Engaged Executive Search
Retained Search & Direct Talent Access for Industrial & Construction Organizations — Manager • Director • VP • C-Suite — Calgary & Across Canada
One role. Singular focus.Accessing the right professional — found the right way.
Some roles are too important to leave to a reactive process. When a critical position opens — whether that’s a Senior Project Manager who anchors your delivery capability, a Director of Operations who keeps the business running, or a VP who shapes the next stage of growth — the wrong process costs far more than the fee.
Engaged Executive Search
Engaged Executive Search is Next International’s retained, high-touch mandate for exactly those situations. As a construction and industrial talent access specialist with over 20 years of relationships across Canada and Europe, Will van Middendorp accesses senior professionals who are not on job boards, not actively looking, and not reachable through a posting — because those relationships were built long before your vacancy existed.
Our Approach to Accessing Talent
Discovery First
Before we approach a single candidate, we invest real time understanding your organization, your team, and what genuine success looks like in this role. Not a briefing call — a real diagnostic. The brief we produce is specific enough to be useful and honest enough to be accurate, including where your expectations may need to align with market reality.
Direct Access Over Visibility
We do not just post your role. We go directly to the professionals your organization needs — through personal, confidential, relationship-driven outreach. We specialize in accessing passive talent: the senior professional who is performing well elsewhere, not looking, but open to the right conversation when it is presented with genuine alignment and credibility.
Honest Market Advisory
We tell you what the talent market actually looks like — compensation benchmarks for specific professional profiles in your sector and geography, candidate availability, and where expectations may need to flex. Our job is not to tell you what you want to hear. It is to help you make the best possible decision.
Offer Through Onboarding
We manage the offer, the negotiation, and the early onboarding period. The engagement does not end at acceptance — it ends when your new professional is embedded and performing.
Professional Profiles We Access
- Project Manager
- Senior Project Manager
- Construction Manager
- Senior Construction Manager
- Estimator
- Senior Estimator
- Chief Estimator
- Project Controls Manager
- Senior Project Controls Specialist
- Director of Construction
- Director of Project Delivery
- Director of Operations
- VP of Construction
- VP of Operations
- VP of Project Management
- Chief Operating Officer (COO)
- President
- Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Engineering leads and senior professional roles specific to your organization
The Engagement Model
A small upfront engagement fee initiates the search and ensures dedicated, exclusive focus from day one. The balance is tied to successful placement. Our outcome is aligned with yours. This is the Shared Risk. Shared Results. principle in practice.