Core capabilities
Key appointments we deliver include:
- Chief Executive Officer
- Private Equity Portfolio CEO
- First-Time CEO & Operator Leader
- Executive Chair / Founder Successor
The Essenta difference
Why Essenta?
Delivering CEO Executive Search across B2B and B2C markets, Essenta bridges institutional depth with agile precision.
Deep functional expertise
We appoint chief executives across every ownership model and business situation, from portfolio value creation to founder succession, publicly listed, multinationals and turnaround, and understand how the demands of the seat shift with each.
Global talent networks
Operating from London and New York, connecting clients with broad, diverse leadership talent across global markets.
Proprietary Discovery Process
Utilizing Essenta Discovery® to deliver objective behavioural data on every candidate.
Context-led Assessment
Evaluating situational fit, adaptability, and time-to-productivity to predict real-world leadership impact.
Related experts
The team behind our CEO solutions
James Howells
CEO and Founding Partner
London
David Purcell
Senior Partner, B2B
B2B
London
Katriona Windsor
Partner, Consumer
B2C
London
Isobel Stevenson
Consultant, Consumer
B2C
London
Sebastien Cavanagh
Senior Partner, Consumer
B2C
London
Fred Watkinson
Consultant, B2B
B2B
London
Elizabeth Reynolds
Executive Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer
Central Operations
London
Connect with James 
Email James Professional overview
James is the founder and CEO of Essenta.
He built the firm on a clear conviction: exceptional leadership creates lasting value, and the best leadership decisions combine commercial rigour with a deep understanding of people.
With more than 30 years in Executive Search and Leadership Advisory, he works closely with private equity investors, boards and senior leadership teams to help ambitious organizations hire, lead and grow with confidence. He advises on critical leadership appointments, executive assessment and the development of high-performing teams, bringing candour, commercial judgment and a highly personal approach to every relationship.
Since founding the firm in 2016, James has set Essenta’s global strategy and continues to drive the development of its integrated leadership proposition, while staying closely involved with key clients and senior-level mandates.
Personal perspective
The strongest Advisory relationships are built on trust, candour and genuine personal commitment. Clients should feel that their adviser understands not only the appointment or the immediate challenge, but the organization’s ambitions, context and culture.
Leadership decisions have consequences that reach far beyond the person being appointed. I want to help clients make them with clarity and confidence, combining rigorous assessment and commercial judgment with a real understanding of people and what helps them succeed. That has been the goal of Essenta since day one, and I’m proud of how far we’ve come in delivering it.
Professional overview
David Purcell is a Senior Partner at Essenta, where he leads the firm’s B2B practice. He advises private equity investors and their portfolio companies on senior leadership appointments across business and professional services, particularly when a business is growing, transforming, expanding internationally or changing hands.
Working across Essenta’s London and New York teams, David works closely with investors, boards and management teams to pin down the leadership needed to deliver their ambitions, from CEO and C-suite appointments to wider senior teams. His work spans multiple geographies and ownership structures, with a particular focus on private equity-backed businesses.
David has built his career in Executive Search, specializing in B2B services and senior leadership within private equity-backed and listed businesses. He has advised investors, boards and management teams on appointments across a range of business services sectors and geographies. Along the way, he has built a deep network of senior executives and a clear understanding of what leadership looks like at different stages of growth and transformation.
Personal perspective
A great CV is only the starting point. The real question is whether someone has the experience, mindset and leadership style to deliver what the business needs next. I enjoy working closely with clients to get under the skin of their situation, then bringing a clear, well-informed view of the market and the people who can make a difference.
Professional overview
Scaling, transforming, going digital: Katriona works with consumer businesses at the moments when leadership matters most. As a Partner at Essenta, she works with boards, investors and management teams across private equity-backed, growth equity and publicly listed businesses, finding exceptional leaders for ambitious organizations in complex, high-growth and transformational environments.
Her work spans consumer, consumer technology and consumer services, with a keen focus on leadership teams driving scale, digital growth and value creation. She advises on executive and non-executive appointments, bringing deep sector knowledge and a rigorous understanding of what sustains performance. Katriona’s approach is pragmatic. She takes time to understand the business, its context and the leadership it needs for its next phase.
Before joining Essenta, Katriona spent 17 years in specialist, boutique environments, building deep expertise in Executive Search and the consumer sector. Most recently she spent three years at Founders Keepers, the Executive Search arm of Founders Forum, advising investor-backed businesses on board appointments. Before that, she spent 14 years at The Talent Business, where she led the European Executive Search business, working with consumer and creative-led organizations on senior leadership appointments.
She began her career in client services at Havas and McCann Erickson, which gave her an early grounding in consumer brands and the commercial and creative dynamics that shape them. That mix of sector knowledge and search experience has underpinned her work with boards, investors and management teams ever since.
Personal perspective
The best leadership appointments come from understanding what a business will need in the future, as well as what it needs today. I take the time to sink my teeth into an organization’s context, ambitions and culture, and I’m candid with both clients and candidates about what it will take to succeed. The aim is always a thoughtful, well-informed appointment that works for the business and the individual over the long term.
Professional overview
Thirteen years in search, across the UK, US and APAC, have taught Isobel to recognize a business at its most critical turning point. She partners with ambitious companies as they grow or transform, working as a key member within Essenta’s B2C team. Isobel runs the delivery of searches for listed, investor-backed and privately held organizations across a broad range of consumer industries and services.
Isobel joined Essenta in 2026. She began her career in London, in the Financial Officers practices at Eton Bridge and Blackwood, then spent four years working overseas before returning to the UK.
Personal perspective
No leader is one trait wide, so no assessment should be either. I aim to bring together the tangible, quantifiable side of a leader’s skills and the more qualitative, behavioural insights, so our clients get a true picture of the impact that person could have in their organization.
Professional overview
Seb has spent more than 25 years helping consumer organizations build their boards and management teams. A member of Essenta’s Senior Leadership team, he co-heads its Consumer divisions and is responsible for building the firm’s reputation across consumer industries in North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific.
He is also closely involved in developing Essenta’s broader offering, including Assessment, Advisory, Interim and referencing. Seb’s time is split equally between publicly listed and private capital-backed businesses, which gives him a clear sense of what each requires, separately or together.
Having worked globally for most of his career, Seb has supported organizations and investors with both domestic and international growth ambitions. His clients range from public companies to private equity-backed businesses building towards secondary, tertiary and IPO capital events.
Personal perspective
A strong leader creates followership. A healthy balance of EQ and IQ builds the trust and loyalty at the heart of high-performing teams, and finding and qualifying those teams is what motivates me. That’s why executive referencing is now so focused on those qualities, particularly when growth and transformation sit at the heart of a business’s strategy.
Professional overview
Fred works with a diverse range of clients across Essenta’s business services practice and beyond, leading complex Executive Searches with a particular focus on general management, commercial, and operational leadership roles.
He typically partners with organizations that want to unlock growth or deliver a challenging turnaround through strategic senior appointments, often amid transformation and change.
Fred’s built a strong reputation of finishing what others struggle to. Where a previous mandate with another search firm failed to produce an appointment, he has successfully delivered the search, bringing a fresh perspective and a focused, outcome-driven approach.
Fred began his career at JCA Group (later acquired by Heidrick & Struggles), where he helped grow the scale and reputation of the Non-Executive Director practice and worked with a broad range of FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 clients across sectors. He went on to work in Egon Zehnder’s Consumer Practice in London, then led Vodafone Group’s international in-house executive recruitment team, which gave him a view of search from the client’s side of the table.
Personal perspective
Executive Search is often treated like a magic trick, too complex and mysterious to show clients. We’d rather show our workings. It’s a process that succeeds through mutual trust and understanding between client and consultant. The rest is creative thinking and communication, shaped by broader insight, experience and muscle memory, and a disciplined, tenacious approach.
Essenta keeps growing with one eye on how we can add the most value for clients. That mirrors our clients’ own value creation journeys, and it shapes partnerships built on shared ambition, intentionality and trust.
Elizabeth Reynolds
Executive Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer
Professional overview
As Executive Assistant to Essenta’s CEO, Elizabeth is the linchpin of his day-to-day, and the key point of contact for anyone who meets or works with him across the UK and US. She runs a complex international diary, coordinates travel and meetings, and helps him balance client, leadership, and business priorities.
Elizabeth has built broad experience in executive support, administration and stakeholder coordination over the years, working with senior leaders in demanding, fast-paced environments. She has become an expert at managing complex schedules, and handling confidential information with discretion.
Personal perspective
Trust and a real understanding of the person you’re supporting: that’s where all good Executive support starts.
I anticipate what’s needed, communicate clearly, and keep every interaction simple and professional. This experience underpins the calm, responsive support I give Essenta’s CEO today, allowing him the time and focus for what matters most: the firm’s clients, its people, and its strategic priorities.
Let’s build your next leadership team
Tell us what the business needs to achieve. We will give you an honest read on the leadership challenge in front of you, and how you should approach it.