Our Functional expertise
David Purcell
Senior Partner, B2B
B2B
London
Fred Watkinson
Consultant, B2B
B2B
London
Sebastien Cavanagh
Senior Partner, Consumer
B2C
London
Isobel Stevenson
Consultant, Consumer
B2C
London
Laurence Frantzis
Senior Partner, Interim, Leadership Advisory and Central Operations
Central Operations
Interim
Leadership Advisory
London
Mike Thomas
Principal, Interim
B2C
London
Geoffrey Arner
Associate Partner
B2B
New York
Michelle DesChenes
Partner, North America
HR
Boston
Joshua Butler
Consultant, B2B
B2B
London
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Senior Partner, Interim, Leadership Advisory and Central Operations
Some businesses need experienced leadership quickly, to steer them through a critical period or deliver a specific outcome. Laurence helps them find it. He leads Essenta’s Interim and Leadership Advisory practices, partnering with private equity-backed businesses and PLCs across the UK, Europe and the US. He advises investors, boards and leadership teams on critical appointments and complex leadership challenges, from transformation, turnaround and value creation to growth and significant organizational change.
Before joining Essenta, Laurence held senior positions at leading Executive Search and Talent Advisory firms, specializing in Executive Interim Management and senior leadership appointments. In a previous role, he played a key part in integrating three complementary service lines, helping shape a more cohesive market proposition across Executive Search, Interim Management and Leadership Advisory. He built significant expertise in manufacturing, FMCG, consumer and healthcare, partnering with PE-backed, privately owned, and listed businesses on senior leadership and transformation mandates.
His work has also been recognized by the Institute of Interim Management, which named him Interim Service Provider Consultant of the Year in 2021.
Experience on paper only gets you so far. What matters is whether someone has the judgement, pace and credibility to operate in the specific environment they’re stepping into. My role is to understand both the business challenge and the individual, and make sure the two genuinely align.
Mike is a Principal in Essenta’s Interim Practice, advising private equity-backed, listed and privately owned businesses on senior Interim leadership appointments across the UK, Europe and the US.
His clients are dealing with leadership gaps, transformation, growth, operational improvement and other business-critical situations, where experienced leaders need to make a difference straight away. Mike starts with the business context, the leadership challenge and the outcome required. He combines market insight with pace and judgement to find experienced leaders who can deliver.
Mike has more than 20 years’ experience in recruitment and Executive Search, advising clients on board and functional leadership appointments across international consumer, CPG, industrial and manufacturing markets.
His clients have ranged from early-stage and private equity-backed businesses to major listed and multinational organizations. Before joining Essenta, he held senior leadership and partnership positions in Executive Search and recruitment, and co-founded and ran his own business.
Integrity sits at the core of how I work. That means being straightforward in my advice, building relationships for the long term and being prepared to give an honest view, even when it isn’t the easiest message to deliver.
In Interim, pace and precision matter. I take a clinical approach to understanding the situation, defining what success looks like and identifying the leadership experience needed to deliver it. The objective is simple: move quickly, apply sound judgement and appoint someone who can make an immediate impact.
As an Associate Partner at Essenta who places senior executives into C-Suite and board roles across B2B services and industrials, Geoff is as interested in the why, as the who. He works with a wide range of financial sponsors, from founders and family offices to global PE firms and corporations, developing talent-centric deal Advisory and due diligence solutions.
A New Yorker by birth, Geoff has lived in Japan and the UK. He studied Philosophy and English Literature at the University of Edinburgh, and spent the first two years of his career on political campaigns before moving into Executive Search, where he has built over 15 years’ experience delivering talent solutions for businesses centred on private capital, and business services.
I think of myself as more of a matchmaker than a recruiter. Qualifications matter, but it ultimately comes down to fit. In any search, you’re asking a successful executive to take a risk and make a change, and it’s easy to forget that people (not CVs) show up to work each day.
Every hiring process is a two-way street, and the best placements are completely aligned with their new companies. To run search well, you can’t just know the candidates, the market, and the business. You have to understand the full context behind “why this role?” and “why now?”
The HR function is changing fast, shaped by emerging technology, shifting workforce expectations and a sharper focus on culture. Michelle helps businesses find the leaders to meet that change. A Partner for North America, she leads human resources at Essenta, advising boards, CEOs and executive leadership teams on critical HR appointments, across North America and Europe.
Her clients span private equity, life sciences, energy, manufacturing, engineering, financial services and consumer goods, from privately held to publicly listed organizations. Working with colleagues, she also supports them with Interim solutions and executive Assessment and Advisory, so they have a full range of expertise as they build and strengthen their leadership teams.
With 20 years of experience placing senior HR leaders, Michelle is known for pairing strategic insight with disciplined execution. As demand grows for top strategic HR leadership, she makes sure each appointment fits a client’s long-term strategy and culture.
HR is one of the most complex and demanding roles in any organization, so listening comes first. I work to understand each client’s unique needs and help them look not only ahead but around the corner at the challenges and objectives facing their business. That means partnering closely with key stakeholders on forward-thinking strategies grounded in best practice, and building relationships on honesty and transparency, so that clients and candidates alike have an excellent experience and the partnership lasts.
Joshua sees Executive Search assignments through from the first brief to the final offer, leading delivery from start to close, including negotiation. He works in the B2B practice, with deep experience in manufacturing and services, for both publicly listed and private capital-backed companies.
His focus is on growth and turnaround, where the leadership challenge may be operational or commercial, and he has particular expertise in general management transitions. Joshua is well versed in helping clients work through ambiguity to find the people who can lead through adversity and deliver results.
Joshua began his career at global Executive Search firm Egon Zehnder, in its Industrial practice. There, he worked across industrial sectors including natural resources, energy, infrastructure and engineering, with a particular focus on manufacturing and B2B services.
He then spent two years away from search, working in sales at AB InBev, the world’s largest brewing company. On returning, he joined Granger Reis as a senior associate, where he built his skills in delivering assignments end to end and gained in-depth experience in the infrastructure and mining sectors.
Honesty, integrity and respect are the bedrock of any successful partnership, whether we’re working with clients or the market. From there, our role is to stay solutions-focused, even when that means constructive challenge or relaying inconvenient truths. Ultimately, we prove our worth as consultants by listening and finding mutually beneficial ways forward that lead to exceptional hires.
The Essenta difference
We combine functional depth, cross-sector insight, and flexible talent application to solve your exact operational challenge.
Specialist coverage across COO, supply chain, procurement, manufacturing, distribution, and operational transformation.
Accessing talent across the UK, Europe, and US, with broad market insight across B2B, Business Services, and Consumer.
An objective Assessment framework focused on track records that deliver measurable performance, transformation, and lasting impact.
Evaluating operational leaders against your specific business dynamics, operating model, and commercial growth ambitions.
Core capabilities
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.
Connect with David 
Email David