Russell Reynolds Associates review — Big Five firm with the published scale figures

RRA is particularly strong in Financial Services and regulated-industry board and C-suite appointments. For UK banks, asset managers, insurers, and FCA-regulated firms running senior leadership searches, RRA is regularly on the shortlist of firms most boards will at least take a meeting with.

The firm's published industries are deliberately concentrated rather than broad — 11 named industries versus Korn Ferry's 50+ — and the firm leans into being a focused practitioner rather than a one-stop consulting platform. That makes it a sensible choice when you want a search firm rather than a consulting firm.

RRA is also the Big Five firm most likely to surface board diversity and board assessment as named practice areas. For boards running formal effectiveness reviews or NED searches with a structured diversity dimension, RRA is a natural fit.

If your brief is sub-FTSE 250 / sub-£100k role / non-permanent, the Big-Five economics caveats apply: a £60–£200k retained fee on a £200k role is by design out of reach for early-stage or growth-stage companies.

RRA is also a focused executive search firm, not a leadership-development or organisation-design consulting business. If you want one provider to wrap leadership development, total rewards, or organisation strategy around the search, Korn Ferry is the more obvious Big Five choice.

For defined-phase senior capability — interim cover, fractional leadership, project-based senior work — a retained search is structurally the wrong tool.

RRA does what it does very well, and that thing is permanent C-suite and board appointments at FTSE 250 + scale. It is not designed for, and does not try to compete for, the defined-phase senior work that fractional executives fill.

A growth-stage UK fintech bridging a Series B with an interim CFO; a portfolio company turning around with an interim COO for 9 months; a scale-up running marketing through a fractional CMO two days a week — none of these are wrong, they are simply not the brief RRA's retained engagement is built to serve.

The honest test: are you buying a multi-year permanent appointment, or are you buying senior capability for a defined phase? Match the tool to the question.