Founder-led search, supported by specialist expertise.

We engaged Ash Bhula and his Lighthouse Search team to lead the recruitment for Craggy Range's new CEO. It was the first time we had recruited this position in over a decade, and we were leaning towards focusing our search for someone from within the wine industry. Ash had a really good balance between listening to what we wanted, as well as challenging us on what we needed, to ensure he could present us with a broad spectrum of candidates with different breadths and depths of experience. The key value that Ash added was he spent a significant amount of time identifying and proactively headhunting candidates, as opposed to sitting back and filtering candidates that applied to a job advert. Equally importantly, Ash led all candidate engagement and conversations personally himself, as opposed to passing on to other members of his team, which would have led to dilution of focus. Some of the headhunted candidates on Ash's list looked like longshots, but he had numerous conversations to get them to the table, then from there put them through a rigorous process to ensure it was a sustainable two-way fit. Once we had identified a preferential candidate together, Ash overlaid a very thorough validation process, including reference checking, psychometric testing, critical thinking and business reasoning. All the members of our team, from our HR Manager, General Management, and our Board, enjoyed interacting with Ash, and felt we received excellent value for his service. We would not hesitate to use Ash again and could not recommend Ash and the Lighthouse Search team highly enough.

We worked with Ash and the Lighthouse team on a tricky search to find a new Head of Investments. Our Investments business has some complex constraints and we couldn't offer a package with large incentives, so we needed a carefully run search to find a high calibre candidate who would be attracted to us for the right reasons. Ash grasped the complexity immediately and was able to generate a high quality shortlist that ultimately resulted in an outstanding appointment. Ash worked hard to deliver the brief, following up in a timely fashion with both us and the candidates and navigating the challenges of a fast moving recruitment market to make sure that all parties got the best outcome.

I had the pleasure of working with Ash in 2019, initially as a source when he approached me looking for senior Bankers for a role with HSBC in Asia. The mandate changed dramatically from the initial idea of what the Bank wanted, and stepped up in seniority, with Ash suggesting I might be a good candidate. In my opinion he was able to manage not only the pivot in requirements, but also kept me appraised throughout the process, and worked extremely hard to present me in a fully transparent way to HSBC managing to close what was a complicated negotiation, whilst treating me with respect and honesty every step of the way. At the end of that process we became friends, and remain so as he has an empathy for the human spirit that I have not seen in many people before. I would happily work with him again, and I know the Bank respects his talents greatly.

I have worked with Ash extensively in my roles as CEO of Ernst and Young and as the Chair of both the ACC and ANZ bank in New Zealand. I found him excellent to work with and highly recommend him. He has an excellent knowledge of the markets in which he chooses to work. I found his advice to be timely, pragmatic and insightful. He found candidates of high quality, and often not those that the organisations I worked in were aware of. His professionalism ensured strong communication with both the organisations and the talent. Ash has an ability to understand both the candidates and business points of view and work out where they intersect and where more clarity and discussion was needed. I found his advice to be of a very high calibre and would not hesitate to work with him again.

I have seen Ash execute searches through two lenses, one as a Non-Executive Director of a listed company, and as a client where he conducted various searches for the company I lead, Forsyth Barr in New Zealand. In both cases I have found Ash to be a very thorough and professional individual, working to balance stakeholder requirements with practical advice through the process. I have no hesitation in commending Ash to other corporates. Ash represented the Forsyth Barr brand well to the external market refining the search process to suit our needs and adapting without any issues. Ash managed to identify the culture of the business and only presented candidates that would work well within that environment, and also thrive themselves, which is why I would happily use him again. All of the Forsyth Barr hires he helped us make are senior managers and all are still with the business and performing well. He is pragmatic and communicates well, and is genuinely interested in seeing people succeed.

We engaged Ash to assist us to recruit a program director for our foundation. The role was a senior and significant one for our organisation, and Ash had primary responsibility for the assignment, including candidate development, interviews, evaluation and compensation negotiation. The role was difficult to define and fill, and Ash worked with us to hone our requirements throughout the assignment, patiently conducting several waves of candidate identification. We found Ash extremely professional and had no hesitation in mandating him to represent the Foundation in approaching candidates. On the candidate side, a number of candidates received sensitive and useful career counselling from Ash in the course of our assignment. Ash is very personable and a good listener. He has a global outlook and keeps himself well-informed on current issues. We found him respectful of his clients, colleagues and candidates. His candidate sourcing activities were resourceful and global, and his candidate assessments were comprehensive and realistic.

Ash is a high quality professional. He has a very good sense of the human inputs required for business success. He understands his markets and is very well networked.

Ash Bhula and the team at Lighthouse Search have been instrumental in supporting Westland Mineral Sands' growth by identifying exceptional talent aligned with our core values. Ash's team took the time to truly understand not only the technical requirements of our roles but also the unique cultural values that define the West Coast of New Zealand. His commitment to finding candidates who resonate with our vision, combined with a global search reach, has led us to high-calibre professionals who are the perfect fit for our organisation. Ash's personalised approach and dedication to integrity make him an invaluable partner in our talent acquisition strategy. We highly recommend Lighthouse Search to any company seeking value-driven and globally minded hiring solutions.