Right first time
We go deeper than a standard Executive Search process, evaluating potential, context and culture so you can appoint leaders who perform today and succeed tomorrow.
Leadership solutions
Executive Search built for what’s next
The Essenta Difference
Why Essenta?
Great leadership appointments are built on more than experience and credentials. Our integrated approach combines Executive Search, Assessment and Advisory expertise to create a complete view of the opportunity, ensuring the right leaders are identified, aligned and positioned to succeed.
Senior-led delivery
Senior partners stay close from the first conversation to the final decision, backed by deep international networks and real market insight.
Objective insight
Our proprietary Discovery Process® allows you to make confident hiring decisions with an objective view into capability, readiness, value fit and behaviours.
Here for the long term
78% of our clients return to work with us again, because leadership needs evolve as businesses grow. By understanding their ambitions, challenges and changing priorities, we continue to provide the insight and support needed at every stage of the business lifecycle.
Right first time
Senior-led delivery
Objective insight
Here for the long term
Case Studies
Proven lasting impact
Discover how our personalized approach to Executive Search has helped high-growth businesses and private equity firms appoint leaders through moments of major change.
Building LIPTON Teas and Infusions’ C-suite & functional leadership across three continents
Read More
Integrated
Our Integrated Services
Better leadership starts with better questions
Our Search, Interim and Advisory experts work together closely, bringing continuity, context and accurate judgement to every stage of the relationship. That means faster, better-informed decisions, the right expertise when you need it, and leadership solutions that are tailored to your unique needs.
View serviceInterim Leadership
Our Interim Leadership Services
Interim leadership that leaves a legacy
Essenta places Interim leadership at pace to protect momentum through transformation and change. Expert Interim management delivered with lasting impact.
View serviceLeadership Advisory
Our Leadership Advisory Services
Leadership Advisory for what comes next
Essenta builds stronger leadership through senior-led Advisory, assessment, and succession planning. Integrated consulting that creates a lasting advantage.
View service
James Howells
CEO and Founding Partner
London
Nick Gribbon
Senior Partner, Financial Officers
Financial Officers
Private Capital Funds
London
David Purcell
Senior Partner, B2B
B2B
London
Sebastien Cavanagh
Senior Partner, Consumer
B2C
London
Nanda Veldink
Senior Partner, Consumer
B2C
London
Michelle DesChenes
Partner, North America
HR
Boston
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
Over his career, Nick has partnered with more than 50 private equity funds, from lower mid-market to large-cap, to place the finance leaders who make a difference. Nick specializes in private equity CFO search and he leads Essenta’s Financial Officers and Private Capital Funds Practice and is widely recognized as a market-leading Executive Search specialist in his field, with over 25 years of experience.
Nick advises private equity investors and their portfolio companies on critical CFO and senior finance appointments across the UK, EU and US. He supports clients at every stage of the investment cycle, from pre-deal evaluation and talent pipeline building, through post-completion leadership alignment and mid-cycle growth and transformation hiring, to positioning the CFO before an exit for maximum value.
Before joining Essenta in 2022, he developed his expertise at Russell Reynolds and Heidrick & Struggles. He then spent a significant part of his career at Blackwood Group, where he led the CFO practice.
Personal perspective
Senior leadership appointments are business-critical milestones, and when the stakes are high for both the organization and the candidates, treating search as a standard hiring workflow is never enough. My team and I act as trusted, hands-on advisers throughout the process, guided by personal accountability, collaboration and integrity, and we stay deeply engaged at every stage. We are meticulous about the details clients rarely see, because that is where quality is built, long before a shortlist is presented.
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
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
As a Senior Partner at Essenta, Nanda co-leads its global B2C practice, advising listed, privately owned and private equity-backed businesses on senior leadership appointments and broader talent matters. Her work spans health and beauty, CPG and FMCG, retail, lifestyle, luxury and fashion, across Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia.
Nanda has lived and worked in eight countries, including Singapore, the Middle East and the UK, and now divides her time between London and New York. The result is a culturally fluent, international perspective.
Clients value how closely Nanda listens, how well she understands their context and culture, and the care and credibility with which she represents their brand in the market. She also draws on the full breadth of Essenta’s unified talent offering to meet their evolving leadership needs and help build stronger, future-ready organizations.
Nanda has more than 15 years’ experience in Executive Search, and she specializes in complex, cross-border consumer appointments and has a strong record of challenging conventional talent assumptions to find diverse and unexpected leaders. Her international experience helps her read local nuance within a global context, and advise clients with both cultural sensitivity and commercial rigour.
Personal perspective
The best outcomes are co-created, and the real work is listening with curiosity to understand the business, its culture and context, where it wants to go and what leadership it will need to get there. That takes being personally invested, agile and creative, whether we’re shaping a role before it formally exists, benchmarking the market, assessing leadership or running an unconventional search.
I want clients to experience us as a trusted extension of their team: honest in our advice, committed to quality and able to represent their brand with real conviction. Understanding both the immediate need and where the organization is heading means we can find not just an impressive candidate, but the right leaders to close critical gaps and deliver its ambitions.
Professional overview
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.
Personal perspective
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.
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.