About Us
At ECB Star, we are a team of dedicated professionals passionate about using our personalized approach, deep expertise, and commitment to excellence to connect exceptional talent with transformative opportunities.
At the core of everything we do is a belief in the power of collaboration and the impact of aligned leadership.
ECB Star goes beyond traditional search practices, leveraging data-driven insights and a vast executive network to curate leadership teams that drive value creation and shape the future of their organizations.
Our Private Equity Pre-Deal practice represents exactly what ECB stands for; thinking ahead, acting with intent, and helping our clients create value from the very start of the investment lifecycle.
The Role - Pre-Deal Advisory
At ECB Star, our dedicated Pre-Deal Support team collaborates with investors all the way from early market coverage, through to deal execution, and onwards into portfolio hiring.
We understand that for the best investors identifying, accessing, and assessing business leaders and advisors is not something that needs to happen only once a business has been acquired. We believe that better decisions and better outcomes come from partnering with the best leadership teams and industry advisors both pre-deal and post-deal.
We employ a proven methodology to bring the rigour and quality of executive search to the curation of high impact collaboration between the very best executives and private capital firms, pre-deal and onwards. These introductions lead to everything from investment opportunities, consulting assignments, through to non-executive board appointments, and senior leadership roles.
ECB Star support our private equity client base across the following key areas:
* Pre-Deal Executive Network Building: whether a specific deal situation or exploration of opportunities across a broader subsector thematic, we support private capital to identify, vet, and secure highly impactful senior industry relationships who can provide angles and expert knowledge on a proposed transaction.
* Target Mapping & Management Access: we help investors originate opportunities and build trusted access to leadership teams of potential targets – where early relationship building improves positioning and increases the likelihood of securing deals.
* Pre-Deal Leadership Assessment: we provide a discrete and independent pre-deal evaluation of target management teams to help de-risk decisions and sharpen post-investment planning.
* Management Optimization: identification of and introduction to potential ‘buy-in’ C-suite and NED candidates / mapping of available talent pool prior to deal closing – enabling rapid implementation of value creation plans.
Key Responsibilities
Successful candidates will be key members of the newly established Pre-Deal Support team with a broad range of responsibilities; collaborating across the full spectrum of mandates to support the Practice Leader from delivery through to business development activities. This will include and not limited to:
* Identifying, contacting, interviewing and selecting business leaders (senior executives, NEDs, CEOs, entrepreneurs and founders) in order to connect them to clients for interactions around high-conviction deal situations.
* Ensure first-class documentation, support and administration. Create high-quality documentation (using PowerPoint, etc.) to capture and collate our insights from research in a compelling and digestible format (e.g. market mapping, market intelligence presentation, etc.).
* Regular engagement with senior members of PE deal teams, coordinating and delivering updates on projects and discussing other upcoming investment opportunities.
Desirable Characteristics & Behaviours
* High academic achievement strongly preferred
* European language (French / German / Italian / Spanish) desired but not essential
* Some degree of exposure to private markets / private equity clients will be considered preferable
* Demonstrated track record of ability to communicate with the most senior stakeholders (C-level and Board-level candidates) will be considered preferable
* Intellectually agile / curious
* Detail orientated / zero-defect mindset
* Autonomy / self-motivation
We offer a fully comprehensive benefits & incentive package, social events and flexible working.