Portman Partners advises leaders in the digital infrastructure sector. Investors, operators and boards come to us when a decision matters and the information they need about a market, a deal, a board, or a person isn’t published anywhere.
Our founding partners were operators first. We have built, scaled and exited businesses in data centres and digital infrastructure, and that is why clients ask us for more than an appointment.
They want a view on the leadership behind a deal, an honest read on a target’s management team, or a trusted introduction at the top of the market.
It also changes what we are able to say. When we tell a board that a plan isn’t deliverable with the people currently in the room, it’s because we have been in that room.
“Portman understand today’s challenges with sourcing top talent in a booming industry and took the time to understand the nuances of our culture and present candidates that would fit both with our company and the role.”
We are partner-led in the way that actually matters: unlike others in the market, the people who win the work are the people who actually do it.
Our partners cover APAC, EMEA, the Middle East and Africa, the Americas and Australasia, and each is a global authority in their own field rather than a generalist with a region attached.
Between them, they have run the programmes, they sit on the boards, closed the deals, mentored the leaders, and carried the operational risk they now advise on.
Their expertise extends across three sector areas:
Understanding how an organisation actually has to be shaped to deliver a plan, not how the org chart says it is today. Where the capability gaps sit, which of them genuinely matter, in what order to close them, and how to elevate capability to mitigate risk in different forms.
How boards work, where they fail, and what composition a business needs at each stage of its life, with the courage and candour to say when the current board has outlived the strategy it was built for.
What a leader genuinely can, and will, change once they are in the seat and how they’re likely to do it. We assess this deliberately, using the GC Index alongside partner judgement rather than in place of it.
Clients do not buy the Portman network. They access the judgement and capability that makes such a global network possible, valuable, rare, and trusted.
Strategy, advisory and search are outputs of the same thing: four decades of relationships, and the operator judgement to read them. The intelligence that tells us a target’s COO is the reason that asset performs is the same intelligence that tells us who could replace them, and what strategic shift in capability will advance their success.
Internationally experienced leaders with deep first-hand understanding of digital infrastructure, executive search, business transformation and international growth.
Over 30 years building, scaling and exiting businesses across digital infrastructure and data centres, with a focus on strategy, advisory and search.
Over 40 years of talent and workforce strategy experience, including leadership of publicly listed companies and international client development.
More than 30 years in digital infrastructure, with senior leadership experience at Oracle, Microsoft and Intel.
Our partners bring decades of experience across executive search, digital infrastructure, leadership, human resources, technology and international business.
Over 25 combined years across finance, IT systems integration, change management and international project consultancy.
Over 15 years of search experience across data centres, digital infrastructure and IT, with an engineering and telecoms background.
Over 25 years of global recruitment and search expertise in C-suite, finance, procurement and operations appointments.
Over 25 years of executive search experience across retail, leisure, hospitality and consumer sectors.
Portman Partners founder and data centre executive search pioneer with decades of industry experience and global relationships.
Over 25 years of Asia-Pacific HR experience, specialising in executive search, leadership recruitment and rewards.
Academic, consultant and thought leader in leadership, organisational change, inclusion and the impostor phenomenon.
Over 20 years across data centre infrastructure, green hydrogen, fuel cells and renewable energy, specialising in senior technical search.
Our associates extend Portman’s specialist capability across talent development, critical infrastructure engineering, data centre design and technical advisory.
Digital infrastructure talent specialist focused on tangible industry change, early careers and the sector’s evolving skills agenda.
Chartered Engineer and data centre power and cooling specialist with decades of technical, OEM, standards and consulting experience.
Data centre design, build and infrastructure specialist with extensive experience across Europe, the Middle East and global technology organisations.
