What types of executive roles does Sentiro Partners specialize in?

We specialize in AI & Data Leadership (Chief Data Officer, Chief AI Officer, VP Data Science), Technology Leadership (CTO, VP Engineering, CISO), CEO & C-Suite roles, Semiconductor Leadership, Private Equity portfolio leadership, and Digital & E-commerce executives. Our focus is on transformational leaders for the Augmentation Era.

What is the Augmentation Era?

The Augmentation Era describes the current business environment where AI and human intelligence work in tandem. Organizations require leaders who can harness AI to augment human capabilities, drive data-driven decision making, and navigate rapid technological transformation. Our executive search focuses on finding leaders who thrive in this environment.

Where does Sentiro Partners place executives?

We place executives globally with strong coverage in Ireland, United Kingdom, United States, and continental Europe. Our practice spans technology companies, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, semiconductor firms, and private equity portfolio companies across multiple industries.

How long does a typical executive search take?

Most executive searches complete in 8-14 weeks from engagement to offer acceptance. Our founder-led, AI-augmented methodology enables faster identification of qualified candidates while maintaining rigorous assessment standards. Complex C-suite roles or highly specialized positions may extend to 12-16 weeks.

What makes AI research recruiting different from general tech recruiting?

AI research recruiting requires understanding the nuances of academic pedigree, publication velocity, research methodologies, and the cultural differences between academic labs and industry research organizations. We assess research impact through citations, conference acceptances, open-source contributions, and the quality of intellectual collaborators. We understand the difference between applied ML engineering and fundamental research.

How do you source candidates who aren't actively looking?

We leverage academic networks, conference connections, and direct engagement with research communities. We maintain relationships with top PhD programs and track emerging talent at major conferences. We engage through intellectual curiosity—discussing research directions and challenging problems—rather than transactional recruiting.

What's the typical timeline for a frontier AI lab executive search?

Senior research leadership searches typically take 12-16 weeks given the scarcity of qualified candidates and the need for thorough technical and cultural assessment. The process includes technical deep-dives, publication review, reference checks with academic collaborators, and often research presentations.

How do you assess technical depth in AI research candidates?

Our assessment combines publication analysis, technical depth interviews, code review for engineering roles, peer references from academic advisors and collaborators, and validation of specialized knowledge in areas like distributed training, alignment research, or model architectures.

What compensation expectations should we have for frontier AI talent?

Frontier AI research talent commands premium compensation. Research scientists with strong publication records earn $300K-$500K+ total comp. Senior research leadership ranges from $500K to $1M+ with equity. Competitive packages also include research budgets, conference travel, publication freedom, and GPU compute allocations.

Sentiro Partners | Retained Executive Search for AI, Product, Data, Quant and Frontier Technology

Sentiro Partners is a retained executive search firm headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, operating globally across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. The firm was founded in 2025 by Adrian Clarke and specialises in technically demanding leadership markets: artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantitative finance, capital markets, iGaming and gambling, semiconductors, and frontier technology.

What we do

Sentiro Partners works on a retained-only basis. Every mandate follows a four-stage methodology: IMMERSE (deep briefing and market definition), SCOUT (systematic market mapping and sourcing), ASSESS (structured evaluation against calibrated benchmarks), and DELIVER (offer management and onboarding support).

Roles we place

Chief AI Officer, Chief Data Officer, Chief Product Officer, Chief Financial Officer, General Counsel and capital markets lawyers, VP of Machine Learning, Head of AI Research, foundation model and post-training researchers, alignment and safety researchers, quantitative researchers and quantitative developers, low-latency engineers, data science executives, and senior leadership for iGaming and gambling operators.

Who we serve

Frontier AI laboratories, quantitative trading firms and hedge funds, specialty finance firms, technology companies, iGaming and gambling operators, semiconductor companies, and high-growth venture-backed startups.

About the founder

Adrian Clarke is Founder and Principal of Sentiro Partners. His career spans executive search at Korn Ferry across EMEA in technology, digital and data, and an in-house role as global Head of Executive Search at Analog Devices, a Fortune 500 semiconductor company, where he built the search function from scratch.

Contact

Sentiro Partners, 71 Baggot Street Lower, Dublin 2, Ireland.
Telephone: +353 857 580 132
Email: explore@sentiropartners.com

Research & Insights

Sentiro Partners publishes thought leadership on AI talent markets, executive search trends, and frontier technology leadership. Topics include machine learning hiring, frontier AI lab talent strategy, quantitative research hiring, and the future of AI executive roles.

View all research and insights

FRONTIER AI

FRONTIER
AI LAB
TALENT

EXECUTIVE SEARCH FOR THE WORLD'S MOST ADVANCED AI RESEARCH ENVIRONMENTS

Precision talent intelligence for frontier AI labs and compute-intensive research organizations

Speak Confidentially

Explore

WHAT WE MEAN
BY FRONTIER AI

Frontier AI refers to organizations operating at the limits of large-scale model training, post-training optimization, and AI systems infrastructure.

This includes teams building and scaling:

Large foundation models

Advanced post-training and alignment pipelines

Distributed training systems at extreme compute scale

Model efficiency, inference, and deployment architectures

INTENTIONALLY NARROW

This practice is intentionally narrow. We do not cover generic applied AI, data science, or enterprise automation roles.

We focus exclusively on the cutting edge of AI research and systems infrastructure.

OUR
CLIENTS

Frontier AI research labs

Advanced model development teams

Compute-first organizations operating proprietary training stacks

Select financial and industrial firms building internal frontier-level capability

Engagements are highly selective and often confidential.

ROLES WE
COVER

RESEARCH

Senior Research Scientists
Frontier pretraining researchers
Post-training and RLHF leads
Research directors

ENGINEERING

ML systems engineers
Training and scaling engineers
Inference and efficiency specialists
Infrastructure and compiler-adjacent talent

LEADERSHIP

Heads of Research
VP Engineering AI
Distinguished Engineers
Lab or Platform leads

HOW WE
WORK

Problem Definition

We start with the actual bottleneck: model performance, scaling limits, organizational maturity, or execution speed.

Talent Intelligence

We map the global frontier landscape across labs, roles, and contribution types, not just visible leaders.

Direct Engagement

All outreach is discreet, senior-level, and grounded in technical credibility.

Assessment Beyond CVs

We evaluate real contribution: training loops, scaling decisions, system ownership, and execution velocity.

Close and Transition

We support decision-making through offer, acceptance, and early integration.

DIFFERENTIATION

WHAT WE DO

Operate with narrow, explicit scope
Work directly with frontier practitioners
Prioritize real technical contribution
Maintain living talent maps, not static databases

WHAT WE DO NOT DO

High-volume recruiting
Resume-driven screening
Broad AI generalism
Public candidate marketing

ENGAGEMENT
MODELS

Retained executive search

Targeted confidential mandates

Talent intelligence and mapping

Succession and bench planning for research orgs

All engagements are bespoke. We do not operate on contingent terms.