One-to-one executive session
Executive Focus Session
£245 · One subject · Prepaid
The counteroffer arrived this morning and you have until Friday. A pitch deck goes in front of investors on Thursday and nobody around you will read it with a hostile eye. Something in the numbers on the deal bothers you and you cannot yet say what. Or you have rehearsed the resignation conversation for six weeks and it still comes out wrong.
One subject, urgent, and nowhere to take it. That is the real problem, and it gets worse the more senior you are. You cannot walk an issue like this down to middle management. Your peers have interests of their own. And everyone above you, where anyone is above you, has a stake in the outcome, so nobody gives you a clean read. Meanwhile across whatever table you are facing sits somebody who does this monthly, while you have done it perhaps six times in a career.
This session puts forty-five minutes of directed, senior-level pressure on the one thing that is actually keeping you stuck. It does not have to be a career subject. It has to be one subject.
Pre-paid · One subject · Diary access immediately after checkout
45min
Directed session
30,000
Hours board-level negotiation
10,000
Hours executive coaching
24hr
Keynote delivered
How it works
One subject, three components
01
Before the call
Preparation
You brief the subject in writing when you book. Mark Ross reads the context before the call and arrives with a working position rather than a blank page.
02
Forty-five minutes
The session
One subject, no preamble. Your position gets pressure-tested against how the other side of the table is likely to think, whether that side is an employer, a board, an investor or a buyer.
03
Within twenty-four hours
The keynote
After the call he writes up what was decided: the actions and the specific language to use, delivered inside twenty-four hours. You leave with something you can deploy, in writing.
£245, fully prepaid before the session begins
In the room
What people bring to these
The subjects fall into two broad categories.
A
Career
A counteroffer with a Friday deadline. The resignation conversation you have been rehearsing since May. A package that is right on salary and silent on authority. An offer in your inbox that feels wrong for reasons you cannot yet name. On the counteroffer alone the evidence is uncomfortable: the CIPD found in 2023 that forty per cent of UK employers had made one in the previous twelve months, and fewer than half believed it would keep the person past a year.
B
Financial: pitching, funding and M&A-type work
A board or investor deck that needs one hostile read before it goes in the room. A funding round where the structure needs a second brain before you sign it. A deal or cash problem where the obvious answer is wrong. A crisis that landed this week and has to be answered before you have had time to think. A problem you can sense in the business and cannot yet evidence, so you cannot yet raise it.
And sometimes the subject inside either category is confidence itself: you already know the answer and cannot make yourself act on it, and what you need is somebody senior to test the judgement and confirm it holds.
Some clients book this as their first piece of work with Headhunters International. Others have completed an Executive CV Diagnostic and want time on one specific dimension. If we have already worked together, there is no need to re-brief. We pick up where precision is still needed.
Source · CIPD Labour Market Outlook, summer 2023, YouGov survey of 2,003 UK employers.
Who runs these sessions
Mark Ross
Mark Ross founded Headhunters International after a dual career, and the session works because of both halves of it. Thirty years in international headhunting, running the employer's side of senior appointments across sectors and across borders, which is the ground under every career subject that arrives. And alongside it, high-level negotiation in mergers and acquisitions: 30,000 hours at board and shareholder level, across all sectors rather than one specialism, and that is what sits under the financial half. Whichever category your subject falls into, he has argued the same ground from the other side of the table, at levels where the numbers are large and the rooms are small.
Then 10,000 hours coaching senior professionals through exactly the kind of moment you are preparing for.
The commercial grounding is formal as well as practical. He holds the Financial Modeling and Valuation Analyst and Commercial Banking and Credit Analyst credentials from the Corporate Finance Institute, has completed the Wharton Executive Education programmes in Executive Presence and Leadership and in Neuroscience in Leadership, and carries a Harvard Medical School credential in coaching.
He is also the only person in the conversation with no stake in your outcome, which is the thing your position cannot supply at any price. Sessions are confidential and nothing leaves the room. What you are buying, underneath the subject, is somebody you can trust with it.
Who this is for
Senior, specific, already framed
This is for the senior professional who already knows what the subject is and wants structured, expert input on handling it. Career or commercial, either qualifies.
The more senior the chair, the fewer places a problem like this can go. A chief executive cannot rehearse a board crisis with the people who report to him, and cannot always trust the ones who do not. What this session supplies is the thing that position cannot: a view from somebody with no stake in your outcome, who will tell you the truth about it. The session ends with the solution, and the keynote puts it in writing inside twenty-four hours.
What does not fit is a subject still forming: for that, a discovery call is the right first step and costs nothing. And a live selection process, longlist to offer, is a larger engagement than any single session can honestly carry, and I will say so on the call rather than sell you forty-five minutes against it.
Investment
One topic. Senior-level time. Prepaid.
Prepaid
Focus Session
£245
Forty-five minutes of senior-level counsel on one subject.
- Structured preparation by Mark Ross before the call
- Forty-five minutes directed session on Zoom
- Written keynote delivered within twenty-four hours
You are buying time with someone who has spent 30,000 hours in board-level negotiation and 10,000 hours coaching senior professionals. The session tests your position against how the other side actually thinks, before you walk into the room where it counts.
Questions
Before you book
What subjects can I bring?
Any single subject that benefits from senior, impartial input. Half of what arrives is career: a counteroffer, a resignation conversation, a package that needs pressure-testing. The other half is commercial: a deck that needs a hostile read before it goes in front of investors, a deal or cash problem that needs a second brain, a crisis that has to be answered this week, a problem you can sense in the business and cannot yet evidence. The one rule is one subject per session.
Is this career coaching?
No. Coaching runs over a programme and works broadly. This is forty-five minutes of directed work on one named subject, with structured preparation before it and a written keynote after it. If what you need is a programme, that is a different conversation and Mark Ross will say so rather than sell you a session against it.
What happens after I book?
You get diary access immediately after checkout and you brief the subject in writing when you book. Mark Ross reads the context before the call and arrives with a working position. The session runs on Zoom, screen-shared where the subject needs it.
What do I get in writing?
A keynote document, delivered within twenty-four hours of the call. It is a distillation of what was decided: the actions to take and the specific language to use. You can deploy it as it stands.
Is it confidential?
Completely. Nothing leaves the room, nothing is shared, and no record of the subject exists outside the session and your keynote. Most people who book this are bringing something they cannot raise inside their own organisation, and the session is built on that assumption.
What if one session is not enough?
Some subjects are bigger than forty-five minutes and Mark Ross will tell you so on the call rather than let you buy the wrong instrument. Some clients book a further session on a different subject. If we have already worked together there is no need to re-brief; we pick up where precision is still needed.
Who runs the Executive Focus Session?
Mark Ross Roberts, the founder of Headhunters International, and every session is run by him personally. His background is a dual career: thirty years in international headhunting on the employer's side of senior appointments, and high-level negotiation in mergers and acquisitions at board and shareholder level. Whichever category your subject falls into, he has argued the same ground from the other side of the table.
How much does an Executive Focus Session cost?
£245, prepaid at booking. That buys structured preparation before the call and a forty-five minute directed session on one subject. A written keynote with the resolution in it follows within twenty-four hours. There are no tiers and nothing sold inside the session.
Should I accept a counteroffer?
The evidence is worth knowing before anything else: the CIPD found in 2023 that forty per cent of UK employers had made a counteroffer in the previous twelve months, and fewer than half believed it would keep the person past a year. In a session Mark Ross breaks down what the counteroffer actually means, for you and for your future career: why it was made, what it changes about your standing, and what accepting or declining does to the years that follow. You make the decision with the whole of it priced, before the deadline forces an answer.
Can someone review my pitch deck before it goes in front of investors?
Yes, and it is one of the commonest financial subjects people bring. Mark Ross reads the deck before the call and gives it the hostile read an investor will give it. The grounding is 30,000 hours of mergers and acquisitions negotiation at board and shareholder level, alongside the Financial Modeling and Valuation Analyst and Commercial Banking and Credit Analyst credentials from the Corporate Finance Institute. You leave with the weaknesses named and a written keynote setting out what to change.
Do I need to be looking for a new job to book a session?
No. Half of what arrives is career and half is commercial: funding, a deal, a crisis, a problem you can sense in the business and cannot yet evidence. The session is for any single subject where a senior, impartial view changes the decision, whether you are in post or between roles.
How quickly can I get a session?
Quickly, because the subjects that arrive are usually urgent. Diary access opens immediately after checkout and you choose the earliest slot that works. The written brief you supply at booking means the preparation starts before the call rather than inside it.
Get started
One subject. Forty-five minutes.
£245
Not certain your subject fits? Email ross@headhunters-international.com and say what it is. One line is enough, and if it is not right for you, I will tell you that too.
100% confidential · Secured by Stripe · Diary access immediately after checkout