Fifteen years appointing
leadership in the Emirates.
The UAE practice is led from Dubai by Seán Patrick Kavanagh, who founded the firm and has spent fifteen years appointing leadership into the Emirates’ banks, sovereign entities and family groups.
The UAE is the Gulf’s most competitive market for senior talent and its most layered: onshore banks under the Central Bank, DIFC and ADGM institutions under their own regulators, sovereign investors, and family groups professionalising at speed. Each has its own reward norms, Emiratisation obligations and candidate pool, and the firm works across all of them.
Seán leads every retained board and chief executive mandate personally. Mark Kavanagh runs delivery across the Emirates, so the partner who takes the brief and the team that executes it sit in the same room.
Fifteen years in Gulf financial services search. Has built leadership and private banking teams for regional banks, the financial services function of a giga-project, and government institutions.
Banking, sovereign capital
and the regulator.
Banking and private banking
Team builds as much as single hires: head of private banking, team heads and the relationship-manager layer beneath them, sequenced in waves so the desk is productive as it grows. Chief executive, board and control-function appointments for onshore, DIFC and ADGM institutions.
We are engaged for desk and platform builds, C-suite and board appointments, and multi-year hiring plans run as one engagement.
Emiratisation as strategy
Sector Emiratisation targets tighten every year. We treat UAE-national hiring as a capability plan: national talent placed where it builds the institution and grows into its leadership, sourced through a dedicated national-talent network.
We are engaged for strategic UAE-national appointments, company-wide talent assessment, and the succession pipeline that sits behind them.
Regulatory reward
When a remuneration circular lands mid-build, the appointments and the framework have to be settled together. We run both: the regulatory assessment and remediation plan on one lane, the appointments into the structure on the other, with one team accountable for both landing on time.
We are engaged where the regulatory work and the hiring cannot be separated.
Sovereign investors and family groups
Chief investment officers, heads of asset class and the finance and governance roles beneath a board that is professionalising. Handled by a small team with conflict protocols agreed in writing.
How the practice is run
Every UAE mandate reports in writing at each stage: briefing summary, longlist and shortlist reports with validation, interview debriefs and offer advisory, so the client sees the market as we do and has a full record from brief to close. Research and delivery sit under Mark Kavanagh.
Enquiries
Seán Patrick Kavanagh, Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Henharen Reid
s.patrick@henharenreid.com
United Arab Emirates.
Every mandate runs to the firm’s service levels: longlist within seven working days, shortlist within fourteen, and the 180-day landing programme after appointment.