KORE1 executive search in New York City, as of November 2026
Executive Search Firm in New York City Retained and engaged search for Manhattan C-suite, VP and director roles
CISO, CFO, CTO and VP searches for New York banks, buyout-backed companies, fintechs and media firms.
KORE1 is an executive search firm for New York City, running retained and engaged searches for CISO, CFO, CTO, VP and director seats at Manhattan banks, private equity portfolio companies, fintechs and media companies.
Last updated: November 8, 2026
- This page
- Executive search for New York City and Manhattan seats, the city and state rules that shape the search, and what interim cover costs while it runs.
- Not this page
- Our national practice is on the KORE1 executive recruiters page. If you want a list to compare, we keep one of ranked executive search firms.
New York doesn’t let you run an executive search the way most states do. The city regulates the job ad, the screening software and the background check, and the state decides whether a regulated firm’s security chair can sit empty at all. Four rules. One search. Texas has its own paper, a noncompete test on time, area and scope, and it runs through Austin executive search. Texas has its own paper, and a Dallas board meets it first, as Dallas-Fort Worth executive search explains.
We run these searches two ways. Retained, where you commit to the search and we commit a senior bench to it, and engaged, which sits between retained and contingency. New to hiring at this level? Start with how executive search works, then read retained versus contingency search for which model fits your seat. Texas works differently, and our page on executive search in Houston for energy and medical center leaders covers the 2025 physician non-compete limits. The same two models run on the West Coast as retained and engaged search in Los Angeles. Further north on that coast, they run as Seattle executive search. In the Southeast, headquarters, payments and logistics seats run through Atlanta executive search.
Where Do New York Executive Searches Come From?
Wall Street, first. The State Comptroller counted 207,400 securities industry jobs in New York City in 2025, a record, according to the Comptroller’s securities industry report, and every one of those firms needs a finance chief and a security chief who can sit through a regulator’s exam.
- Private equity portfolio companies. A buyout closes and the sponsor wants a new CFO before the first board meeting. Somebody still has to build the reporting pack while that search runs, which is where contract teams for a 100-day plan come in.
- Fintech and media companies hire CTOs and VPs of Engineering who can scale a platform without losing the audit trail, and our VP of Engineering search page covers that seat by itself.
- Health systems. NYC Health + Hospitals describes itself as the largest municipal health care system in the US. The private systems around it want the same finance, data and security leaders.
- Chief data officers. The newest seat on most org charts, and the one with the fewest people who’ve held it.
Searches outside that list run the same way. Same process. Same rules.
A Regulated New York Firm Can’t Leave the CISO Chair Empty
Banks, insurers and other companies licensed by the New York State Department of Financial Services work under its cybersecurity regulation, 23 NYCRR Part 500. Section 500.4 is short. Each covered entity “shall designate a CISO.”
That CISO reports in writing at least once a year to the senior governing body on the cybersecurity program. The Second Amendment to the rule took effect on November 1, 2023, with some new requirements phased in over the two years after it. The regulator won’t wait for your search.
So the search and the cover start the same week. Who gets designated in the meantime is a decision for your board and counsel, and what a contractor can do is keep the security program’s daily work moving until the permanent hire arrives through our CISO search. Our guide to hiring a CISO covers the interviews.
Is the seat open now?
Tell us whether you’re regulated by NYDFS and whether the chair is already empty. We’ll scope the search and, if you need it, the interim cover.
Where Each New York Rule Hits an Executive Search
The 1916 zoning law made Manhattan towers step back as they rose. A search narrows the same way, from an open ad to one signed start date, and New York has put a rule on most of the floors.
The setback
Read from the street up. A solid plaque is a city or state rule, and the outlined one is our own practice.
Start date
New York case law
Ask every finalist about notice, garden leave and any non-compete before a start date goes in the offer. Non-competes
Conditional offer
NYC Fair Chance Act
Criminal history waits until after the offer, and the candidate gets at least five business days to answer. Record checks
Finalist interviews
KORE1 practice
A recruiter who has met the finalist. Face-swapped video interviews are a documented fraud pattern. Identity
Screening
NYC Local Law 144
An automated tool that scores candidates needs a bias audit and 10 business days’ notice. AI screening
The job ad
NYC Human Rights Law and Labor Law 194‑b
A good faith salary range on every advertised job, the CEO’s included. Pay ranges
What Must a New York City Executive Job Ad Include?
A salary range. The city’s fact sheet opens with one sentence worth reading in full.
“Starting November 1, 2022, employers advertising jobs in New York City must include a good faith salary range for every job, promotion, and transfer opportunity advertised.”
Every job means every job. There’s no carve-out for the corner office, so a CFO ad carries a range the same way a staff accountant ad does. Employers with four or more employees are covered, and the fact sheet says employment agencies are covered regardless of their size, which puts a search firm’s ad for your seat in scope too.
The range is base pay. The fact sheet says salary doesn’t include bonuses, stock or commissions, and at this level the base is often the smaller number. Outside the city line, New York State’s pay transparency law, Labor Law 194‑b, has covered employers with four or more employees since September 17, 2023. Cincinnati has its own pay rule for leaders, the Cincinnati salary-history rule, which applies before the offer.
Set the range with the hiring committee before the first ad goes up. Not after.
Record Checks, AI Screening and Identity in an NYC Executive Search
Background checks come late here. The city’s Fair Chance Act moves criminal history to after a conditional offer, and if you want to pull an offer over a record, the candidate gets a copy of the inquiry, a written Fair Chance analysis and at least five business days to respond. Plan for those days.
Screening software has its own rule. Local Law 144 stops employers and employment agencies from using an automated employment decision tool unless it had a bias audit within a year of use, and candidates get notice 10 business days before. Ask any firm you hire, us included, whether a tool touches your candidates.
Then identity. The FBI has reported that North Korean IT workers have been observed using AI and face-swapping technology in video job interviews to hide who they are, in a January 2025 public service announcement. Devin put the consequence plainly.
“A recruiter who actually knows the candidate is now a security control, not overhead.”
The other change is the size of the room.
“More managers now join the hiring calls where HR used to run the process alone, so the interview panel gets bigger.”
Decide who sits on the panel, and who has the final say, before the slate arrives.
Does New York Let Employers Rely on Executive Non-Competes?
Yes, within limits. There’s no statewide ban in force as of November 2026. Governor Hochul vetoed the broad ban, S3100A, in December 2023, and two later bills passed the State Senate, S4641A in June 2025 and S9759 in June 2026, then stalled in Assembly committee.
Courts decide case by case. In BDO Seidman v. Hirshberg, 93 N.Y.2d 382 (1999), the Court of Appeals held that a restraint is reasonable only if it’s no greater than needed to protect the employer’s legitimate interest, doesn’t impose undue hardship on the employee and isn’t injurious to the public.
For the search, that becomes one question in every final round. What’s your notice period, is there garden leave, and what did you sign? Your lawyer reads the answer. We don’t give legal advice.
Manhattan Interim Rates While the Executive Search Is Open
Senior contract bill rates for New York, NY. These are the people who keep the work moving under an acting leader, and every row is modeled, not observed.
| While you search for | Interim role | Bill range | Median | 3 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A CISOModeled | Security analyst or engineer, senior | $121 to $145 | $134 | $69,800 |
| A CFOModeled | Controller or accounting manager, senior | $213 to $275 | $255 | $132,500 |
| A CFOModeled | Financial analyst or FP&A, senior | $116 to $144 | $134 | $69,500 |
| A CTO or VP of EngineeringModeled | Software engineer, senior | $142 to $170 | $157 | $81,800 |
There’s no CISO, CFO or CTO row, because the index doesn’t publish one. A senior contract security engineer bills $121 to $145 an hour in New York, with a median of $134, which comes to about $69,800 for three months of cover while the CISO search runs. Cover, not a CISO. Every other role is in New York IT contractor rates.
Get a New York interim rate
Send the seat that’s open, the work that can’t wait and your start date. We’ll come back with a bill rate for the cover.
Turning a New York Interim Leader Into the Permanent Hire
Sometimes the interim stays. After 1,040 hours on assignment, about six months at 40 hours a week, you can hire a KORE1 contractor directly and KORE1 charges nothing extra for the conversion.
It happens more than people expect. Across KORE1 contract-to-hire placements firm-wide, just over a third converted, 207 of 552, or 37.5%, and the typical contractor started 3 days after the offer (median, n=1,997). Those numbers cover every role we place on contract, not executive seats alone, so read them as a track record and not as a promise about your search.
$134
median hourly bill rate, senior contract security engineer, New York, modeled
$255
median hourly bill rate, senior contract controller, New York, modeled
3 days
median from offer to start for KORE1 contractors (n=1,997)
37.5%
of KORE1 contract-to-hire placements converted (n=552)
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.
KORE1 Across New York
We search for leaders in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. The same recruiters staff the teams those leaders run.
Executive Seats We Search in New York
Four seats, one process, and a recruiter who has filled the seat before.
Security
Chief information security officer
For a firm regulated by NYDFS, the one chair that can’t sit empty while you search.
CISO staffingFinance
CFO and VP of Finance
Finance leaders who can hand a sponsor a clean board pack in their first month.
VP of Finance searchTechnology
CTO and VP of Engineering
Technology chiefs for fintech and media platforms that can’t stop shipping during the change.
CTO staffingThe whole bench
VP and director roles
The layer under the C-suite, from a director of FP&A to a head of data.
Our executive recruiting firm
Common Questions
Do NYC salary range rules cover C-suite job ads?
Yes. The rule reaches every job advertised in New York City, so a CEO, CFO or CISO ad carries a good faith salary range too. The range covers base pay, and the city’s fact sheet says bonuses and stock aren’t part of it.
Can an NYC company use AI tools to screen executive candidates?
Only after two steps. Local Law 144 requires a bias audit of the tool within a year of its use and 10 business days’ notice to candidates, and it applies to employers and employment agencies alike. Ask whether any tool touches your slate.
Has New York banned non-competes?
No. There’s no statewide ban in force as of November 2026. The Governor vetoed a broad ban in December 2023, and Senate bills passed in 2025 and 2026 stalled in the Assembly. Courts still enforce covenants they find reasonable, so ask every finalist what they signed.
What does a senior contract FP&A analyst cost in New York?
$116 to $144 an hour, with a median of $134, or about $69,500 for three months at 40 hours a week. That’s a modeled cell in the KORE1 Contract Rate Index 2026-Q4, not an observed one.
When does criminal history come up in an NYC executive search?
After the conditional offer, not before. The NYC Fair Chance Act moves the check to the end of the search, and if you want to withdraw the offer over a record, the candidate gets the inquiry, a written analysis and at least five business days to respond.
Open a Manhattan Leadership Search
Send us five things and a recruiter will come back with how we’d run the search.
- The seatCISO, CFO, CTO, VP or director, and who it reports to.
- Your regulatorWhether NYDFS licenses the firm.
- TimingWhether the chair is empty now or opening later.
- Pay rangeWhether the committee has set one yet.
- The panelWho interviews, and who decides.
Need cover first? Price the interim seat, or call 949-706-6990.
