Two decades ago, executive search was largely transactional. Today, leadership advisory sits at the centre of business transformation. In this retrospective, as AltoPartners celebrates our 20th anniversary, we explore how leadership, talent, workplace culture, technology, diversity, and executive search have evolved from 2006 to 2026 — shaped by AI, global disruption, hybrid work, demographic shifts, and changing expectations of modern leaders. Discover how the industry moved from traditional headhunting to strategic leadership advisory, and what the next twenty years may hold for organisations navigating uncertainty, agility, and transformation.

On January 1, 2006 George W. Bush Jnr. was the President of the United States, and Tony Blair was UK Prime Minister. The world economy was expanding, but there were some signs of trouble: inflationary concerns, tighter conditions in financial markets, and jumps in oil prices. The Great Recession was a year and more in the future.

All in all, the developed world was more-or-less stable – it was a good time to launch a new executive search partnership. AltoPartners was founded in 2006 – and is still going strong in spite of (or because of) all the events of the last 20 years: rise of new technologies and innovations, that Great Recession, the Arab Spring Uprisings, Brexit, the COVID epidemic and geopolitical instability from multiple wars being just some of them.

We took a look at those two decades, and this is what we found: what’s changed, what’s stayed the same and what the future challenges might be.

Technology: In 2006, the iPhone had not yet been launched (that was to happen in January 2007) and Blackberry phones were starting their march to widespread use. The internet was about 15 years old (the first website having been launched in 1991). Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were in their infancy. LinkedIn was officially launched in 2003 and was acquired by Microsoft in 2016, going on to announce in 2021 that it had surpassed $10 billion in annual revenue for the first time. In 2026, the professional networking platform claims 1.3 billion registered users. November 2022 marks another hugely significant digital change: the advent of generative and agentic AI heralded by the launch of ChatGPT.

Music: In 2006, consumers relied on radio, MTV, and CDs – but the times were changing. CD shipments in the United States had already started declining, and the iTunes store had sold over 1 billion songs, proving that the “unbundling” of the album and the rise of the iPod were well under way. While MTV still had cultural influence, 2006 marked the moment music videos moved from scheduled TV to on-demand internet viewing. Google acquired YouTube in October 2006, just a day after the platform signed a distribution deal to protect the rights of a music firm’s artists. By this time, the platform was already serving 100 million video views per day. Music streaming was on the way in: Spotify was founded in 2006 – and today boasts 100 million tracks, 751 million monthly active users and €17.1 billion in revenue in 2025.

Women in the workplace: According to a Grant Thornton report, in 2004, women held 19.4% of senior management roles globally in mid-market businesses across all sectors. In 2025, more than one in three senior management roles (34.0%) were held by women. A LeanIn/McKinsey study also shows an upward curve for women in the C-suite, but notes that in 2024, women of colour held just 7% of C-suite roles. When it comes to women’s representation on boards, Pew Research Centre says that there was 14.6% female representation on Fortune 500 boards in 2006, which had risen to 30.4% in 2022. All this means that over the two decades, there’s been an increase in the number of women in top roles in the global economy - but AltoPartners’ latest research has some caveats about that, showing that the lower levels of women’s representation highlight persistent structural barriers in the leadership pipeline.

Multi-generational workplaces: Over the 20 years that AltoPartners has been in existence, there’s been a marked shift in global demographics. The number of people aged 65 and over is projected to reach one in six globally by 2050, we found in a 2022 report. This demographic shift, driven by rising life expectancy and falling birth rates, presents both challenges and opportunities for businesses worldwide: there are not enough young people, resulting in a critical labour and skill shortage; people are living longer than they can afford to; and ageism is hard baked into many organisational cultures. To meet these challenges, AltoPartners advocates for leadership to consciously embrace multi-generational workplaces.

Office hours: It’s safe to say that in 2006, leaders and their teams would have expected to get up in the morning and travel to the office to do a day’s work. The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic changed that. When the impact of the pandemic waned, working from home or hybrid work were on the table in ways they had not been previously. In many countries, there’s been a shift back to working in the office, but hybrid work remained a dominant model globally in 2025. According to the Cisco Global Hybrid Work Study 2025, the percentage of employees in hybrid arrangements declined from 62% in 2022 to 45% in 2025, reflecting a shift toward more in-office time. Nearly 72% of organisations had in-office mandates, and 46% of employees reported their current policy required more in-office time than previous ones. Despite this trend, 54% said their latest policies offered greater flexibility than before the pandemic.

New roles: In 2006, an occupational survey by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics listed these as frequent or highly visible job roles: cashier, office clerk, general, customer service representative, software engineer, accountant, HR specialist, stockbroker. These reflect a labour market still anchored in retail, basic office work and traditional professional services. In 2026, a LinkedIn jobs survey includes these roles: AI engineer / machine learning engineer, remote project manager / agile coach, renewable energy technician (e.g., wind, solar) and AI prompt / AI coaching specialist (an emerging niche).

At C-suite level, these titles were among the ones to covet in 2006: Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. In 2026, the C-suite might contain a Chief Sustainability Officer, Chief Wellbeing Officer and Chief AI Officer. In a sign of the times, it’s reported that Google has recently announced the appointment of a Director of AGI Economics.

Leadership: In the early 2000s, businesses were operating in a relatively stable world, where incremental change was only just starting to take hold. Autocratic leadership was often the norm; managers made all the decisions, with little input from employees. The focus was on hard skills and getting tasks done. It was also relatively easy to identify and develop future leaders. In 2026, not so much. From tariff wars to climate change, from generative AI to diversity and equity challenges, from legal and business risks to Covid fallout, we’re in a polycrisis. In that world, the need for strong leaders has not changed. But leaders now need to provide stability while enabling organisational agility, which means a strong commitment to adaptive and agile leadership. This is important for business survival but also for private equity investors, who now look for leaders who can use artificial intelligence to move a company from “experimental pilot” to “full-scale implementation” at speed.

Executive search: In a history of executive search, the Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants writes that the early 2000s saw a surging demand from emerging markets and a “War for Talent,” which led to a nearly 120% increase in global demand for executive search services from 2004 to 2008. That trend continued over the next decades, along with increasing globalisation. “The profession experienced steady growth, again, from 2012 to 2019, reaching $16 billion. 2020 saw a… dip due to the global pandemic, but the profession rebounded in 2021 with $19.9 billion in revenue. 2022 saw $21.1 billion in revenue.” In 2006, executive search was largely transactional; in 2026, the keyword is transformation. In that landscape, trusted strategic advisors use AI, market intelligence and their own expertise to help their clients navigate complex challenges. Employer brand, reputation, purpose and culture are now key decision-making factors for attracting talent. At AltoPartners, the tools may have changed, but the founding principles of ethics, integrity, and local culture remain the same.

Conclusion: Looking toward 2046

We live in a time described by business school professor and author Toby Stuart as “an era (of) extreme opacity about the future”, where business leaders can no longer confidently plan for the future. He believes that success “belongs to those who master optionality;… remain agile in their identities, and (who) build adaptable organisational systems”. The situation is no different for the executive search and leadership consulting industry: we’re along for the ride!

Written by Renee Moodie