About
Elevating Executive Hiring into a Science
NEW - Read more about our AI approach below
History
Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Level 5 Partners combines decades of executive search expertise with a vision to transform and innovate how leadership appointments are made. The firm was established to move beyond bureaucratic, legacy search models—replacing them with a rigorous, insight-driven methodology that integrates cultural intelligence, behavioral science, and market data to deliver leaders who perform, endure, and transform organizations.
Our leadership team brings a collective background in corporate talent acquisition for Tier One technology consulting firms and private equity-backed companies. Together, we have successfully appointed senior executives across multiple industries, aligning leadership talent with strategic objectives and long-term organizational health.
Before founding Level 5 Partners, our principals built distinguished careers in corporate software sales leadership and were early adopters of enterprise technology solutions during their formative years. This unique combination of technology innovation, solution selling, and high-stakes executive recruitment informs our forward-looking philosophy. By blending commercial acumen, advanced assessment tools, and cultural alignment strategies, Level 5 Partners is redefining the standards of executive search to meet the demands of today’s complex, rapidly evolving business environment.
Always-ON-Hiring: A New Category in Executive Search
Always-ON-Hiring™ * transforms leadership recruitment from a reactive, episodic activity into a continuous, AI-enabled capability. Instead of restarting a search every time a role opens, we maintain a live pipeline of leadership and technical candidates — continuously sourced, ranked, and graded against your cultural and behavioral success profile.
Powered by plural AI data lakes, advanced sourcing automation, and proprietary behavioral alignment scoring, Always-ON-Hiring™ gives your organization ongoing visibility into hire-ready talent. The result: faster decisions, radically reduced time-to-hire, and visible candidate data — something traditional search firms are structurally unable to offer.
Always-ON-Hiring™ is built for organizations that cannot afford downtime between critical hires. It shifts recruiting from a vendor-dependent transaction to an internal capability that scales with your growth plans. Continuous talent. Zero restart. True competitive advantage.
* Always-ON-Hiring, in collaboration with TalentGenius (A Reid Hoffman co-funded project and co-founder of LinkedIN)
Executive Search, Reimagined from the Outset
At Level 5 Partners, we believe the first conversation with a client should be about understanding, not selling. Before we talk candidates, we talk about your business reality—your culture, values, and the strategic challenges you face.
Too often, recruitment starts with a job description and ends with a shortlist. We think that’s a bureaucratic legacy search model that leaves too much to chance.
That’s why we start every engagement by delivering a complimentary Research Dossier—a board-ready intelligence report tailored to your market landscape, relevant competitors, and cultural dynamics. It’s not a sales tool; it’s a foundation for informed decision-making.
By starting with insight rather than assumption, we ensure every subsequent conversation is grounded in facts, intelligence, and a shared understanding of what exceptional leadership looks like in your unique context.