Skip to main content
A1 · Elite · Loading
Retained Executive Search · Private Practice

The hire that changes the company.

A1 Elite is the parent retained search practice — founder hire, MD, C-suite, chair, NED. Small shortlist. Long-cycle. Pressure-tested briefs before a single name lands on the table.

We work for the company, not the candidate pool. Each mandate is a single brief, run end-to-end by the partner who took the call — no associates, no CV-bombing, no contingency hedging. The kind of senior hire that re-rates a board for a decade.

Brief a search → How retained works
/ NUMBERS / WHAT THE PRACTICE LOOKS LIKE
12
Active retained mandates · capped by design
90d
Typical shortlist · brief to offer · senior level
100%
Retained only · no contingency · no CV race
48h
Reply window · personally, from senior partner
/ WORK / WHERE THE SHORTLISTS LANDED

Senior hires, quietly closed.

We don't publish a candidate or client list — but the shape of the work is open. Below are anonymised retained searches from the last 18 months, by mandate type and operating phase. Every placement landed within the 8-14 week shortlist window.

Mandate · Founder MD
UK construction-SaaS · £20m ARR · founder MD
Profitable founder-led SaaS into chair transition. Mapped the operating gap before the candidate pool — landed on a former B2B SaaS scale-up MD with verticals into construction. Shortlist of four. Hired the second. Founder remains chair.
Anonymised reference under NDA
Mandate · CFO
PE-backed CFO · post-acquisition
Run-the-rule-over CFO who's run an exit before. Hybrid Manchester / London. Twelve-week shortlist, offer accepted ahead of board meeting.
UK B2B services · £14m turnover
Mandate · Chair / NED
Non-executive chair · cleantech Series B
Sector-experienced chair pulled from operating network. Quarterly commitment, signed inside six weeks. Round subsequently closed.
UK cleantech · Series B
Mandate · CTO
CTO upgrade · fintech scale-up
Replace founder-CTO with operating CTO who'd shipped at scale. Five-person shortlist; hired the candidate who turned down two unicorns in the same quarter.
UK fintech · £8m revenue
Mandate · Fractional CRO
Fractional revenue lead · 2-4 weeks
Bridge hire to take a faltering pipeline from £4m to £9m ARR. Embedded for two days a week, eventually converted to permanent under retained terms.
UK SaaS · fractional → permanent
Mandate · COO
Operating COO · industrial group
Founder stepping back. Operating COO with sector spine — manufacturing + B2B services. Shortlist of three, hire retained twelve months later.
UK industrial · £24m turnover
Mandate · NED
Non-executive seat · regulated industries
Specific NED for the next 18-month decision a board had to make. Pulled from operating networks, not the conference circuit. Two of three candidates declined other seats to take this one.
UK regulated · governance
/ MANDATES / FOUR KINDS OF HIRE

Four kinds of hire. All retained.

No contingency. No CV-bombing. Each engagement is a single mandate, run to a brief that's been pressure-tested before the search opens.

Search 01

Founder hire

The hire that lets the founder hand off — MD, CEO, GM. We map the operating gap before we map the candidate pool. Brief pressure-tested with two reference operators inside the network before any name is approached.

8-12 week shortlist
Search 02

C-Suite

CFO, CTO, CRO, COO, CCO. Searched against the company's actual phase, not the title. Senior people who've shipped the exact transition you're in — bias for operators over advisors.

10-14 week shortlist
Search 03

Fractional · Interim

Where a full-time hire is the wrong answer. Embedded experts, paid by the day, with skin in the company. Often a bridge to a permanent retained search once the shape settles.

2-4 week start
Search 04

Chair · NED

Real seats, not optical ones. Specific to the next 18-month decision the board has to make. Pulled from operating networks, not the conference circuit. Often a former MD or CEO of an adjacent company.

Network-driven · 6-10 wks
Search 05

Founder · Chair

Where the founder is stepping back but staying as chair. We help shape the new role, hire the operating MD, and run the first 90 days of the handover at quarterly cadence.

Combined mandate
Search 06

Replacement · cover

Senior hire didn't land. We cover under 12-month guarantee — replacement at zero retainer, single fee model. The discipline that keeps the practice working through cycles.

12-mo guarantee
/ STORY / WHY A1 ELITE EXISTS

The senior hire that re-rates a board.

A1 Elite is the parent retained executive search practice inside AMAYA Holdings. We run a small list of long-cycle mandates — founder hire, MD, C-suite, chair, NED — for UK operating companies between £4m and £100m turnover.

We took the format of a private practice — capped client list, by introduction, no leverage model — and applied it to retained search. The senior partner is the one who sits with the founder, drafts the brief, takes the candidate calls, and runs the shortlist all the way through to offer. There is no associate trail and no marketing arm. The website is intentionally narrow.

We are not a CV-bombing contingency firm. We work pre-brief: pressure-testing the role, calibrating the success bar with two reference operators, and naming the candidates the public market does not see. When we open the search, the longlist is already curated against the company's actual operating phase — not the job-title taxonomy that came out of HR.

The sister hub A1 Elite Consultancy is the recruitment-focused arm — permanent recruitment, contract staffing, payroll, IR35, the full Employment Rights Act 2026 wrap. Same operating group, different audience. A1 Elite is the senior practice; the consultancy is the volume practice.

The infrastructure underneath is unusual for a search firm this size — the ATTOH Tech engineering stack supplies the back-office, the candidate research layer, and the operating discipline that makes a chambers-format viable in 2026. The senior counsel stays human. The plumbing is industrial.

If you have a senior hire that has to land first time, this is the right door.

/ RETAINERS / FOUR ROUTES IN

Four routes. Fixed retainer.

We don't take a contingency fee. Each engagement is a retainer in three stages — engagement, shortlist, completion. Fee structure agreed before the first candidate call lands.

/ TIER 01 · FRACTIONAL

Fractional / Interim

Pricing at launch/ placement

Embedded experts, paid by the day. Two-to-four week start. Often a bridge to a retained permanent search.

  • 2-4 week start window
  • Embedded expert · day rate
  • Optional conversion to permanent
  • 30/60/90 day check-in
  • No retainer on permanent if converted
Brief a fractional →
/ TIER 02 · FOUNDER HIRE · MOST BUILT

Founder Hire

Pricing at launch/ retained

The MD or CEO hire that lets the founder hand off. 8-12 week retained shortlist, pressure-tested brief.

  • Three-stage retainer · engagement, shortlist, completion
  • Brief pressure-tested with two reference operators
  • Five-name shortlist · fully referenced
  • 12-month replacement guarantee
  • 90-day onboarding check-in included
Brief a founder hire →
/ TIER 03 · C-SUITE

C-Suite Search

Pricing at launch/ retained

CFO, CTO, CRO, COO, CCO. Searched against the company's actual phase, not the job title.

  • 10-14 week shortlist process
  • Direct operating-network outreach
  • Five-name shortlist · fully referenced
  • 12-month replacement guarantee
  • Board-level offer choreography
Brief a C-suite →
/ TIER 04 · CHAIR / NED

Chair / NED

Pricing at launch/ retained

Real seats, not optical. Specific to the next 18-month decision the board has to make.

  • 6-10 week network-driven search
  • Pulled from operating networks · not conference circuit
  • Three-name short slate · fully referenced
  • Annual fee · multi-year continuity
  • Sits ahead of any board reset
Brief a chair seat →
/ PROCESS / HOW A SEARCH STARTS

Three phases. One shortlist.

No discovery deck, no procurement theatre, no associate trailing the call. Three plain phases — brief, search, close — run by the partner who took the first call.

Phase 01

Brief + pressure-test

Two weeks to set the brief. We interrogate the role description, talk to two reference operators inside the network, agree the success bar in writing before the search opens.

Two weeks · single A4 brief
Phase 02

Search + outreach

Long-list to short-list inside the operating network. Direct, named outreach — never job boards. Candidates briefed properly before they ever meet you.

6-10 weeks · direct outreach only
Phase 03

Shortlist + close

Three to five candidates, fully referenced, presented with our point of view. We stay through offer, onboarding, and 90-day check-in.

90-day check-in included
/ FOUNDER / WHO YOU ACTUALLY MEET

The partner is the practice.

"The senior hires that change a company never come off a job board, never come from an inbound CV, and rarely come from the firm that's running three searches against the same role for three other clients. The brief is the work — the rest of the search is just execution against it."

Senior Partner · A1 Elite

— A1 Elite

Twenty years of UK operating spine — B2B services, SaaS, fintech, cleantech, regulated industries. Built A1 Elite inside AMAYA Holdings in 2024 to give the small operating company the kind of retained search the FTSE 250 takes for granted.

/ TESTIMONIALS / WHAT FOUNDERS HAVE SAID

Quiet references. On request.

We don't ask clients for testimonials and we don't publish names. Below are anonymised reflections shared after placement, with permission.

The shortlist was four people. Three of them I'd never heard of. The one we hired had walked the exact same transition twice before. The brief work upfront was the difference.
Founder UK B2B SaaS · retained for founder MD · 2026
We'd had two contingency firms run at this CFO seat for nine months and got nowhere — too many CVs, no fit. Twelve weeks with A1 Elite, retained, and the candidate they brought was already an operator we should have known about.
Chair PE-backed UK services · £14m turnover · 2026
The chair search took six weeks. The candidate had turned down two other UK seats in the same quarter — the difference was the brief had been pressure-tested and the role was honest about the next 18 months of work.
CEO UK cleantech · Series B · 2026
What I valued was the partner stayed through the 90-day onboarding. The hire didn't quite land in week six and the partner was on the call to re-shape the role — not selling us the next search.
Managing Director UK industrial group · £24m turnover
/ FAQ / BEFORE YOU REACH OUT

Common questions before retaining.

If the answer isn't here, the conversation is the right venue. We reply personally inside 48 hours.

01 Why retained-only? +
Contingency search is a CV race. Retained means we're paid to run the brief properly — pressure-test, long-cycle outreach, real references, longer shortlist process. Different work, different outcome.
02 What does a retained search cost? +
Retainer in three stages tied to engagement, shortlist, completion. Fees depend on seniority and complexity — pricing confirmed at launch. Quoted at the brief stage. No surprise invoices, no per-hour creep, no contingency hedging.
03 How does A1 Elite differ from A1 Elite Consultancy? +
A1 Elite Consultancy is the recruitment-focused arm — permanent recruitment, contract staffing, payroll, IR35, the full Employment Rights Act 2026 wrap. A1 Elite is the senior retained search practice — founder hire, MD, C-suite, chair, NED. Same operating group, different audiences.
04 How long does a senior search take? +
8-14 weeks from signed brief to offer. Fractional/interim placements are faster (2-4 weeks). Chair / NED searches are network-driven and harder to time precisely — usually 6-10 weeks.
05 Do you replace if a hire doesn't work out? +
Yes. Standard 12-month replacement guarantee on all permanent senior hires. We also stay through the 90-day check-in to surface integration issues early — most of the time the role itself needs re-shaping, not the candidate.
06 What sectors do you cover? +
UK B2B services, SaaS, fintech, cleantech, construction-tech, regulated industries. We turn down mandates outside our operating network rather than learn on a client's dime — we'd rather refer the brief than fake the search.
07 Will I meet the partner, or an associate? +
You meet the partner. There is no associate layer in the practice and no leverage model. The partner is the practice. The research, candidate sourcing, and back-office plumbing is supplied by the ATTOH Tech engineering stack, not by junior researchers.
08 Is the practice accepting new mandates right now? +
Capped client list — twelve active retained mandates at any one time. We open one or two slots per quarter. Reach out anyway; if we can't take the brief immediately, we either keep the conversation open or refer it through the AMAYA partner network.
/ SECTORS / WHERE THE PRACTICE WORKS

Where the practice works.

The practice is sector-agnostic but the operating spine carries patterns. The mandates below are the ones most often signed off in the last six quarters — the shape of the company matters more than the SIC code on file.

Sector 01

UK B2B services

Founder-led services firms between £4m and £30m. Founder MD hire, COO, CFO, chair. The bulk of mandates over the last 18 months.

Bulk of mandates
Sector 02

UK SaaS at break-out

Software businesses crossing £5m ARR — CTO, CFO, CRO. Founder transitions, Series B preparation, exec team rebuild.

£5m+ ARR
Sector 03

Family operating groups

Multi-generational UK groups working through succession, founder-to-professional handover, chair-seat reform. Patience and discretion are the deliverable.

Succession horizon
Sector 04

Owner-managed industrial

Manufacturing, industrial services, specialist trades. Operating MD, COO, NED. The slow, capital-intensive senior hires.

£8m-£40m turnover
Sector 05

Regulated industries

Fintech, healthtech, education, energy. Chair / NED seats where regulatory experience is the rate-limiter. Pulled from operating, not advisory networks.

Regulatory spine
Sector 06

Cleantech · Series B+

Series B and growth-stage UK cleantech. Chair seats, CRO and CFO hires that the next round depends on. Network-driven, sector-experienced shortlists only.

Series B+ stage
/ STAFFING / WHO DOES THE WORK

Senior chair. Industrial back-office.

The practice is intentionally small at the front. The infrastructure that lets a chambers-format search practice work in 2026 sits behind the wall — supplied by the ATTOH Tech engineering stack, not by junior staff.

Front

The partner

One senior partner. Twenty years of UK operating spine. You meet the partner, you stay with the partner. No leverage model and no associate trail.

Senior · always
Plumbing

The research layer

Candidate research, market mapping, comp benchmarks, network surfacing — all driven by the AMAYA Holdings intelligence layer. The partner reads the world without burning client retainer on it.

Behind the wall
Back-office

The discipline

Engagement letters, candidate logs, reference packs, GDPR-clean candidate data handling. The boring infrastructure that makes the discretion stick.

Audited · contracted
Retained executive search · 2026

The senior hire you needed three quarters ago.

A1 Elite places a 20-year operator into the seat beside you — not a contingency CV blast, not a fractional placeholder, just the experience you cannot recruit fast enough.

/ CONTACT / SEND A BRIEF

Two or three lines on the seat. We reply personally within 48 hours.

We work by introduction. If the practice already knows the company or the introducer, that helps — but it's not required. Tell us the seat you're sitting with, or the shape of the company, and we'll come back with whether the brief is a fractional, a retained search, or a chair seat.

NDA-bound from the first call. No follow-up sequence. No procurement theatre.

  • Reply inside 48 hours · personally
  • NDA on file before any operating detail
  • By introduction · capped client list
  • UK · AMAYA brand portfolio
Email hello@a1elite.co.uk →
/ ENQUIRY · SEARCH PICKER

Send the brief.

Two or three lines is enough. We come back with the right route in.

Route

By submitting you agree to a 30-minute first call. NDA-bound. We don't share details with anyone outside AMAYA Holdings.

/ TERMS / HOW WE CONTRACT

The contract under every retained search.

No surprise clauses, no fine print, no auto-renewals. The engagement letter for every retainer sits on the same one-page template.

Term 01

NDA first

Mutual NDA before any operating detail leaves the room. Standard form on file; bespoke on request. We sign before the brief call.

Day one
Term 02

Fixed retainer

Three-stage retainer — engagement, shortlist, completion. Signed at week one. No timesheets, no per-hour creep, no contingency hedging.

Single A4 brief
Term 03

Exclusive mandate

One retained search per seat at a time. We don't run parallel searches against the same role with another firm — and we don't accept briefs that are.

Exclusive · per seat
Term 04

12-month replacement

Standard 12-month replacement on all permanent senior hires. Single fee, no retainer reset, partner stays through the second search.

Standard guarantee
Term 05

Conflict check

Before we accept a brief we run a conflicts check across the active client list. If we cannot take it cleanly, we say so on the first call and route the introduction elsewhere.

First call
Term 06

Candidate discipline

GDPR-clean candidate handling. We don't pass CVs to other clients, we don't run the candidate cold for our own network, and we don't add them to a database for future placement without explicit consent.

GDPR-clean · consent
/ COMMITMENTS / WRITTEN, NOT IMPLIED

What we commit to in writing.

Every retained engagement letter includes these commitments. They are not aspirational — they are part of the contract. Below is the published version of what sits inside the private one.

Promise 01

Single partner

The partner who took the call runs the search to offer. No handover, no associate trail, no rotation. If the partner is at capacity, we decline the brief — we don't pretend we can take it.

No handover
Promise 02

One retained client per seat

We don't run parallel searches against the same role for two different clients. The exclusivity runs both ways — and it is what makes the brief work cleanly.

Exclusive · both ways
Promise 03

Five-name shortlist

Three to five fully-referenced candidates. Not 20 CVs. Each candidate has been spoken to about the role, the company, and the compensation frame before they appear on the shortlist.

3-5 names · referenced
/ BRIEF / WHAT A GOOD BRIEF LOOKS LIKE

What a good brief looks like.

The shape of the brief drives the shape of the shortlist. Half the work is done before the search opens. Below is the format we sign off in week one — single A4, written by the partner, agreed by the founder.

Brief 01

Company phase

One paragraph on where the company actually is — revenue, profitability, the next 18 months of operating decisions. Not the pitch-deck version, the founder-on-Wednesday-morning version.

100 words · plain English
Brief 02

Operating gap

The work the seat is being hired to do, not the title. What does the company need to be three quarters from now that it cannot be today? What's the founder stepping away from? What's the new hire stepping into?

The seat as work · not title
Brief 03

Success bar

The signed measurable outcome at six and twelve months. Specific to the company and the seat — not a generic JD checklist. Pressure-tested with two reference operators inside the network.

Signed · two reference checks
Brief 04

Compensation frame

Base, variable, equity, deal-on-exit. Calibrated against UK comparables we have actually placed against. No surprises at offer stage.

UK comp benchmarks
Brief 05

Process shape

Who interviews, when, and in what order. Time-windowed so we don't lose candidates to a slow board. Decision-maker named on day one.

Calendar-locked
Brief 06

Onboarding plan

What the first 90 days actually look like. Where the new hire's permission sits, who they report to, what they're allowed to change in their first quarter. Written before offer.

First 90 days · written
/ GROUP / SISTER PRACTICES INSIDE AMAYA

Inside the AMAYA Holdings operating group.

A1 Elite sits inside AMAYA Holdings — a private UK operating group that runs strategic counsel, formations, engineering and white-label professional services off a shared spine. Each surface keeps its own brand, audience, and partner; the back-office is shared.

Sister 01

A1 Elite Consultancy

The recruitment-focused arm — permanent recruitment, contract staffing, payroll, IR35, Employment Rights Act 2026 wrap. Volume practice; A1 Elite is the senior practice.

a1eliteconsultancy.co.uk →
Sister 02

Supreme Advisory

Private advisory practice for UK operating companies — capital structure, exit thesis, growth architecture, embedded chair. By introduction only.

supremeadvisory.co.uk →
Sister 03

ATTOH Tech · engineering

The build studio supplying the engineering core under every group surface. Snap suite, Forge line, agent fleet, MCP server. The plumbing the chambers-format runs on.

attoh.tech →
/ REFERENCE / INSIDE THE AMAYA INFRASTRUCTURE

Inside the AMAYA group infrastructure.

Sector intelligence, live client work, and design references from across the ATTOH Digital flagship — the shared infrastructure behind every brand in the group.

/ DISCRETION / WHAT WE WILL NEVER PUBLISH

Candidate names, client names, sector specifics of any active search, or the existence of a current retained mandate. The reference library above is for general design and intelligence references only — the operating practice itself stays off the public record.

If you are coming to us as a potential client, you will see the reference work most relevant to your brief, under NDA, after the first call. That is the shape of a private practice — and it is the shape A1 Elite will keep.