KHC is an advisory services firm that brings talent, strategy, vision, and culture together to create world class brands.
“Leadership is everything. Without vision and creativity, innovation cannot take place - and without innovation, it is almost impossible to meet the demands of consumers, which are increasing and changing every day.”— Karen Harvey
KHC is an international advisory services firm with deep multi-industry expertise and an extraordinary network. With offices in New York, London and Paris, we partner with leading companies in their search for world-class talent, modern organization design and brand development strategies that serve today’s complex business needs. Our approach dismantles the divides between disciplines and industries, supporting leaders in new ways of working, thinking and remaining relevant for the future. Founded and led by entrepreneur Karen Harvey, known for her ability to see around corners and predict industry trends, our advisory services work has become equally important to our renowned practice, placing top talent.
As industry experts, our role is to support innovation and growth by bringing the most dynamic leaders to our client companies. Our impact through placing CEOs, CBOs, exceptional brand leaders, digital talent and creative directors, has increased our client’s profitability, shareholder value, brand health and relevance. Above all, we place exceptional people that develop strong cultures and empower talent, resulting in higher performance and retention. We consistently excel when engaged in long term, highly strategic relationships that curate dynamic and transformational senior leadership teams. Many of our clients have worked with us for over 15 years, building key creative and business leadership teams. Given the different stages of a brand’s development, we are collaborative partners with client leadership in assessing the short, mid and longer term needs of an organization’s strategy and structure, using the lens of talent and the requirements for creating fewer siloes and cross-functional teams. In many of these instances, we begin this work as Phase One Advisory Services. This approach, which takes place over a 6 week period, enables CEOs to explore their short and long-term strategies in the context of a variety of strategic talent options before launching an exhaustive search. Critical to Phase One work is access to our expansive network and experience in working with a broad range of companies and industry sectors. This stage provides clients further clarity on the organization and talent required to drive their strategic agenda. Our international presence, with expert teams equally focused on executive and creative leadership, has allowed us to play an important role in building some of the world’s most exciting and profitable brands. All of our search assignments are conducted on a retained, exclusive basis.
As industry experts, we are able to bring the past and the future together to help examine, select and implement the most effective business or organizational model to help take your company into the future. The evolving dynamics across multiple industries require teams, structures and operations that are less siloed, steeped in consumer centricity and operate on highly digital, direct-to-consumer platforms. Additionally, brands must have a real reason to exist and they must stand for something that is authentic and important to their communities. These two pillars are critical to future-proofing brands, and require bringing on board the right new technologies, innovative approaches to engaging consumers, exceptional creative ideas and products, and new supply chains that do less harm to the planet and are more respectful of their workers. As many startup companies have rapidly become bigger players, and will continue to disrupt as long as they have the right leaders and resources, it is important that established brands of scale put leadership teams and strategies in place, to continue to succeed in future generations. Our Advisory Services provide a comprehensive approach to these new imperatives, leveraging our eco-system and experience, while providing access to some of the largest technology companies that are changing the way we work, and the startups that are innovating and solving problems quickly. These projects are taken on a limited basis and are designed around the unique needs of the brand or business.
Organizational transformation can only take place when individual and group mindsets shift, and storytelling is a powerful tool for creating change. The most effective leaders are those who are highly skilled at taking teams on a journey of their vision for innovation. Great storytelling is also the key to effective presentation and to breaking down the barriers that prevent innovation. Without question, the creative leaders who are passionate about sharing their work, are more likely to get their best ideas, product designs and brand vision across the line with key colleagues. While Storytelling is an art, it can also be taught. It’s important to understand that there is no one right way to tell a story, but there is a method for defining the right style for each individual. Our Storytelling Workshops are developed on a selective and customized basis, for innovation-driven companies that recognize that engaging multiple teams in big ideas are the pathway to their ability to make the biggest global impact on their brands, businesses and consumers.
Fashion Tech Forum is a platform for discovery, inspiration and education for leaders of fashion, luxury, technology and innovation.
Visit fashion tech forumAngela Ahrendts DBE
Former CEO of Burberry, former SVP of Apple Retail, and Chair of Save the Children International
FTF brings groundbreaking leaders together to share thoughts, ideas, and critical insights around the future of fashion, retail, technology and culture at large. It's a space for our community to connect, share their vision and build partnerships. We also host a monthly podcast which explores both the career journeys and timely perspectives of world-class talent, global leaders and brand visionaries. These conversations focus on personal stories as well as pivotal experiences, and dig into the culture shifts that our guests feel are critical for brands and businesses to consider to prepare for the future.
Visit fashion tech forumNigel Sylvester
Pro BMX Athlete
Lauren is a Partner at KHC, where she leads the Creative Search practice. Lauren focuses on placing high-level design and creative leaders within our client companies. With nineteen years of creative search experience, she is deeply committed to connecting the very best talent with world-class fashion, luxury, retail and innovation-driven brands.
Lauren joined KHC in 2012 after relocating to New York from London, where she had been working for Denza, an international fashion recruitment and consultancy firm. Lauren earned her BA with Honors in Fashion Marketing from Northumbria University in the UK, which provided her with a deep-rooted understanding of the fashion design process and a solid platform upon which to build her consulting career, specializing in design and creative search.
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