The Context
The Majhi Group 90-day replacement guarantee has been invoked once across 25+ placements. The circumstances were specific and, in retrospect, partially foreseeable: the company's product direction shifted materially within the placed VP's first 45 days, changing the requirements of the role in ways that could not have been fully anticipated at the time of search.
The VP was strong. The original search was well-executed. The mismatch arose from a company-level change, not a sourcing or assessment failure. But the outcome was the same: the role needed to be filled again.
Replacement Search Parameters
The Root Cause Analysis
Before beginning the replacement search, we conducted a thorough debrief. The questions we asked:
- What specifically changed in the product direction, and how did it affect the role requirements?
- Were there signals during the original search that the product was at an inflection point?
- Does the original brief need to be revised, or does an entirely new brief need to be written?
- What should the replacement candidate have that the original candidate didn't?
- What did the original candidate do well that should be preserved in the profile?
The debrief produced a substantially different brief — one that prioritized flexibility and product fluency over domain depth, because the company's evolving product direction required a VP who could lead through ambiguity rather than execute against a defined strategy.
Why the Replacement Closed Faster
The CEO had a sharper view of what they needed
Having lived through the original placement and the product shift, the CEO could articulate their requirements with specificity that wasn't possible before. "Someone who has navigated a major product pivot in the first 90 days of a VP role" is a more actionable brief than "someone strong in product-led growth." The replacement brief was better because the CEO had more information.
We had already mapped part of the candidate pool
The original search had identified and partially engaged with several strong candidates who didn't ultimately make the shortlist — not because they were weak, but because other candidates edged them out at the finalist stage. Those candidates were contactable immediately, with context about the role that made the outreach much warmer than a cold first contact.
The assessment process was more confident
The CEO's ability to evaluate candidates was sharper than it had been in the original search. They knew what stage-fit questions to ask. They had a reference point for the working relationship quality they were looking for. The feedback cycle was faster and more actionable.
What This Search Demonstrates About the Guarantee
The 90-day replacement guarantee does not exist to provide reassurance. It exists to align the search firm's incentives with the CEO's outcomes. A firm that is financially exposed to a failed placement has a strong incentive to get the placement right the first time — and a strong incentive to run the replacement search with the same rigor as the original.
See: The Guarantee in Practice | Executive Search ROI Framework | Recovering a Failed Search
"41 days. A $275K search. Two firms failed in 60+ days. That's not luck -- that's a different system."
-- Majhi Group placement record. Read the full process anatomy