Summary
Jordan Brugg’s story is not a typical executive-search career story. Instead of moving across firms, he built his career inside Spencer Stuart, growing through offices, practices, service lines, private equity, CEO succession, and eventually into the CEO role. In this conversation with Fahad Jalal, Jordan breaks down what makes great executive search firms endure: long-term thinking, collective entrepreneurship, client trust, leadership development, and the ability to align people around ideas before expecting those ideas to scale. The episode also goes deep on private equity, where talent is becoming a bigger lever for value creation as sponsors face more complex markets and tighter execution windows. Jordan explains why PE-backed CEOs need both analog experience and learning agility, why first-time CEOs can be powerful when they stay curious, and why AI’s biggest opportunity is not just individual productivity but rethinking enterprise workflow. The through-line is clear: executive search is becoming more strategic, more data-connected, and more advisory but still deeply human.
Key takeaways
- Jordan’s career shows the power of building long-term inside one firm when the firm keeps giving people room to evolve.
- The strongest executive search firms are not built by lone-wolf producers; they are built through shared culture, trust, and collective entrepreneurship.
- Great ideas inside professional-services firms do not scale automatically. They need communication, alignment, and energy from the broader organization.
- Private equity now needs talent intelligence earlier in the investment lifecycle — before ownership, not just after a leadership gap appears.
- Talent and leadership are becoming bigger levers for PE value creation as returns become harder to generate through financial engineering alone.
- The best PE-backed CEOs need both relevant experience and the agility to adapt when the old playbook does not fit the current context.
- First-time CEOs can be strong precisely because they often bring curiosity, humility, and a willingness to keep learning.
- AI’s biggest opportunity in executive search is not just speeding up tasks; it is connecting data, insight, and workflows across the firm.
Best quotes
- “Talent and leadership is becoming a bigger lever for value creation than ever before.”
- “The need to get the talent equation right, to get the CEO right, is getting exponentially more important.”
- “You’re almost looking for two things at the same time.”
- “Someone who brings analog experience, can speak the same language, can get off to a fast start, but can also be agile and learn and grow in the role.”
- “I genuinely became a student of the clients and candidates that I was working with.”
- “The best ideas don’t get the energy alignment required to be successful.”
- “My thoughts have shifted to changing the work process and fundamentally rethinking workflow.”
About the guest
Jordan Brugg is Chief Executive Officer of Spencer Stuart and serves on the firm’s board. Before becoming CEO, he led Spencer Stuart’s global Private Equity business and previously led the North American Industrial Practice. His work has included CEO search, CEO succession, private equity leadership advisory, and the development of new practices and service areas inside the firm. Spencer Stuart’s profile notes that he has led more than 300 CEO search and CEO succession plans for public and investor-backed companies.
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