By Christopher ED Graham FCIPD, ACTP As protests, riots and political uncertainty continue to unsettle France, international financial institutions, consulting firms and fintech businesses face a broader question: can Paris compete for capital, investment and the senior leadership needed to build successful international operations? Burning vehicles, smashed shopfronts, looted businesses and riot police on the streets. Once again, France is making international headlines for

By Christopher ED Graham FCIPD, ACTP Ryan wants 100 more Partners across the UK and Europe. Grant Thornton has already announced more than 100 appointments this year. KPMG is rebuilding its restructuring business. The competition for commercial leadership is intensifying, but the strategies behind these moves tell a more interesting story. The consulting industry has spent much of the past few years discussing cost reduction, artificial intelligence, changing client expectati

By Christopher E.D. Graham FCIPD, ACTP Hong Kong Is Growing Again. So Where Are the Jobs? Hong Kong Q4 2026 | Financial Services, Talent and Leadership Hong Kong has developed an interesting ability to make apparently contradictory economic statistics sit quite comfortably beside one another. Unemployment is rising. Private-sector vacancies are falling. Professional-services vacancies are down by double digits. At the same time, Hong Kong has just completed its strongest firs

By Christopher ED Graham FCIPD, ACTP - CGC An internal talent acquisition team with 100,000 CVs in its applicant tracking system ought to have a head start when a senior vacancy opens. At least, that is what the hiring manager reasonably assumes. The difficulty is that the system may tell the team far more about previous recruitment processes than about the people it now needs to find. The understandable response from a chief executive, CFO or HR director is often: “Surely we

By Christopher ED Graham FCIPD, ACTP There is a growing argument that artificial intelligence will not eliminate entry-level careers so much as improve them. AI will take over the repetitive work, junior employees will move more quickly into interpretation and decision-making, and organizations will develop capable professionals faster than before. It is an appealing idea. It is also based on a questionable understanding of how professional judgment develops. The routine work

By Christopher ED Graham FCIPD, ACTP There is a persistent idea in recruitment that the best candidates are not looking for a job. Passive candidates are often portrayed as more desirable because they are already employed, more successful because another organisation values them, more loyal because they are not actively searching and somehow lower risk because they are already doing a similar job somewhere else. Active candidates can find themselves viewed rather differently,

By Christopher ED Graham FCIPD, ACTP If Everyone Has LinkedIn, Why Do Companies Still Pay Search Fees? LinkedIn has made executives easier to find, and AI is making them easier still. Almost anyone can now identify the CFO of a competitor, map the leadership team of a bank in Singapore, find technology executives in New York or build a list of potential CEOs in London. Information that once required considerable research is increasingly available to anyone with the right tool

By Christopher ED Graham FCIPD, ACTP When hiring goes wrong, Talent Acquisition is often where the problem becomes visible. That doesn't necessarily mean it is where the problem started. I have spent nearly three decades working across recruitment and Talent Acquisition, including executive search, agency recruitment, RPO and senior internal TA leadership roles across different countries, industries and organisations. I have seen recruitment functions that were excellent, som

By Christopher ED Graham FCIPD, ACTP HR can facilitate it. Finance can model it. Talent Acquisition can provide market intelligence. But if the business owns the strategy, it must also own the workforce required to deliver it. Ask who owns workforce planning inside a large organisation and you are likely to receive several different answers. HR will almost certainly be mentioned, as will Finance and business operations. Depending on the organisation, the COO, Strategy, Talent

By Christopher ED Graham FCIPD, ACTP Talent pipelining is one of those ideas that sounds almost impossible to challenge. Identify strong candidates before vacancies arise, build relationships over time and create a ready pool of talent that can be approached when the business needs to hire. Conceptually, it makes perfect sense. In practice, however, most organisations are not structured, resourced or incentivised to deliver it properly. That distinction matters, because poorl