Two US-headquartered global retained firms in Tokyo — what they share
Heidrick & Struggles and Korn Ferry are structurally adjacent firms inside the global retained executive-search category. Both are US-headquartered, both run Tokyo offices that have been in market for decades, both cover the standard executive-search vertical mix (FS, tech, industrial, consumer, life sciences, board/CEO), and both compete on board and C-suite mandates at Japan's largest companies and at the Japan operations of foreign-capital multinationals.
For a Japan board-of-directors search committee or an internal executive sponsoring a CEO succession, the question is rarely "which is better" — both are credible global retained firms with identifiable Tokyo leadership. The structural fit question is how the ownership shape, the breadth of services beyond search, and the practice-area depth match the specific mandate. This page is built to answer that.
Ownership structure post-2025 — what changed at Heidrick & Struggles
The single most identifiable structural difference between the two firms as of 2026 is ownership. Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc. became a privately held company on 10 December 2025, when a $1.3 billion take-private transaction led by Advent International and Corvex Management completed. Prior to the take-private, the firm traded on NASDAQ under the ticker HSII. The take-private removed quarterly public-disclosure cadence and aligned the firm's capital structure with its long-term investment plans without short-term earnings pressure. Public commentary from the firm at announcement framed the transaction as enabling continued investment in technology and consulting capabilities under stable private-equity-backed ownership.
Korn Ferry, by contrast, remains listed on the NYSE under the ticker KFY. The firm continues to publish quarterly trading updates, and its 10-K and 10-Q filings remain a primary public source for Japan-segment commentary inside the broader APAC reporting bucket. Korn Ferry's listed status produces visibility into segment-level revenue trends across its four global business segments (Consulting, Digital, Executive Search, RPO & Professional Search) that is not available for Heidrick & Struggles post December 2025.
The practical consequence for clients: pre-engagement diligence on Korn Ferry can include reading the firm's most recent 10-Q (typically including segment trends and APAC commentary); pre-engagement diligence on Heidrick & Struggles now relies on private-firm equivalents — partner-led references, AESC membership, and the firm's own marketing materials — rather than continuous public disclosure. The take-private did not change the firm's underlying search-practice operations or its Tokyo team; what changed is the public-information surface area around the parent company.
Service scope — search-only vs organizational-consulting
The two firms differ structurally in how they describe their services beyond core retained search.
Heidrick & Struggles positions retained executive search and leadership advisory as the two core offerings. The Tokyo office covers Financial Services, Global Technology & Services, Industrial (automotive, manufacturing, energy), Consumer Markets, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Corporate Officers (CFO, CHRO, Chief Supply Chain Officer functional searches), and Board & CEO Services. Leadership advisory at H&S includes assessment, organizational acceleration, and culture shaping — services adjacent to search rather than parallel business lines.
Korn Ferry positions itself globally as an organizational consulting firm rather than a pure search firm. The four global business segments — Consulting, Digital, Executive Search, RPO & Professional Search — operate as parallel business lines, and Tokyo clients can engage Korn Ferry across multiple segments under one MSA. Korn Ferry Digital includes products (Korn Ferry Architect, Korn Ferry Sell, etc.) that organizational-consulting clients use independent of any search engagement.
The structural consequence: a client engaging Heidrick & Struggles is engaging a search-and-leadership-advisory firm; a client engaging Korn Ferry can be engaging any of search, consulting, digital products, or RPO depending on the mandate. For a board-search-only mandate, both firms operate in directly comparable scope. For a multi-stream engagement covering search plus succession planning plus rewards consulting, Korn Ferry's organizational-consulting structure makes it operationally simpler to consolidate; H&S's leadership-advisory scope handles assessment and succession but does not extend to total rewards or RPO.
Tokyo team and Japan-side leadership
Both firms run substantial Tokyo offices with named senior leadership.
Heidrick & Struggles Japan has identifiable practice leadership across multiple sectors: Steven Greenberg as Partner-in-Charge of the Tokyo office and core member of the Financial Services Practice (also heading the Insurance Sector for APAC and the Middle East); Yoshi Terashima heads the Industrial Practice; Ken Suzuki in Financial Services covering asset management (joined November 2019 from BlackRock); Hirokazu Higuma in the Global Technology & Services Practice (joined September 2019, prior career at Altera, Microsoft, Symantec); and Christoffer Black as Regional Managing Partner of the Corporate Officers Practice for APAC and the Middle East (rejoined the firm in November 2022).
Korn Ferry Japan has identifiable APAC and Tokyo leadership: Esther Colwill as President of the APAC Region (Tokyo-based); Junichi Takinami as APAC Lead based in Tokyo; Akihiro Mishima as Senior Client Partner and Japan HR Practice Lead; and Masaki Nakajima as Leader of Board & CEO Services Japan.
The structural picture: both firms have multi-partner Tokyo teams with named practice leaders across the major industry verticals. Neither firm publicly discloses Japan-specific consultant headcount.
Fee positioning and engagement structure
Both firms operate within the directory's reported global retained band — 30–33% of expected first-year total compensation, billed in three milestone instalments (typically engagement, shortlist delivery, completion). Banded only; neither firm publishes account-level fee terms.
Korn Ferry's organizational-consulting and RPO segments are billed under separate fee structures — consulting on time-and-materials or fixed-fee bases; RPO on per-hire or managed-services bases. Engagements that bundle search with consulting or RPO are negotiated as multi-stream MSAs.
H&S's leadership-advisory engagements (assessment, succession, culture) are typically billed as engagement-based fees separate from any search retainer; bundled search-plus-advisory engagements are negotiated mandate-by-mandate.
For a board search isolated from any other consulting work, the two firms' fee positioning is functionally equivalent.
Public reception — what review-platform sentiment suggests
Both firms have substantial Glassdoor presence, but neither has a meaningful Tokyo-specific subsample.
Heidrick & Struggles has a global Glassdoor aggregate of approximately 3.8/5 across ~621 reviews, with 68% recommend-to-friend and a 3.7/5 compensation rating per the platform. The Tokyo subset is too thin for representative summary.
Korn Ferry has a global Glassdoor aggregate of approximately 3.7/5 across ~1,500+ reviews — publicly reported as the largest review pool of any global retained firm, reflecting larger total headcount across the four business segments globally. The Tokyo subset is similarly thin.
Neither aggregate is authoritative; both reflect anonymous-platform self-selection. The structural reality at both firms is that retained executive search compensates partner-track consultants on a partnership profit-share basis (rather than commission per placement at contingency firms), which produces different tenure patterns than at contingency peers.
Diligence and engagement context for 2026
A practical observation for clients comparing the two firms in 2026: the take-private at Heidrick & Struggles changed the public-information surface area but not the underlying search-practice operations. Pre-engagement diligence at H&S in 2026 typically combines (a) historical 10-K filings through Q3 2025 — publicly available and useful for trailing-period segment performance and APAC commentary — (b) AESC (Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants) membership and ethical-standard adherence, (c) named-partner references at the Tokyo office, and (d) the firm's published practice-area marketing. At Korn Ferry, pre-engagement diligence still benefits from continuous public quarterly disclosure plus the firm's organizational-consulting-firm marketing positioning at the parent level.
Both firms hold AESC membership and adhere to the AESC Code of Professional Practice, which standardises ethical conduct on candidate confidentiality, off-limits arrangements, and engagement-team conflict-of-interest handling across the global retained-search profession. AESC membership is one common-baseline diligence reference point that applies equivalently to H&S, Korn Ferry, and the other Big-Five firms.
For multi-year client relationships rather than single mandates, both firms operate the partnership-style account model where the lead partner remains the relationship anchor through engagement, follow-on assessment, and subsequent searches. Korn Ferry additionally offers organizational-consulting and digital-product workstreams that can run in parallel with search engagements; H&S's leadership advisory work (assessment, organizational acceleration, culture shaping) is the parallel-workstream equivalent at H&S.
When each structural fit makes sense
This is decision framing, not a recommendation. Both firms are credible global retained search engagements in Japan.
Heidrick & Struggles tends to fit mandates where (a) the engagement is search-focused (board, CEO, C-suite) and adjacent leadership advisory (assessment, succession, culture) supplements rather than displaces the search work, (b) the client values a search-pure firm without the organizational-consulting product breadth, and (c) the practice-area lead in Tokyo is identifiable as a sector match (e.g. Greenberg for FS/insurance, Terashima for industrial, Higuma for tech).
Korn Ferry tends to fit mandates where (a) the engagement runs alongside organizational-consulting work (succession, rewards, leadership development), (b) the client values a multi-segment relationship under one MSA covering search plus consulting plus possibly RPO, and (c) the global organizational-consulting brand (Korn Ferry Architect, Korn Ferry Digital products) is part of the parallel work an internal HR or talent function is doing.
Where both fit — which is the majority of board, CEO, and senior C-suite searches at large Japan employers and at foreign-capital multinationals — many search committees engage one firm and consider the other on the next mandate, treating the two as adjacent and rotating. Dual engagement on the same mandate is uncommon at the retained level given the engagement-based fee structure.