Creative & agile global executive search
Philosophy
Client-first approach
Philosophy
Jago believes successful leadership appointments rely on a relationship of total trust and transparency. Working in partnership with an independent consultant affords his clients a higher level of accountability and enables a more creative and collaborative approach to attracting and hiring the right talent.
Experience
Client-first approach
Philosophy
Jago has an unusually broad networks and sectoral experience, spanning the private, public, and nonprofit sectors in the UK and globally. He has led assignments for all sizes of organisation, a c-suite, board, and senior exec levels. He is particularly experienced in supporting new organisations, looking to build a complementary and diverse senior leadership team.
Values
Client-first approach
Client-first approach
Jago's work is build on honesty, rigour, and a total focus on delivering the right hire for your organisation. He has supported many of his clients on a range of senior leadership appointments, reflecting the trust and insight gained by long-term partnership. This empowers him to challenge clients to consider non-traditional and creative candidates, ensuring they gain from diverse experience.
Client-first approach
Client-first approach
Client-first approach
Search firms serving social impact clients are typically bloated, volume-oriented operations content to recycle the same applications and while the most junior staff undertake candidate engagement. This serves clients badly in a time of flux. Jago helps clients to build a search process that accounts for your strategic priorities, focusin
Search firms serving social impact clients are typically bloated, volume-oriented operations content to recycle the same applications and while the most junior staff undertake candidate engagement. This serves clients badly in a time of flux. Jago helps clients to build a search process that accounts for your strategic priorities, focusing on high-value work and prioritising proactive search, thoughtful scrutiny, and rigorous referencing.
Clients
Approach
Leadership challenges in a times of turmoil
Leading a global social impact organisation in 2025 is not for the faint-hearted. The world’s nonprofit executives and social entrepreneurs face a landscape defined by financial precarity, the rising tide of authoritarian-populism, and the relentless march of technology. Success demands adaptability, strategic foresight, and an ever-sharpening ability to navigate crises.
Chief among the challenges is funding volatility. Traditional donors—governments, foundations, and corporations—are becoming more selective, insisting on rigorous impact assessments and cost-effectiveness. Economic uncertainty, inflationary spikes, and the impending threat of recession, combined with shifting political priorities make long-term financial planning increasingly difficult. Meanwhile, philanthropic giving is being reshaped by digital crowdfunding and social enterprises, requiring leaders to rethink fundraising models.
Regulatory and geopolitical constraints on civil society are tightening. Many governments, particularly in authoritarian regimes, are cracking down on foreign-funded organisations, erecting bureaucratic hurdles and outright bans on certain activities. Even in democracies, data privacy laws and compliance requirements add to operational burdens. Leaders must tread a delicate path: combining advocacy with diplomacy, ensuring their organisations remain effective and true to their values and those of their staff, while adapting to political headwinds.
The Janus-faced nature of technological progress is also clear to see. The rise of artificial intelligence and automation is transforming donor engagement, communications, and service delivery. Organisations that fail to integrate these tools risk irrelevance, yet this must be accomplished with acknowledgement that these tools are far from perfect, and pose moral and practical dangers. Furthermore, the digital era brings mounting cybersecurity threats; nonprofits, often underfunded in this domain, are prime targets for data breaches and misinformation campaigns.
Leaders must also contend with talent retention and burnout. The expectations placed on social impact professionals are growing, yet wages lag behind those in the private sector. The relentless cycle of crises—from climate disasters to geopolitical conflicts—exacerbates fatigue and cynicism among staff, making a resilient organisational culture and concern for well-being priorities for effective leadership.
Furthermore, public trust - once taken for granted - is increasingly fragile. High-profile scandals, donor scepticism, and the rise of "effective altruism" are forcing organisations to demonstrate transparency and tangible impact. In a world of short attention spans and social media scrutiny, managing reputation is as crucial as delivering results.
The leaders who will thrive in 2025 are those who embrace innovation, build resilient teams, and adapt to a world where certainty is a luxury. For them, the challenge is clear: navigate the turbulence or risk being left behind.
Adaptable and personalised executive search
The world of social impact is being transformed as never before: the motives, role, and values of prominent organisations are subject to intense scrutiny; structures and relationships are being turned on their heads; and mission-driven organisations are being torn between the need to serve the public good and adapt to political headwinds. As old assumptions crumble, we all need to work harder and smarter than ever before.
This is particularly true in relation to attracting, hiring and retaining top talent. The rigid processes and methodologies of traditional, volume-driven executive search firms are not attuned to working in a more uncertain global market. In a time of chaos, more than ever you need experience to help you navigate the global talent landscape and identify and build relationships with candidates too occupied with their immediate priorities to consider other opportunities. Candidates need frank, informed and insightful advocacy to allow them to weigh risk and opportunity and transition from loyalty to their team and mission to embrace new challenges. Jago's commitment to designing a bespoke process for his clients and then supporting them personally end-to-end de-risks hiring and allows for an adaptable, creative, and proactive approach that is best suited to finding the right candidates for roles, not just those who are immediately available.
About Jago
Jago has over 18 years’ experience in international executive search. He began his career with a leading boutique search firm, where he worked across the education, arts and not-for-profit sectors on both executive and non-executive board-level roles. Later, as part of the Education and Social Enterprise practice of a top-three global firm, he advised multilaterals, arts institutions and civil society organisations on a range of senior leadership appointments. He brings insight into the practices and approach from his time working with a leading board-level search firm, where he worked on non-exec appointments for the FTSE 100 and 250.
Since 2015, when he established his own practice, he las led a range of leadership assignments for UK and overseas clients. His clients have included philanthropic foundations, impact investors and intermediaries, for-profit social impact agencies and consultancies, think tanks, policy and academic institutions, and a range of campaigning and advocacy organisations. Typically, his clients are global in reach and mission, concerned with hiring diverse, multicultural and global leaders. Many of his recent clients have sought to bring new technology, ideas, and approaches to bear on addressing crucial issues concerning the public good. Jago's ability to work across sectors, helping candidates transition to a social impact career, has been valuable in attracting the right talent to lead this transformation.
Jago studied sixteenth and seventeenth century painting under T.J. Clark at the Courtauld Institute, where he obtained an MA in History of Art. He has a BA in Politics from the University of Durham, and has also studied at the Institut d’Études Politiques in Aix-en-Provence and Birkbeck College, University of London.