Executive career insights, for people who already lead
Elite Insights is the executive publication of Elite Executive Career Solutions. It covers five areas: executive positioning and personal brand, executive career documents, executive search and market access, board and governance, and leadership and transition. Every piece is written by the practice, for readers who already run something.
The newest guide from the desk
Executive Job Search Websites, and the Three Channels They Are Not
Most guides to executive job search websites rank sixteen platforms in one sequence. Four different businesses sit inside that list, and only one of them is entered by applying.
The pillar guides
- The Importance of Personal Branding for Executives
- 10 Executive Interview Questions
- How to Write an Executive CV
- The Executive LinkedIn Guide
- The Executive Job Search Guide
- The Board Readiness Guide
- The Hidden Executive Job Market In preparation
- Executive Career Transitions In preparation
Most recently updated
The Executive Recruitment Scam That No Longer Looks Like a Scam
Generative AI has stripped many of the grammatical errors from recruitment scams.
The Executive LinkedIn Guide
Your LinkedIn profile now does two jobs at once: it helps the market discover you, and it helps the market corroborate you against your CV. What belongs on it, and how to correct it quietly.
Personal Branding for Executives: The Complete Guide for Senior Leaders
Personal branding for executives is the management of a public record that other people are already reading and assessing.
The Executive Job Search Guide
At executive level, job search is a market-access problem rather than an application problem. A two-sided framework for reaching the market, and for being reachable by it.
Your Executive CV Is No Longer Just Read. It Is Interrogated.
On one external route into a senior role, your CV is decomposed into fields, embedded and returned to a recruiter as a match band.
The Board Readiness Guide
Seniority can make an executive credible. It does not automatically make them board-ready.
Why You’re Not Getting Interviews: 7 Executive Job Search Mistakes
If you are not getting interviews, the issue may not be your experience. This executive guide explores seven positioning and job search mistakes that may be limiting interview opportunities.
The Executive Hiring Market Has Entered the Verification Era
No AI hiring law in the European Union, the United States or the United Kingdom requires an employer to check that a candidate is who they say they are.
There Is No Single Hidden List of Executives. That Is Why Visibility Matters More.
The industry's own regulatory filings describe accumulated relationships, assessments and market intelligence. What none of them describes is how a name is produced for a particular search.
The Portfolio Career: Moving Into Advisory, Consulting and Non-Executive Roles
Board fees, interim day rates and the freedom are the parts of a portfolio career that get written about.
CV Misrepresentation: The Governance Risk That Ends Executive Careers
South Africa's qualifications statute carries five years' imprisonment and has produced no publicly reported prosecution.
Executive Pay Equity and Board Diversity: Where the Gap Persists
Two new pay disclosure regimes have arrived in the past twelve weeks, alongside a UK regime nine years old, and not one of the three measures the gap inside the executive committee.
Executive Positioning & Personal Brand
How senior leaders are perceived before anyone reads a document, and how to decide that perception deliberately.The Executive LinkedIn Guide
Your LinkedIn profile now does two jobs at once: it helps the market discover you, and it helps the market corroborate you against your CV. What belongs on it, and how to correct it quietly.
Personal Branding for Executives: The Complete Guide for Senior Leaders
Personal branding for executives is the management of a public record that other people are already reading and assessing.
There Is No Single Hidden List of Executives. That Is Why Visibility Matters More.
The industry's own regulatory filings describe accumulated relationships, assessments and market intelligence. What none of them describes is how a name is produced for a particular search.
Executive Biography vs CV Summary: What Senior Leaders Need and When
An executive biography and a CV professional summary are not two versions of the same paragraph.
Executive Career Documents
The CV, cover letter, biography and portfolio, treated as instruments of argument rather than records of employment.Your Executive CV Is No Longer Just Read. It Is Interrogated.
On one external route into a senior role, your CV is decomposed into fields, embedded and returned to a recruiter as a match band.
How to Write an Executive CV: The Complete 2026 Guide
An executive CV is a document that makes the case for a leader's judgement, not a record of duties held.
What Hiring Boards and Search Committees Actually Read
The employer side of the desk, and the six things a committee looks for in the first ninety seconds of an executive CV.
The Executive Cover Letter, and When It Still Matters
Largely redundant at mid level, and quietly decisive at executive level. What to put in one, and when to send it at all.
Executive Search & Market Access
How senior roles are actually filled, who controls access to them, and how to be visible to the people holding the brief.
Executive Job Search Websites, and the Three Channels They Are Not
Most guides to executive job search websites rank sixteen platforms in one sequence. Four different businesses sit inside that list, and only one of them is entered by applying.
The Executive Recruitment Scam That No Longer Looks Like a Scam
Generative AI has stripped many of the grammatical errors from recruitment scams.
The Executive Job Search Guide
At executive level, job search is a market-access problem rather than an application problem. A two-sided framework for reaching the market, and for being reachable by it.
Why You’re Not Getting Interviews: 7 Executive Job Search Mistakes
If you are not getting interviews, the issue may not be your experience. This executive guide explores seven positioning and job search mistakes that may be limiting interview opportunities.
Board & Governance
Non-executive candidacy, nomination committees and the governance standard that board documentation is held to.The Board Readiness Guide
Seniority can make an executive credible. It does not automatically make them board-ready.
The Portfolio Career: Moving Into Advisory, Consulting and Non-Executive Roles
Board fees, interim day rates and the freedom are the parts of a portfolio career that get written about.
CV Misrepresentation: The Governance Risk That Ends Executive Careers
South Africa's qualifications statute carries five years' imprisonment and has produced no publicly reported prosecution.
Executive Pay Equity and Board Diversity: Where the Gap Persists
Two new pay disclosure regimes have arrived in the past twelve weeks, alongside a UK regime nine years old, and not one of the three measures the gap inside the executive committee.
Leadership & Transition
Moving up, moving across and arriving well. The periods when a career changes shape and the narrative has to keep up.
The Executive Skills Boards Are Hiring For in 2026
Boards appoint against a written specification prepared before any candidate is considered.
Women in Executive Leadership: 10 Strategies for Navigating Transition
Board representation for women has reached record levels in every market measured. The executive line has not moved with it.
The Executive Career Pivot: 7 Strategic Steps
Of the 168 people appointed chief executive of an S&P 1500 company during 2025, 40% were hired from outside the company. In healthcare it was 70%; in financial services 23%.
10 Executive Interview Questions Every Senior Leader Should Prepare For
Executive interview questions are the visible surface of a structured assessment.
Published to the same standard as the work itself
Elite Insights exists to be useful to people who already know their field. We publish selectively, research deeply, challenge easy assumptions and write for decisions rather than traffic.
Useful before publishable. We only commission subjects we believe can materially help a senior leader think, decide, prepare or act. If an article adds nothing beyond what is already easy to find, we do not publish it.
Written for experienced readers. We assume competence. We do not explain what a CV is, define leadership for a chief executive, or dilute an argument simply to make it universal. The reader is assumed to be running something.
Evidence before assertion. Material claims are traced to primary or authoritative sources wherever possible. Statistics are attributed and dated, assumptions are identified, and uncertainty is stated rather than written around.
The argument must survive challenge. We look for counter-evidence, exceptions and the strongest reasonable objection before publication. A useful conclusion should still stand after the obvious challenge has been made.
Confidentiality before content. Client matters are never used for colour at the client's expense. Examples are anonymised or composited, identifying details are removed, and confidential work stays confidential.
Updated when the evidence changes. Our articles are not treated as permanent simply because they have been published. Material changes in regulation, hiring practice, technology or evidence trigger review and correction.
Two further libraries, for different readers
Elite Insights is written for established leaders. If you are here on behalf of an organisation, or building toward your first leadership role, the material you want is published separately.
Corporate Resources
Bids and tenders, outplacement and workforce transition, leadership visibility, and employer brand. Written for bid managers, HR directors and communications leads rather than for candidates.
Smart CV Guides
Practical, plainer guidance for professionals building toward leadership, published alongside Smart CV Builder. The same positioning intelligence, pitched for an earlier stage.
Reading about positioning is not the same as having been positioned
Our practice does this work for a living: executive CVs and cover letters, LinkedIn, biographies, portfolios, board packs, positioning strategy and interview preparation. Professionally written, completely confidential, and handled with the discretion a career of consequence demands.