KORE1 executive search in Atlanta, as of November 2026
Atlanta Executive Search for Headquarters, Payments and Logistics Leadership
CFO, CIO, CISO, COO and VP searches for employers in Atlanta, Sandy Springs and Roswell.
KORE1 runs retained and engaged executive search for Atlanta employers hiring a CFO, CIO, CISO or VP. Georgia presumes an employee restraint of two years or less reasonable. Senior contract controller cover in Atlanta bills a median $165 an hour.
Last updated: November 11, 2026
- This page
- Permanent C-suite, VP and director searches for Atlanta, Sandy Springs and Roswell employers, the Georgia covenant rules that shape the offer, and what contract cover costs while the search runs.
- Not this page
- A national search, or one outside metro Atlanta, starts with KORE1 executive search services. Contract and direct hiring across Atlanta industries sits on our Atlanta staffing agency page.
Atlanta employers comparing executive search firms tend to start from the same short list of seats, which is a CFO retiring at a headquarters company, a CISO at a payments processor or a vice president of operations in air or parcel logistics, and the people who fill them already have good jobs, so a search finds them through someone they trust and almost never through a job board.
What Georgia adds is a covenant test that we raise on the first call, while the steps themselves are the ones our executive recruiting firm runs everywhere, including Houston, Miami, Austin, Seattle, New York and Los Angeles, so a board that has watched one of our searches in another city will recognize the rhythm here.
Which Seats Do Atlanta Headquarters Companies Hand to a Retained Executive Search?
Four kinds of employer set the pool for leadership work in this market, and each card names the seats, the Atlanta companies that define the group and the source behind each name so a board can check them.
Headquarters finance
CFO, VP finance and controller succession
The Home Depot, The Coca-Cola Company and Genuine Parts all list Atlanta as home. A finance seat at that scale is usually worked quietly.
Fortune pages for Home Depot, Coca-Cola, Genuine Parts
Payments and card processing
CIO and CISO
Global Payments is headquartered here, and a processor’s security chief answers to regulators, auditors and card networks all at once, so the search has to test for all three before a board ever sees a finalist.
Fortune page for Global Payments
Air and parcel logistics
VP operations
Delta Air Lines and UPS both call Atlanta home. Operations leaders in air and parcel run networks that can’t pause while a seat sits empty.
Fortune pages for Delta Air Lines, UPS
Regulated utilities
CFO, CISO and VP operations
Southern Company is based in Atlanta. Finance and security leaders at a utility answer to commissions as well as a board.
Fortune page for Southern Company
Those names are market context from Fortune’s company pages. They aren’t KORE1 clients, and nothing on this page says any of them is hiring. They matter because they set the pool. A leader who runs finance at a company that size has a short list of equals, and nearly all of those equals have a good job already.
Our CFO search, CISO search, CIO search, CTO search and VP finance search run the same way in Atlanta as anywhere else. Then the second hire shows up. A new CFO wants a controller they trust, and a new CISO wants a security operations lead, so it pays to scope both seats on one call and not on two.
What Do Atlanta Leaders Earn Before an Executive Search Starts?
The federal count of annual median wages for four leadership occupations in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell metro, May 2025. Use it to sanity-check a band before outreach starts.
A median is the middle of every job in the occupation, from a ten-person firm to a headquarters, so a CFO at a public company may sit well above it, and because it leaves out bonus and equity too we never read it as an offer.
Still, the table does one useful thing early, because when a board’s approved range for an Atlanta CIO lands far under $177,970, that tells you something about the search before a single candidate call is made.
What Can a Finalist’s Georgia Employer Still Enforce Against Your Atlanta Hire?
It depends on the agreement, and employment counsel reads it. Georgia’s Restrictive Covenants Act gives counsel four tests to read an agreement against, and a recruiter’s job is to get the paper in front of them early.
Field diagram, a Georgia covenant
O.C.G.A. 13-8-53 and 13-8-57, one field strip for each test
Who can be bound
O.C.G.A. 13-8-53(a)
- In bounds
- An employee who regularly solicits customers or makes sales, who manages the business or a department, directs two or more people and has real say over hiring and firing, or who is a key employee or a professional.
- Out of bounds
- Anyone outside those groups. After employment ends, the Act does not permit a non-compete against them.
- Ask each finalist for
- Every signed agreement with its date, plus a current job description.
How long it can run
O.C.G.A. 13-8-57
- In bounds
- For an employee covenant that isn’t tied to a sale of a business, two years or less from the end of the relationship is presumed reasonable in time.
- Out of bounds
- More than two years is presumed unreasonable. Either presumption can be rebutted.
- Ask each finalist for
- The restricted period as written, and the date it starts to run.
Which customers are covered
O.C.G.A. 13-8-53(b)
- In bounds
- A promise not to solicit customers the executive had material contact with, for a stated period after leaving. No territory has to be written into it.
- Out of bounds
- Customers the executive never worked with, and products or services that don’t compete with the employer’s. The Act reads a general promise narrowly to exclude both.
- Ask each finalist for
- The customer clause word for word, and the accounts the finalist actually touched.
What happens if it overreaches
O.C.G.A. 13-8-53(d)
- In bounds
- A court may modify a covenant that is otherwise void, as long as the change doesn’t leave it more restrictive for the employee than the parties drafted.
- Out of bounds
- A covenant that doesn’t comply with the Act is unlawful and void, so a term that can’t be fixed within that limit stays void.
- Ask each finalist for
- Any severability or modification clause, and the governing law the agreement names.
Check this first The Act governs agreements signed on or after May 11, 2011. An older agreement sits under earlier case law, and counsel decides which applies.
Here’s the practical part. Before the last round, collect every agreement each finalist has signed, and not only the offer letter from the current employer, because covenants also hide in equity grants, bonus plans and old separation papers, so send the whole stack to your employment counsel before an offer goes out.
We ask for it that early on purpose, since a clause found the week a candidate resigns costs the company a month and sometimes the candidate, while the same clause found before the final interview costs a phone call. Counsel decides what the clause means. We don’t guess.
Start a confidential Atlanta search
Tell us the seat, who it reports to, whether the incumbent knows and your target start. We’ll come back with how we’d run it.
Who Keeps the Atlanta Close and the Security Program Running While the Seat Is Open?
Senior contract cover in Atlanta, as of October 16, 2026. All three rows are modeled cells in the KORE1 Contract Rate Index, billed by the hour. The index has no C-suite cells, so these rows price the senior layer under an open seat, not an interim CFO or CISO.
| Cover seat | Covers | Bill range | Median | 3 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Controller, senior | The close and the audit calendar while a CFO seat is open | $147 to $179 | $165 | $86,000 |
| Security analyst or engineer, senior | The daily work of the security program while a CISO seat is open | $114 to $137 | $127 | $65,900 |
| IT program manager, senior | Delivery of the roadmap while a CIO seat is open | $94 to $115 | $106 | $55,200 |
Read the table for what it is. A senior contract controller in Atlanta bills a median $165 an hour, level with the national senior median, and six months of that cover is about $172,000. That prices the work under an empty CFO seat and says nothing at all about what a search costs, which is why we treat the index as a bridge and never as a salary.
The bridge is a KORE1 W2 employee, paid weekly on Fridays. The rest of the Atlanta rate set, every level of every IT role we price in the metro, lives on Atlanta IT contractor rates, and our Atlanta accounting and finance staffing and Atlanta IT and security staffing pages cover the people behind the cells.
Price the controller or security bridge
Tell us the seat that’s empty, the work that can’t wait and your start date. We’ll price each contract seat.
Can the Atlanta Contract Controller Stay On After the New CFO Starts?
Often, yes. The contractor who ran the close knows where every reconciliation lives. A new CFO tends to notice.
Here’s how that works with us. After 1,040 hours on assignment, 26 weeks at 40 hours, a KORE1 contractor can move to your payroll with no conversion fee, and they start fast, since across 1,997 contract placements our median from offer to start was 3 days.
Of 552 contract-to-hire assignments, 207 converted to payroll, which is 37.5%. That’s a track record across all roles, mostly in Southern California, and not a promise for one Atlanta seat.
How Is an Atlanta Executive Search Structured and Paid?
Two shapes. A retained search is a dedicated search, paid in stages as the work is done. An engaged search is a smaller commitment up front, with the balance due at hire.
We recommend one on the intake call and put the fee in writing, so a board never has to guess. We don’t quote a percentage on a web page, because the right structure depends on the seat. Our guides on retained versus contingency search and how to choose an executive search firm cover the trade-off.
Devin Hornick, a Partner at KORE1, gives buyers one test for choosing between two or three firms. He says to look for
“a firm who’s willing to show you how they make their money and not hide anything.”
Our executive search process is written out in full, step by step.
What Should an Atlanta Board Settle Before the First Candidate Call?
Devin Hornick, a Partner at KORE1, opens with one question when a company says hiring budgets are tight.
“What projects have executive sponsorship even though hiring budgets are tight?”
Five things come after it. Boards that haven’t decided them tend to spend the first month deciding them with a search firm on the clock, which is an expensive way to hold a meeting nobody scheduled.
- The band
The salary range the board has approved, checked against the BLS table above before outreach begins.
- Who reads covenants
The employment lawyer who gets each finalist’s agreements before the last round.
- Who holds the work
The person or contract seat that carries the close, the security program or the roadmap during the gap.
- Decision panel
The few people who decide, who can say no, and the short list of people who know the search exists.
- Funded initiative
The project the new leader owns, with money and an executive sponsor behind it.
$171,240
median annual wage of financial managers in metro Atlanta, May 2025
15,660
financial managers employed in the Atlanta metro, the largest of the four leader groups
$165
median hourly bill rate, senior contract controller in Atlanta, modeled
3 days
median from offer to start for KORE1 contractors (n=1,997)
Wages and employment from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Rates from the KORE1 Contract Rate Index 2026-Q4, effective October 16, 2026. Placement figures from KORE1 W2 contract records, all roles. Track record, not a commitment.
Common Questions
What Atlanta boards and CEOs ask about a leadership search.
Can a Georgia non-compete keep an Atlanta finalist out of our seat?
It might, and employment counsel decides. Georgia permits a post-employment non-compete against sales staff, managers who direct two or more people with hiring and firing say, key employees and professionals, for agreements signed on or after May 11, 2011, so get each finalist’s agreements before the last round.
How long may a Georgia employer restrict a departing executive?
For an employee covenant not tied to a sale of a business, two years or less is presumed reasonable in time and more than two years is presumed unreasonable. Either presumption can be rebutted, so counsel reads the clause itself.
What would three months of controller-level cover on an Atlanta close cost?
A senior contract controller in Atlanta bills $147 to $179 an hour, median $165, about $86,000 for three months at 40 hours a week. That’s a modeled cell in the KORE1 Contract Rate Index 2026-Q4, a contract bill rate and not executive pay.
Does KORE1 run retained searches for Atlanta payments and logistics companies?
Yes, KORE1 runs retained and engaged searches for CFO, CIO, CISO, COO and VP seats at Atlanta employers, including payments and logistics companies. We recommend the structure on the intake call and put the fee in writing.
Do the BLS wage figures tell us what an Atlanta CFO will cost?
No, they show a middle point and not a package. The May 2025 median for Atlanta financial managers is $171,240, but that leaves out bonus and equity and covers every employer size, so use it to sanity-check a band before outreach and nothing more.
Does the search cover Sandy Springs, Roswell and the rest of metro Atlanta?
Yes, searches cover Atlanta, Sandy Springs, Roswell and the metro around them. KORE1 serves the area without a local office.
Start a Confidential Atlanta Search
Send us four things. A recruiter will come back with how we’d run the search.
- The seatCFO, CIO, CISO, COO or a VP or director seat.
- The reporting lineWho the leader reports to on day one.
- The incumbentWhether the person in the seat knows.
- The startWhen the new leader has to be in the seat.
Want to see the process first? Read how KORE1 runs retained and engaged search. Need cover now? Price contract cover, see the rest of the Atlanta rate set, or call 949-706-6990.
