After 20 years of building a tremendously successful Executive Search firm, in our 2026 strategy we have decided to add an Interim capability to 6 Group’s business.
Why?
After all, Interim search is a fundamentally different process and value proposition than the permanent-based Executive Search we come from.
The answer is VUCA. In case you haven’t heard of VUCA before, it’s an acronym that stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity and describes the state of the geopolitical and therefore of the business world – not just in 2026 but for the past half-decade or so. Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic, the one predictable constant in the external market has been that, effectively, there is no constant. The result of this is increased caution in executive hiring, because decision makers don’t know whether the leader they are employing today still brings the right skillset tomorrow.
Volatility
Uncertainty
Complexity
Ambiguity
Interim helps to manage those risk profiles, as businesses have control of contract lengths and can choose from a market of different options. On the side of the Interim leader, they also manage their own risk more closely, again because of the defined time frames of their engagements. While a permanent move risks the new job to be swallowed up by the VUCA world at any point in the future, Interim mandates do not quite carry that ambiguity.
There are a multitude of variables and analysis points to the Interim world, many of which I will examine over the coming weeks and months. Coming into the launch and early stages of 6 Group Interim, however, it is important to set out our “why”.