Why Toronto’s Firms Struggle to Find Executive Talent

Toronto generates nearly one-fifth of Canada’s GDP and leads the country in banking, fintech, AI and life-sciences investment. Venture funding topped $11 billion CAD last year yet fast-growing companies report senior roles from VP Engineering to Chief Revenue Officer are left open for three to six months. As a result, product launches slip, revenue targets shrink and investor patience wears thin.

Demand Outpaces Supply: Hard Data

Ben Lamarche, General Manager at Lock Search Group, a Toronto-based executive search firm, tracks a 40 percent jump in C-suite and VP searches since 2023 without a corresponding increase in available talent. His team’s dashboard shows:

• Average time-to-fill: 120 days for CEOs and CFOs (80 days in 2023) and 95 days for VPs of Product, Sales or Engineering.
• Vacancy cost: Every month without a CRO drains high-growth SaaS firms of roughly 9 percent of projected new ARR.
• Interview fallout:  One in three finalist candidates withdraws before a second round, citing competing offers or unclear hybrid work policies.

Voices from the Front Line

“The best executives never browse job boards. We have to build trust months before a role is approved,” Lamarche says. Companies that approve interview slates within ten business days secure their first choice candidate 61% of the time, versus 28% for slower firms. Each extra week in the process cuts close rates by roughly four points.

Case Study: Fast-Track VP Hire Saves a Product Launch

A Toronto healthtech scale up needed a VP Regulatory Affairs after a surprise departure jeopardized an FDA submission. Lamarche’s team tapped a passive candidate map built earlier for another role. Within 21 days, three pre-vetted leaders met the CEO. One of them accepted a week later, the submission stayed on schedule and the firm closed a $35 million CAD Series C round two months afterward. “Without that proactive pipeline, the launch would have slipped a full quarter,” Lamarche notes.

Hybrid Skill Sets and Digital Imperatives

Today’s boards expect leaders who blend strategy with data literacy. CFOs must steer AI-enabled ERP rollouts, CTOs need fluency in cybersecurity compliance and CMOs must master analytics. Nonetheless, many job ads still recycle language from 2018 that is extremely out of date. Lamarche says candidates with cross-disciplinary talents skim those ads and move on. While median total cash for top-quartile VPs of Engineering is up 18% year-over-year, some firms still benchmark against pre-pandemic pay scales, pushing talent toward U.S.-based remote roles.

The Counter-Offer Gauntlet

Lamarche reports a 30% rise in counter offers that bundle retention bonuses and accelerated equity. Half of the executives who decline an external offer do so because their current employer matches or exceeds it within 48 hours. “Top performers know their leverage. If a company hesitates, they stay put or entertain another suitor,” he warns.

Four Fast-Track Fixes

• Compress the timeline. Cluster all interviews into one week and authorize the hiring leader to make the final call. Lamarche finds this can cut 25 days from searches.
• Lead with your mission.  Show how the role accelerates new market entry, AI deployment or sustainability goals. Executives choose challenges that provide them with some meaning.
• Offer genuine flexibility. Specify on-site expectations, travel limits and promotion triggers up front. Transparency can reduce late stage renegotiations significantly.
• Engage an executive recruiter early. Passive candidate pipelines that are built months before vacancies open can surface leaders who never apply online and are twice as likely to accept.

Lamarche concludes that firms treating hiring as a revenue-generating function with disciplined timelines, clear value propositions and rigorous market benchmarking consistently outpace slower rivals. In today’s market, an efficient executive search strategy is not optional; it is the engine that keeps Toronto’s growth story in motion.