation, evolution and growth. Not growth for the sake of size, but growth in relevance. Growth in how we support our clients. Growth in how we think about leadership in a changing world. We have a unique platform to build on – a partnership of exceptional boutique firms, deeply embedded in their markets, but globally connected in a way that is both agile and powerful. If we continue to strengthen that connection, to share more, to challenge ourselves more, and to adapt faster than the market, we will not only remain competitive: we will lead.”

Santiago Solis Arias, Global Chair