We are seeking a Partner-grade Business Intelligence and Complex Investigations practitioner to join our client in Sydney. The ideal candidate will hold senior intelligence, investigations or qualified-legal credentials with at least 15 years of relevant experience, the most recent 3+ years at Partner, Managing Director or equivalent practice-leadership level, and a market reputation as a tradecraft and adversarial-context-investigations authority. The successful candidate will have a portable book of senior client and law-firm-partner relationships, a sustained personally-originated business-intelligence revenue track record, and the brand presence to lead a business-intelligence-and-complex-investigations practice in the Sydney market. They will be responsible for leading the most complex multi-jurisdictional engagements end to end, originating and growing PE buy-side, superannuation, sovereign-wealth and litigation-counsel mandates, and setting practice strategy on tradecraft, hiring, pricing and methodology.

Confidential Client. Applying to this position means that you are interested to have an initial confidential discussion about how we can help you to identify and join a new business intelligence and complex investigations practice at Partner level. With your authorisation we will exclusively run the entire application and recruitment process for you, keeping you apprised at every step. With over 30 years' combined experience of helping the most talented intelligence and investigations practitioners to make safe exits to launch rewarding new careers, we have the experience, network and ability to help you.

Key Responsibilities:

• Take Partner positions on the most complex business-intelligence and complex-investigations engagements - high-stakes, often privileged, often counsel-instructed engagements running AUD 1.5m - 15m+ in fees - with full P&L responsibility for the business-intelligence engagement portfolio.
• Originate, win and grow Partner-instructed business-intelligence mandates by carrying a portable book of senior relationships at General Counsel, CFO, Head of M&A, Managing Partner of PE houses, Head of Investment at superannuation funds, family-office CIO and Audit Committee Chair level, and at relevant law firm partner level.
• Convert reactive case work into multi-year retainer engagements covering subject-monitoring programmes, standing-counterparty-screening retainers, ongoing-due-diligence frameworks for PE buy-side teams, superannuation-fund investment-committee-monitoring panels, family-office monitoring panels and FIRB-readiness frameworks.
• Take signed-off Partner positions on the most senior management-background reports, FIRB-relevance sovereign-counterparty profiles, pre-IPO red-flag reviews and adversarial-context asset-tracing reports; engage with subject-counterparty challenge and clarification responses, and (where required) provide signed-off declarations in Australian-court, Royal Commission or arbitration proceedings.
• Lead the most complex multi-jurisdictional engagements - notably APAC-wide PE buy-side CDD programmes, sovereign-wealth fund counterparty profiles, family-office investment-monitoring panels and bet-the-recovery asset-tracing matters - across the Pacific, South-East Asia, Greater China, India and South Asia.
• Set the practice's strategy on tooling adoption (such as Sayari / Castellum / Refinitiv / Dow Jones / Orbis stacks and the AI-assisted-OSINT frontier), hiring, pricing and market positioning; shape the firm's tradecraft doctrine and signed-off declaration practice.
• Build the practice's external IP and brand presence on business-intelligence themes through published thought leadership and conference-level speaking engagements; pursue and maintain ABI / WAEPA / IBE positioning where applicable.
• Hire, develop, mentor and advocate for the practice staff - Senior Directors, Directors, Senior Managers and the wider bench - championing advancement at firm-wide promotion rounds, sponsoring sustained upskilling on emerging methodology and AI tooling, and shaping their external profile-building. Contribute to firm strategy beyond the business-intelligence sub-practice.

Required Qualifications and Skills:

• Multiple senior intelligence, investigations or legal credentials, such as Master Licence Class 2A under the NSW Security and Investigation Industry Act 1996 plus CFE plus CAMS plus ABI / WAEPA membership, or qualified-lawyer status plus CFE plus ABI membership - the recognised stacking pattern at Partner level.
• At least 15 years of relevant experience in business intelligence, corporate investigations, asset-tracing, OSINT-led research, political-risk advisory, intelligence-services background or qualified-legal practice, with the most recent 3+ years at Partner, Managing Director or equivalent practice-leadership level.
• Demonstrable track record of leading the most complex regional business-intelligence matters with full P&L accountability and signed-off Partner-level declarations on asset-tracing or due-diligence reports.
• Demonstrable, sustained, personally-originated business-intelligence revenue track record. Sydney market guide: AUD 2m - 4m+ annually originated on business-intelligence and asset-tracing work, calibrated to the engaging firm.
• Portable senior client relationships at General Counsel, CFO, Head of M&A, Managing Partner of PE houses, Head of Investment at superannuation funds, family-office CIO and Audit Committee Chair level, and at relevant law firm partner level (commercial litigation, class actions, white-collar crime, regulatory enforcement, M&A litigation, asset-recovery and internal-investigations practices) who refer and instruct business-intelligence and asset-tracing work - credibly portable subject to non-compete and non-solicit posture; named accounts with multi-year history are the strongest evidence.
• Experience running a business-intelligence sub-practice or country-team P&L: revenue, utilisation, gross margin, partner-time leverage, hire-and-promote responsibility, source-network development and tooling strategy.
• Authority on the Australian intelligence-and-investigations framework: the NSW Security and Investigation Industry Act 1996 and state-equivalent licensing regimes, the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles, the Surveillance Devices Act 2007 (NSW) for source-handling boundaries, the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act 1975 (FIRB), the Defence Trade Controls Act 2012, the Criminal Code (Cth) cross-border bribery framework, the Modern Slavery Act 2018, and Royal Commission / Commission-of-Inquiry investigations frameworks.
• Cross-border fluency on US adversarial-discovery practice (1782 applications, FRCP 26 / 34), UK High Court Norwich Pharmacal and Bankers Trust orders, Singapore Order 21 RoC 2021, and Hong Kong Order 24 RHC and 2024 Mainland Judicial Mutual Assistance arrangements.
• Familiarity with industry-standard business-intelligence tooling, including entity-resolution and graph-intelligence platforms (such as Sayari Graph, Castellum.AI, Refinitiv World-Check, Dow Jones Risk & Compliance or LexisNexis Bridger), corporate-records and credit-data platforms (such as Bureau Van Dijk Orbis, Pitchbook, Mergermarket or Capital IQ), social-media intelligence platforms (such as Babel Street or Maltego), and court-records aggregators across multiple jurisdictions.
• Realistic engagement on notice periods and non-compete / non-solicit obligations given the senior nature of the move and the relationship-led nature of the practice.

Preferred Experience:

• Prior background at Partner level in intelligence services, investigative journalism or specialist corporate-intelligence boutiques.
• Australian Government security clearance (NV1 or above) for Partners engaging on government and sovereign-counterparty mandates.
• Royal Commission or Commission-of-Inquiry advisor experience at Partner level.
• Postgraduate qualification: Master's in international relations, security studies, intelligence studies, journalism, finance, governance, MBA, or LLM with investigations / regulatory / criminal-justice relevance.
• Visible market profile in the Australian / Trans-Tasman business-intelligence community: published author, conference speaker, recognised authority on tradecraft / asset-tracing / political-risk themes, named in legal directories and industry rankings.
• Track record of testifying or signed-off declaration on intelligence-and-investigations issues in Australian-court, Royal Commission, arbitration or regulator proceedings (notably Norwich Pharmacal-and-Bankers-Trust-equivalent applications).
• Demonstrable conversion of one-off engagements into multi-year retainer and standing-monitor work.
• FATF Mutual Evaluation expert participation or independent-monitor appointment track record.
• Visible thought leadership on the AI developments reshaping business intelligence and complex investigations and a documented growth-mindset operating posture: candidates who set the practice direction on tooling adoption (such as AI-assisted OSINT and entity-resolution via Sayari Graph or Castellum.AI, LLM-aided source-language translation, or ML-driven beneficial-ownership inference across FIRB-relevance and Pacific-counterparty structures), advocate for and develop their practice staff on emerging methodologies, and have a track record of upskilling-programme delivery within the sub-practice.

Compensation:

Partner-level package commensurate with origination, portable book and seniority. Includes base, profit-share / partnership-distribution, equity participation and long-term incentive arrangements.

Next Steps:

This opportunity is open to Australian citizens, permanent residents and qualified candidates with relevant Australian work-rights status who match the above criteria. Please apply to receive prompt confidential contact from an experienced and specialist business intelligence and complex investigations recruitment Partner.

Search & Counsel is a trading style of Feltan Associates Pte Ltd; an international Executive Search, Recruitment and Consulting business based in Singapore, licensed and regulated by the Singapore Ministry of Manpower to conduct recruitment services for clients. UEN: 202225620G. EA Licence 23S1672. All rights reserved.