Heidrick & Struggles appoints Thabiso Legoete to lead Johannesburg office

• New leadership to drive next phase of growth in South Africa and Africa, leveraging firm’s global capabilities and insights.

• Leadership advisory services are increasingly key to organisations as they face significant technological and geopolitical disruptions.

• Agility, rather than experience alone, is becoming the defining leadership capability, says Legoete.

Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc, a premier provider of global leadership advisory and on-demand talent solutions, has appointed Thabiso Legoete as Managing Partner of its Johannesburg office, as the firm continues to deepen its focus on leadership advisory work for clients across Sub-Saharan Africa navigating accelerating technological disruption and geopolitical uncertainty.

Legoete, who joined the firm last year, succeeds Allen Shardelow, who led the Johannesburg office for 15 years and will remain with the business in a senior client facing role. Shardelow is credited with steering the firm through the disruption of the Covid-19 period and stabilising the business through a prolonged recovery phase, ensuring continuity for both clients and employees.

“Sincere thanks and gratitude go to Allen for sure-handedly leading the firm through an incredibly turbulent time. That stability has given us a solid platform from which to now focus firmly on the future,” he says.

He notes that this future will be defined by leadership challenges that look markedly different from those of previous cycles. “The scale and complexity of changes organisations are dealing with today require a much more integrated approach than before, because critical decisions around talent, structure, and succession can no longer be treated in isolation.”

Leadership grounded in deep experience

Legoete brings more than 25 years of experience across financial services, management consulting, and executive search. He previously led the local office of a global organisational consulting firm and has advised chairs and CEOs across sub-Saharan Africa on board effectiveness, senior leadership succession and performance. Before then, held senior roles at Absa Group spanning strategy, operations, human resources, and transformation. He is an alumnus of the University of Witwatersrand and INSEAD .

Following his appointment, the Johannesburg office will seek to accelerate the rollout of Heidrick & Struggles’ full leadership advisory offering locally, while drawing more deliberately on the firm’s global capabilities and research. In addition to executive search, this includes supporting boards and CEOs on succession planning, leadership assessment and development, organisational design, and culture transformation.

“Executive search remains a critical part of our DNA,” he says. “But clients are increasingly asking for deeper partnerships and support that helps them think through leadership topics in a fluid world that is changing faster than at any point in recent memory.

Agility under pressure

He explains that technology and geopolitics in particular are reshaping leadership requirements. “Organisations are grappling with the impact of artificial intelligence on their operating models, and at the same time are navigating supply chain disruptions as a result of major geopolitical shifts. That has a direct bearing on the type of leaders organisations need.”

In this environment, leadership agility has become a key defining capability. “The leaders who will succeed are those who can reconfigure teams and resources quickly in response to opportunity and risk. Over-reliance on how things have always been done, or on experience alone, risks limiting an organisation’s ability to adapt.

“In turn, this has sharpened the focus on succession planning and bench strength. Organisations need a clear view of the talent they have versus the talent they will need.”

Evolving leadership models and inclusion

Heidrick & Struggles is also tracking how global shifts in work patterns are beginning to influence leadership models, including the rise of the executive gig economy. Internationally, the firm has expanded its on-demand talent offering, placing interim leaders and senior executives into organisations for defined periods.

“While that is not yet a priority in South Africa, it reflects how executive careers and access to scarce leadership capability are evolving globally. It’s something we will need to consider carefully in a local context over time.”

Transformation and inclusion also remain core to the firm’s local strategy. Heidrick & Struggles itself is a Level 1 B-BBEE contributor, and 78% of its South African executive assignments in 2024 were filled by black candidates, while women accounted for 52% of its placements.

“Transformation and inclusion remain essential to both our team and our clients. Our role is to help organisations access the full depth of the talent pool while ensuring leaders are equipped to perform.”

As the Johannesburg office enters its next chapter, he adds that his focus as a leader is on creating the conditions for people to perform at their best. “I want our teams to feel empowered to experiment, or to stretch and to innovate – like trapeze artists. My role is to be the safety net, or to make sure that when things don’t go to plan, it’s not fatal, that we learn from it, and that we move forward stronger.”

For Legoete, that same philosophy underpins the firm’s work with clients as it continues helping organisations build leadership teams confident enough to take the right risks in an environment where standing still is no longer an option.