When Competitors Become Partners, the Market Gets Stronger
Volition and Excelsior Search Join Forces to Strengthen Capital Markets Technology & Data Recruitment.
Volition and Excelsior Search are pleased to announce a strategic partnership to collaborate, bringing together the capabilities of two established recruitment businesses with deep international recruitment expertise across capital markets and investment technology, data and research.
In a specialist market, the real competition is not always between recruitment firms.
More often, the real challenge is connecting the right companies with the right people in a market where the best talent is scarce, international and frequently difficult to reach.
Capital markets technology and data is one such market. It is highly specialised, globally interconnected and made up of businesses requiring people with very particular combinations of sector knowledge, technical understanding, commercial capability and industry relationships.
No recruitment firm, however established, has complete visibility of that market.
That is why there can be real power in two direct competitors choosing to work together.
For many businesses, a competitor is treated as someone whose knowledge, relationships and capabilities must be kept at a distance. But in a sufficiently large and international market, collaboration does not necessarily divide opportunity. It can expand it.
Imagine two experienced guides who have spent years travelling through the same vast territory. Each knows different routes, different communities and different places where opportunities can be found. They could continue to guard their individual maps, or they could bring those maps together and give their clients a much clearer view of the whole landscape.
That is the thinking behind the strategic partnership between Excelsior Search and Volition.
Both firms have built specialist expertise recruiting for financial markets technology and data providers. We have often operated in the same market, spoken to the same types of companies and searched for many of the same categories of talent.
Coming together allows those similarities to become a strength rather than simply a source of competition.
For clients, the benefit is not just a larger database of names. It is the combination of market knowledge, international relationships and search experience developed by two specialist businesses. That creates broader access to talent, more informed market intelligence and greater capacity to deliver across regions and functions.
For candidates, it means wider visibility across the market. A strong candidate should not be limited by the reach of one recruiter or one network. By sharing opportunities and market access, we can help more people understand where their experience may be relevant and connect them with companies they might otherwise never encounter.
There is also a wider lesson here for the recruitment industry.
Specialist expertise becomes more valuable when it is connected. Collaboration does not require businesses to abandon their identity or the strengths that made them successful. Done properly, it allows each business to contribute what it does best while creating something more capable for the market it serves.
It also requires confidence. Businesses collaborate most successfully when they are secure in their own value, open about their respective strengths and focused on the outcome for the client or candidate rather than simply protecting territory.
Excelsior Search and Volition have both spent many years building knowledge and relationships in this specialist sector. By aligning those capabilities, we believe we can offer clients and candidates greater reach, stronger market visibility and an even deeper level of specialist support.
Sometimes the most powerful response to competition is not to build a higher wall.
It is to build a bigger bridge.
The full press release announcing the strategic partnership between Excelsior Search and Volition appears below and here.
Volition and Excelsior Search Join Forces to Strengthen Capital Markets Technology & Data Recruitment.
Two leading specialist recruitment and executive search firms align their expertise to strengthen client delivery across the capital markets technology and data sector.
Volition and Excelsior Search are pleased to announce a strategic partnership to collaborate, bringing together the capabilities of two established recruitment businesses with deep international recruitment expertise across capital markets and investment technology, data and research.
The partnership combines the firms’ specialist market knowledge, international networks and complementary search capabilities. By aligning their businesses, Volition and Excelsior Search will be able to provide clients with broader market access, greater candidate reach and an enhanced ability to deliver specialist recruitment and executive search assignments across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, North America and Asia-Pacific.
Shawn Rutter, Founder of Excelsior Search, said: “Excelsior Search and Volition share a strong commitment to specialist market expertise, trusted client relationships and high-quality delivery. Aligning our businesses allows us to combine our respective strengths, deepen our reach across the sector and further enhance the service and expertise we can provide to clients.”
Mike Abdul, Founder of Volition, said: “We are delighted to partner with Excelsior Search. Shawn has built an outstanding reputation in a sector we are both so passionate about. Bringing Excelsior Search’s expertise together with Volition’s capabilities creates a powerful platform from which to support clients as they build and develop high-performing teams.”
The partnership reflects both firms’ shared belief that successful recruitment within specialist financial technology markets requires genuine sector knowledge, long-term relationships and a detailed understanding of each client’s business, market and growth objectives.
Release date: 3 August 2026
Contact
Shawn Rutter, shawn@excelsiorsearch.com, https://excelsiorsearch.com
Mike Abdul, mike@volition.work, https://volition.work/
