Location: Remote (United States / Europe / United Kingdom / South Africa and other locations considered)
Reporting to: Recruitment Director
Commitment: Full-time
About Food Impact Partners
Food Impact Partners is an international executive search firm focused on organizations making a positive impact across the food system.
We partner with venture-backed startups, scale-ups, investors, and established companies to hire exceptional talent across commercial, technical, operations, legal, executive, and board-level roles.
Our clients are building the future of food: from precision fermentation and cultivated meat to agricultural technology, food ingredients, animal welfare technologies, and other emerging areas of food innovation.
We believe recruiting is about far more than filling roles. The right person can fundamentally change the trajectory of a company, and finding that person requires curiosity, judgment, persistence, and a deep understanding of both the market and the people within it.
Our ambition is to be the leading executive search partner for the food innovation sector, known for exceptional talent, deep market knowledge, and an outstanding experience for both clients and candidates.
About the Executive Recruiter opportunity
We're looking for an exceptional Executive Recruiter who is intellectually curious, highly organized, and genuinely enjoys identifying, engaging, and getting to know outstanding people.
You'll play a key role in delivering retained searches, working across the recruitment process from market mapping and candidate identification through to interviews, process management, and offer stage.
A significant part of your role will involve becoming an expert in the markets we recruit within. You'll research industries and companies, build detailed talent maps, engage senior and specialist candidates, conduct interviews, and develop a strong understanding of what separates an exceptional candidate from an average one.
You'll work closely with our Recruitment Director and clients to understand hiring needs, provide insights into relevant talent markets, and deliver high-quality talent solutions. You'll also build relationships with candidates across the food innovation ecosystem, developing networks that become increasingly valuable over time.
As you develop within the role, there will be an opportunity to take greater ownership of searches and client relationships, ultimately leading retained executive and senior-level searches from kickoff through to placement.
This is not a high-volume recruiting environment. We prioritize quality over quantity and thoughtful assessment over simply generating candidates. We care about doing excellent work, building long-term relationships, and finding people who can make a meaningful difference to the organizations we support.
Key Responsibilities:
- Sourcing Talent: Conduct detailed market mapping of candidates. Headhunt and attract candidates via LinkedIn, job boards, referrals, and internal CRM databases.
- Screening & Interviewing: Conduct initial assessments, phone screens, and in-depth interviews to qualify candidates, and present thoughtful candidate evaluations.
- Process Management: Coordinate interview schedules, prepare candidates, gather fast feedback, handle job offers and provide regular project updates.
- Account Support: Partner closely with Recruitment Direct to map target markets and provide talent insights.
- Operations Management: Maintain accurate CRM records, track candidate pipelines, and handle onboarding compliance.
- Involvement in recruitment intake calls and client meetings to provide insights on candidate talent pools and hiring requirements of specific roles.
Ability to grow into:
- Client ownership; lead executive and senior-level searches from kickoff through to successful placement, owning client meetings, search strategy and recruitment.
What we’re looking for:
We're more interested in ability, mindset, and potential than a specific number of years of recruiting experience.
You may already be an experienced recruiter, researcher, or talent professional. Alternatively, you may come from another demanding, people-focused environment where you've demonstrated excellent judgment, communication, organization, and the ability to learn quickly.
We're particularly interested in people who demonstrate:
- Excellent judgment and an ability to assess people thoughtfully.
- Outstanding written and verbal communication skills.
- Strong intellectual curiosity and an ability to quickly understand new industries, technologies, and businesses.
- Exceptional organization and follow-through.
- Persistence and resilience when tackling difficult searches.
- High standards and strong attention to detail.
- A consultative mindset and genuine interest in helping companies make better hiring decisions.
- Confidence communicating with founders, executives, senior candidates, and industry leaders.
Experience recruiting executives, senior leaders, or specialized technical talent is a significant advantage, but it is not essential.
Experience within food, agriculture, biotechnology, or related industries is also helpful but not required. Curiosity and the ability to become knowledgeable about these markets quickly matter more.
Within your first year, you will:
- Independently manage executive searches with minimal oversight.
- Build trusted relationships with candidates and clients.
- Produce thoughtful, high-quality candidate assessments.
- Consistently identify candidates that other recruiters overlook.
- Become a trusted member of our search team and contribute to continuously improving how we recruit.
Why join Food Impact Partners?
You'll work directly with founders and leadership teams building some of the world's most impactful food innovation and agritech organizations.
Rather than managing dozens of transactional searches, you'll focus on challenging leadership hires where thoughtful judgment, research, and relationship-building genuinely matter.
If you're energized by solving difficult talent problems, enjoy learning new industries, and take pride in delivering exceptional work, we'd love to hear from you.
