Two now-private global retained firms — different routes to private status
Heidrick & Struggles Japan and Russell Reynolds Japan are structurally adjacent firms inside the global retained executive-search category. Both are part of the global Big-Five (alongside Korn Ferry, Spencer Stuart, and Egon Zehnder). Both run search plus leadership advisory without contingency or RPO at scale. Both have multi-partner Tokyo offices with identifiable Board & CEO advisory benches.
As of 2026, both firms are privately held — but the routes to private status differ. Heidrick & Struggles became private 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. Russell Reynolds Associates has been a private partnership throughout its history, operating without listed status since founding.
The practical consequence: Heidrick & Struggles is in the early period of operating without quarterly public-disclosure cadence; Russell Reynolds has multi-decade experience operating as a private partnership. Neither structure produces inherent client outcome differences, but the public-information surface area available at pre-engagement diligence differs in shape — H&S diligence still benefits from historical 10-K filings (pre-Dec 2025) plus current private-firm references; Russell Reynolds diligence has always relied on partner-led references and AESC membership.
Service scope — structurally adjacent
Both firms operate retained executive search plus leadership advisory, with no contingency or scaled RPO offerings. The service-scope similarities are notable:
Heidrick & Struggles leadership advisory covers executive assessment, organizational acceleration, and culture shaping — services adjacent to search.
Russell Reynolds leadership advisory covers executive assessment, CEO succession, board effectiveness reviews, and culture — services adjacent to search.
The scope category overlap is high. The structural differences emerge inside the practice areas: H&S has a named Corporate Officers Practice covering functional senior searches (CFO, CHRO, Chief Supply Chain Officer) led globally and regionally with Tokyo presence; Russell Reynolds has a named Infrastructure Practice that covers a slightly different industrial sub-segment than H&S's Industrial Practice.
For a Japan client engaging either firm for board, CEO, or senior C-suite work, the structural fit decision rests less on service-category coverage (which is roughly equivalent) and more on named-partner depth and Tokyo-team composition.
Tokyo team and named-partner composition
The Tokyo team composition is a meaningful structural differentiator at this level of comparison.
Heidrick & Struggles Japan has a Tokyo team led by Steven Greenberg as Partner-in-Charge and FS Practice core member, with cross-regional responsibility for Insurance Sector across APAC and the Middle East. The Tokyo bench includes named practice leaders across multiple verticals: Yoshi Terashima in Industrial; Ken Suzuki in Financial Services / asset management (joined November 2019 from BlackRock); Hirokazu Higuma in Global Technology & Services (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 November 2022). Will Hall joined the Tokyo office in November 2022 covering direct-to-consumer sectors (FMCG, luxury, retail, hospitality, consumer tech).
Russell Reynolds Japan has a Tokyo team where the Board & CEO Advisory bench is the most identifiable strength: Masahiro Kishida joined the firm during 2024–2025 and heads the Tokyo office plus core Board & CEO Advisory and Private Equity engagements, having previously run the Japan business at Kearney. Ryoko Komatsuzaki is a long-tenured partner in Consumer & Healthcare. Tsutomu Mito (joined 2018) specialises in Board & CEO Advisory with prior experience at BlackRock, MetLife, and Fidelity International. Mitsunobu Higashi is a member of the Board & CEO Advisory Partners group with prior experience as Senior Executive Officer at Sega and Managing Director at Gavin Anderson (now Kreab); admitted to the New York Bar.
The structural picture: H&S's Tokyo team has identifiable practice-level breadth across Industrial, Tech, Financial Services, and Corporate Officers functional searches, with named partners covering each major practice area. Russell Reynolds' Tokyo team has identifiable depth in Board & CEO Advisory with multiple partners drawn from senior operating or consulting backgrounds (Kishida ex-Kearney, Higashi ex-Sega/Gavin Anderson, Mito ex-BlackRock).
For Japan clients with a CEO-succession or board-search mandate that benefits from advisory-partner backgrounds in adjacent senior operating or PE roles, Russell Reynolds' Tokyo bench is identifiable as a structural fit. For Japan clients with a multi-vertical search programme spanning multiple industry desks (FS plus Tech plus Industrial plus Corporate Officers functional searches), H&S's Tokyo bench breadth is identifiable as a structural fit. Both firms' Tokyo benches have multi-partner depth — neither firm operates Tokyo as a single-partner office.
Fee positioning
Both firms operate within the directory's reported global retained band — 30–33% of expected first-year total compensation, billed in three milestone instalments. Banded only; neither firm publishes account-level fee terms. Leadership-advisory engagements at both firms are billed as engagement-based fees alongside search retainers.
For board, CEO, and senior C-suite mandates, the fee positioning is functionally equivalent at the two firms. Differences in total cost-to-client emerge from mandate-specific scoping (research depth, geographic search scope, candidate-assessment requirements) rather than from headline fee rates.
Public reception — what review-platform sentiment suggests
Both firms have anonymous-platform reviewer presence with caveats.
Heidrick & Struggles has a global Glassdoor aggregate of approximately 3.8/5 across ~621 reviews, with 68% recommend-to-friend per the platform. Tokyo subsample is too thin for representative summary.
Russell Reynolds has a global Glassdoor presence consistent with ~500+ global advisor headcount; Tokyo-specific subsample is too thin for representative summary.
Neither aggregate is authoritative; both reflect anonymous-platform self-selection. Both firms compensate partner-track consultants on partnership profit-share or fee-share bases (rather than commission per placement at contingency firms), producing different tenure patterns than at contingency peers.
Diligence under private-firm structure
A practical observation for clients comparing the two firms in 2026: with H&S now private and Russell Reynolds long-private, neither firm publishes quarterly public disclosure on the parent company. The public-information surface area differs in shape rather than in availability:
Heidrick & Struggles has historical 10-K and 10-Q filings through Q3 2025 publicly available (the firm filed as NASDAQ-listed through the take-private completion). Clients can reference these for trailing-period segment performance, APAC commentary, and historical practice-area trends. The take-private produced no public commentary indicating practice-area changes; the firm's positioning as a search-and-leadership-advisory firm continues.
Russell Reynolds does not have analogous public-filing history; pre-engagement diligence on the firm has always relied on partner-led references, AESC membership and ethical-standard adherence, and the firm's published partner profiles. The firm's long-private partnership history is itself the diligence reference frame.
AESC and the global-retained shared framework
Both firms are members of AESC (the Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants), the global trade body for retained executive search, and adhere to the AESC Code of Professional Practice. AESC membership standardises ethical conduct on candidate confidentiality, off-limits arrangements, engagement-team conflict-of-interest handling, and shortlist authenticity across the Big-Five and the broader global retained profession. For Japan clients, this means the cross-firm baseline on engagement ethics is common to both H&S and Russell Reynolds — diligence factors that distinguish the two firms operate above that shared baseline rather than below it.
The off-limits convention deserves specific note for Japan clients. Bilingual senior-talent pools at large foreign-capital employers and at Japan's largest companies are concentrated; a multi-year retained relationship with either firm typically produces an off-limits arrangement covering the client's senior population for a defined period (commonly 12–24 months). The choice of firm therefore has consequence beyond the individual mandate, since the firm's off-limits commitment shapes which firm the client can engage for adjacent searches over the off-limits period.
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 requires breadth across multiple industry practices in Tokyo (FS, Tech, Industrial, Consumer, Corporate Officers functional searches), (b) the client values Tokyo-team breadth across named practice leaders, and (c) the historical 10-K disclosure period (pre-Dec 2025) provides the diligence reference frame the client wants.
Russell Reynolds tends to fit mandates where (a) the engagement is concentrated in Board & CEO Advisory at a senior level where the named-partner bench (Kishida, Komatsuzaki, Mito, Higashi) is identifiable, (b) the client values long-cycle private-partnership investment over post-take-private private-equity-backed structure, and (c) the partner-led leadership-advisory model is the structural fit.
Where both fit — most board, CEO, and senior C-suite searches at large Japan employers — search committees commonly engage one firm and consider the other on the next mandate, treating the two as adjacent and rotating. Dual engagement on the same retained mandate is uncommon at the Big-Five level.
For Japan clients running CEO-succession or board-search programmes that span multiple years and multiple appointments, the choice between H&S and Russell Reynolds typically settles on practice-area lead match and named-partner background rather than on firm-level positioning. A succession committee evaluating both firms typically interviews the proposed lead partner from each firm before deciding; the proposed-team composition (lead partner plus supporting consultants and researchers) is a more reliable signal of engagement fit than firm-level brand profile alone. Both firms' partnership profit-share models structurally support consistent lead-partner involvement through the engagement, which differs from the commission-driven account dynamics common at large contingency firms.