A boutique, founder-led firm placing leaders across mining, critical minerals and the energy transition: at the board, the C-suite, the country, and the project face. Retained mandates only, every search run personally by the founder.
Every mandate is run personally by Paul Templeton: 28 years in executive search, 20 of them inside mining and natural resources, including a period at Korn Ferry and 14 years building a leading boutique’s mining practice from the ground up.
Most executive search firms treat natural resources as a sector. Templeton Global Search treats it as a specialism, built over two decades of placing leaders across some of the most demanding operating environments in the world.
We work in one sector, at the leadership level, on a fully retained basis, and every mandate is run personally by Paul Templeton, from first brief to final placement.
We serve listed majors, mid-cap operators, junior explorers, and PE-backed portfolio companies: a deliberately selective practice built on long-term relationships rather than transactional volume.
CEO, CFO, COO, and board-level mandates for mining houses, energy companies, and natural resource organisations, including CEO succession planning and planned governance transitions. We assess for character and judgement under pressure, not the credentials a CV already shows.
Regional Presidents, Country Managers, and General Managers who answer to a government, a community across the fence, and a head office at once, in jurisdictions where the wrong call is expensive.
Programme and Project Directors and senior technical leadership for greenfield, brownfield, and the mine-related infrastructure that brings an asset into production: rail, power, ports, and water.
We invest time at the outset to understand your business, culture and the precise leadership profile required, beyond the position description.
A thorough, global mapping of the candidate universe, drawing on our network and proprietary research to identify active and passive talent.
Structured competency interviews, reference triangulation and leadership assessment: an unvarnished view of each candidate’s suitability.
We manage the offer process, facilitate onboarding, and remain available during the critical first months of every new appointment.
A representative sample of completed searches; client names are held in confidence. Full mandate records, by country and role, are published on each regional practice page below.
CEO for a steel and iron-ore major, followed by successive senior appointments across the same operator: Deputy CFO, Project Director, and engineering and technical leadership. Africa practice →
Chief Executive and Non-Executive Director appointments for private-equity-backed gold and base-metals producers in the United Kingdom, and a CEO for a PE-backed industrial-minerals producer in Kazakhstan. Eurasia & FSU practice →
Six senior appointments across a major nickel refinery: engineering, HSOR, human resources, materials, technical and innovation leadership. Australasia practice →
Our work spans more than 40 countries on six continents: from London, the Nordics and Western Europe to the CIS, the Gulf, West and Central Africa, Australasia and the Americas. Based in Dubai, briefed worldwide.
Executive search across the mining and metals sector in the Middle East and Europe, from corporate head offices and the European smelting base to exploration and new operations across the Gulf.
View the Middle East & Europe practice →Executive search across Africa's mining, metals and critical-minerals operators: at the asset, the country, and the group. A detailed record of completed senior mandates, by country and region.
View the Africa practice →Executive search across Australasia's mining and metals operators, from the iron ore, gold, copper and base metals of Australia to the nickel refineries of New Caledonia: at the mine, the smelter and the refinery.
View the Australasia practice →Executive search across the mining, metals and energy operators of Eurasia and the former Soviet Union, from Kazakhstan and the Caucasus to the advisory partners guiding investment into the region.
View the Eurasia & FSU practice →Executive search across the Americas' mining and metals operators, from Canada and the United States to Chile, Peru and Argentina: copper, gold, silver, base metals, coal and steel, at the asset, the country and the group.
View the Americas practice →Alongside operators, we work for the investors behind them: private-equity and resources funds, and the boards of their portfolio companies. When a portfolio company needs its next Chief Executive, country lead or project director, timing and discretion matter. Our record includes CEO and board appointments for PE-backed producers on three continents.
For a board-level view of why leadership depth has become a governance issue in mining, read our white paper Below the Surface: mining’s talent shortage has reached the boardroom.
For candidates: if we have approached you about a role, the conversation stays confidential. You deal directly with the founder, and nothing is shared with a client without your consent.
Retained executive search is an engagement model in which a client commissions one search firm exclusively, on a staged fee, to run an exhaustive and confidential search for a senior appointment. It differs from contingency recruitment, where several agencies compete on the same role and are paid only on placement. Templeton Global Search works on a fully retained basis only.
Three levels of leadership: board and C-suite (Chair, Non-Executive Director, CEO, CFO, COO), country and regional leadership (Regional President, Country Manager, General Manager), and project and technical leadership (Programme and Project Directors, senior technical leaders) for greenfield, brownfield and mine-related infrastructure.
Every mandate is run personally by the founder, Paul Templeton: 28 years in executive search, 20 of them inside mining and natural resources, with 227 senior placements completed across 42 countries. The person you brief is the person who delivers.
Five regional practices: Africa; the Americas; Australasia; Eurasia and the former Soviet Union; and the Middle East and Europe. Completed mandates span more than 40 countries on six continents, run from Dubai.
The conversation stays confidential. You deal directly with the founder throughout, and nothing is shared with a client without your consent.
With a direct conversation with the founder, followed by an immersive brief: time invested to understand your business, culture and the precise leadership profile required, beyond the position description. Email paul@templetonglobalsearch.com to begin.
Our long-form analysis of leadership in mining: The Resident Diplomat, on how Africa's mines are run now the state is shareholder, regulator and partner. See all insights.
Speak to the founder