Succession or Executive Departure
Your tax leader is retiring, departing, being replaced, or transitioning and continuity matters to the CFO, board, finance team, and wider organization.
Chief Tax Officer Search Firm
National Retained Executive Search
Chief Tax Officer Executive Search.
Find the Tax Leader Who Can Navigate What Comes Next.
Scion Executive Search identifies, engages, and recruits proven Chief Tax Officers and senior tax leaders nationwide. From complex global tax environments and M&A to transformation, reporting, risk, and growth, we build the executive market around the leadership mandate your organization actually needs.
98%+
Leadership Built to Last
More than 98% of placed executives remain successfully
in their roles beyond the first year.
1,000+
Executive Placements Nationwide
Experience navigating consequential leadership
appointments across industries and functions.
20 Years
Established Search Experience
Two decades of executive recruiting experience behind
our retained search methodology.
National
Search Beyond Your Immediate Network
Targeted executive identification and outreach across
relevant U.S. leadership markets.
The Scion Search Partnership
What You Gain When the Search Cannot Be Left to Chance.
A retained search should give your organization more than candidate introductions. It should expand the reachable executive market, create discipline around evaluation, align stakeholders, protect candidate engagement, and increase confidence in the final hire.
Built around successful completion.
Your dedicated retained team is focused on completing the search and supporting the appointment, not merely submitting available candidates.
01 / REACH
National Market Mapping
Relevant organizations, executives, industries, functions, and geographies are mapped intentionally around your search mandate.
02 / REACH
Passive Executive Access
We directly approach leaders who may never apply to a job posting and may not be actively considering a career move.
03 / REACH
Confidential Outreach
Search activity can be managed discreetly when an incumbent, succession plan, transaction, or candidate conversation requires confidentiality.
04 / REACH
Industry & Functional Alignment
The search can target executives whose tax environment, business model, sector experience, and leadership scope reflect your organization.
05 / RIGOR
Deep Discovery
We clarify organizational goals, tax complexity, stakeholder priorities, leadership needs, barriers, and what success should look like after hire.
06 / RIGOR
Customized Search Strategy
Your engagement is designed around the actual mandate rather than a database-only or one-size-fits-all recruiting process.
07 / RIGOR
Executive Assessment
Candidates are evaluated for tax expertise, strategic judgment, leadership capability, communication, organizational alignment, motivation, and long-term potential.
08 / RIGOR
Dedicated Search Team
Research, outreach, candidate management, assessment, and stakeholder communication are organized around successfully completing your engagement.
09 / PARTNERSHIP
Board & Committee Guidance
We help stakeholders align around the leadership profile and evaluate candidates against a consistent standard.
10 / PARTNERSHIP
High-Touch Search Management
You receive ongoing market feedback, calibration, candidate updates, communication, coordination, and active guidance throughout the engagement.
11 / PARTNERSHIP
Interview & Selection Support
We help move the organization from finalist slate to confident decision through interview planning, references, comparison, and stakeholder coordination.
12 / PARTNERSHIP
Offer & Closing Support
Candidate engagement, offer strategy, expectations, communication, and closing are managed carefully through acceptance.
13 / CONFIDENCE
98%+ Long-Term Retention
More than 98% of placed executives remain successfully in their positions beyond the first year, reflecting our focus on lasting alignment.
14 / CONFIDENCE
Retained Search Guarantee
Retained engagements include a service guarantee, with reinitiation available in qualifying circumstances subject to the engagement terms.
15 / CONFIDENCE
20 Years & 1,000+ Placements
Two decades of executive search experience and more than 1,000 nationwide executive placements support an established search methodology.
16 / CONFIDENCE
National Recognition
Recognition includes Forbes, ClearlyRated Best of Staffing, Inc. 5000, Business Times and Journal lists, and other industry honors.
When Tax Leadership Becomes Business Critical
Organizations Usually Come to Us Because Something Important Has Changed.
A Chief Tax Officer search rarely begins with a simple vacancy. It begins when the organization's risk profile, growth trajectory, transaction activity, leadership structure, or tax complexity creates a need that cannot be solved with an ordinary recruiting process.
The Business Has Outgrown the Function
Acquisitions, international expansion, complexity, regulatory exposure, or organizational scale now require a different level of tax leadership.
Transformation Is Required
The organization needs stronger systems, controls, processes, technology, leadership, team development, or a different tax operating model.
The Current Search Is Not Reaching the Market
Job postings, referrals, or traditional recruiting have not produced leaders with the technical depth, strategic judgment, and executive presence the position requires.
Why Organizations Engage Scion
When the Search Is Too Important for a Resume-Driven Approach.
The strongest retained search partners solve the barriers preventing the organization from reaching, evaluating, and closing the right executive.
The strongest tax leaders are not applying.
We identify and directly recruit passive executives.
The role requires highly specific tax expertise.
We map executives against your actual technical and leadership mandate.
The local candidate market is too narrow.
We expand the search nationally across relevant organizations and markets.
Stakeholders disagree about the ideal candidate.
We establish a shared leadership profile and evaluation framework.
Confidentiality is essential.
We manage targeted executive outreach discreetly.
Previous recruiting efforts have stalled.
We rebuild the search around the mandate, market, and barriers.
The appointment must work long term.
We assess leadership and organizational alignment alongside technical depth.
Access the Executive Market
The Executives You Want May Never Apply.
High-performing Chief Tax Officers are often successfully leading tax organizations today. They may not be monitoring job boards, updating resumes, or responding to traditional recruiting advertisements.
They have to be identified, approached intelligently, and given a compelling reason to consider the opportunity.
We do not wait for the market to come to us. We go into the market.
Access the Executive Market →
Qualified Executive Market
Active Leaders
Passive Executives
Target Companies
Adjacent Markets
Industry Leaders
Confidential Prospects
Build the Leadership Mandate
Hire an Enterprise Leader, Not Simply a Senior Tax Technician.
The modern Chief Tax Officer must combine technical credibility with executive judgment, strategic influence, transformation capability, and the ability to lead through complexity. We build the search around the complete mandate.
Enterprise Strategy
M&A, growth, capital decisions, planning, restructuring, and commercial partnership.
Global Tax
International tax, cross-border matters, transfer pricing, entity complexity, and expansion.
Governance & Risk
Compliance, controversy, controls, reporting, ASC 740, audit readiness, and tax governance.
Transformation
Technology, data, systems, processes, operating model improvement, and function modernization.
Executive Leadership
Team development, succession, executive communication, influence, decision support, and culture.
For CFOs & Finance Leadership
What CFOs Need From Their Next Tax Leader.
The best Chief Tax Officers reduce uncertainty, improve decision quality, strengthen the organization, and become trusted partners to finance and enterprise leadership.
Discuss the Leadership Profile →
Fewer Surprises
A tax leader who anticipates exposure, surfaces issues early, and communicates business implications before they become executive problems.
Better Strategic Partnership
Someone capable of translating highly technical tax matters into useful financial, operational, transaction, and business decisions.
Confidence Through Transactions & Change
Leadership capable of navigating acquisitions, integration, restructuring, global expansion, systems changes, and transformation.
A Stronger Tax Organization
Someone who develops talent, strengthens controls, improves processes, modernizes technology, and creates succession.
Credibility With Critical Stakeholders
A tax executive comfortable working with auditors, advisors, regulators, investors, boards, finance leadership, and operating executives.
Search Intelligence
See How We Would Approach Your Search →
We Do Not Start With a Database. We Construct the Market.
Every mandate creates a different executive universe. Your search strategy can reflect industry, scale, ownership, tax complexity, geography, technical requirements, transformation needs, and leadership expectations before outreach begins.
Target company and comparable organization research
National and regional leadership identification
Passive executive outreach
Industry and adjacent-market calibration
Ongoing market feedback throughout the search
Industry & Business Model
Revenue & Organizational Scale
Ownership Structure
Geographic Footprint
Tax Complexity
Technical Requirements
Leadership Characteristics
Qualified Executive Market
Tax depth matters.
So do executive judgment, enterprise influence, communication,
transformation ability, and long-term fit.
Tax Leadership Search Expertise
Find Tax Leaders With Your Required Experience →
Target the Tax Experience Your Business Actually Needs.
The search can prioritize the disciplines most relevant to your operating environment, strategic plan, transactions, ownership structure, reporting requirements, and global footprint.
Tax Strategy & Planning
Tax Accounting / ASC 740
International Tax
Transfer Pricing
M&A & Transaction Tax
Federal Income Tax
State & Local Tax / SALT
Indirect Tax
Tax Controversy
Tax Technology
Tax Operations & Controls
Global Compliance & Governance
Industry Alignment
Your Chief Tax Officer Should Understand More Than Tax. They Should Understand Your Business.
Industry economics, transaction patterns, regulatory environments, ownership structures, international exposure, and reporting requirements can materially change the executive profile.
Private Equity & Portfolio Companies
Search for tax leaders who can operate at transaction speed while building stronger processes, governance, reporting, and value creation capabilities.
Transaction readiness
Portfolio complexity
Tax structuring
Rapid transformation
Exit planning
Sponsor communication
Technology, SaaS & Digital Businesses
Recruit tax leadership capable of supporting rapid scale, evolving business models, cross-border growth, transaction activity, and increasingly complex tax infrastructure.
International expansion
Transfer pricing
M&A activity
Stock compensation
IP considerations
Scaling tax infrastructure
Manufacturing & Industrial
Identify leaders who understand complex operating footprints, supply chains, indirect tax, international operations, entity structures, and global tax planning.
Global footprint
Indirect tax
Transfer pricing
Supply-chain complexity
Credits & incentives
Entity complexity
Financial Services, FinTech & Insurance
Target tax executives with experience navigating complex products, regulatory environments, entity structures, transactions, investments, and high-scrutiny reporting.
Regulatory complexity
Investment structures
Entity management
Transaction tax
Reporting rigor
Executive stakeholder management
Healthcare & Life Sciences
Search for tax leaders prepared for complex entity structures, transactions, growth, research-intensive environments, regulatory demands, and evolving global operations.
M&A integration
R&D considerations
Global expansion
Entity complexity
Tax reporting
Transformation
Consumer, Retail & E-Commerce
Recruit leadership experienced with multistate exposure, indirect taxation, changing operating models, international growth, acquisitions, and high-volume transaction environments.
SALT exposure
Indirect tax
E-commerce complexity
International growth
M&A
High-volume compliance
Enterprise Tax Leadership
Leaders accountable for enterprise tax strategy, governance, planning, risk, operations, and senior executive partnership.
Chief Tax Officer
Head of Tax
SVP of Tax
VP of Tax
Global Head of Tax
International & Global Tax Leadership
Leaders with responsibility for multinational tax planning, cross-border matters, transfer pricing, compliance, and global strategy.
VP International Tax
Global Tax Director
Head of Transfer Pricing
International Tax Executive
Tax Accounting, Reporting & Governance
Executives responsible for reporting quality, tax accounting, controls, provision, compliance, governance, and risk.
VP Tax Accounting
Head of Tax Reporting
ASC 740 Leader
Tax Governance Leader
Specialized Tax Leadership
Senior searches requiring highly specific technical depth, transaction experience, transformation expertise, or specialized tax disciplines.
Head of SALT
Transaction Tax Leader
Head of Indirect Tax
Tax Technology Leader
Head of Tax Controversy
Build the Leadership Team Around the CFO
Tax Is One Part of a High-Performing Finance Leadership Organization.
Scion also leads retained searches across the senior finance functions that work alongside the Chief Tax Officer. This gives organizations one search partner for connected leadership needs while keeping this engagement focused squarely on the tax mandate.
C-Suite Finance
Chief Financial Officer
Retained CFO searches for organizations navigating growth, change, complexity, and transformation.
Treasury Leadership
Treasury Executive Search
Chief Treasury Officers, Corporate Treasurers, Heads of Treasury, VPs of Treasury, and global treasury leadership.
Strategic Finance
Accounting & Finance
FP&A Leadership
Heads of FP&A, finance strategy leaders, VPs of FP&A, and senior planning executives.
Finance Executive Search
Chief Accounting Officers, Controllers, finance executives, accounting leaders, and broader senior finance searches.
Retained Search Methodology
A Search Model Built for Critical Leadership Hires.
When the cost of the wrong hire is significantly greater than the cost of conducting the search correctly, process matters. Each phase moves the organization toward a more informed, better-supported appointment.
Define the Leadership Need
Understand the business context, tax environment, reporting relationships, organizational goals, challenges, and success measures.
Client receives:
stakeholder alignment + success profile
Build the Search Plan
Translate the mandate into target markets, candidate parameters, outreach strategy, positioning, and search priorities.
Client receives:
position strategy + target market
Construct the Executive Market
Research target companies, tax organizations, comparable environments, executives, geographies, and adjacent markets.
Client receives:
market coverage + executive identification
Engage Passive Leaders
Approach qualified executives directly, represent the opportunity strategically, and capture market feedback.
Client receives:
active recruitment + market intelligence
Evaluate the Whole Executive
Assess tax depth, leadership capability, strategic judgment, communication, motivation, impact, and organizational alignment.
Client receives:
qualified slate + executive evaluation
Support the Appointment
Guide interviews, references, finalist comparison, candidate management, offer strategy, and closing through successful hire.
Client receives:
decision support + offer and closing guidance
98%+
long-term executive placement retention
The Outcome Is the Appointment
A Candidate Slate Is Not the Finish Line.
Executive search should ultimately be evaluated by what happens after the search closes. Our process is built around lasting leadership alignment, market access, thoughtful assessment, active candidate management, and close partnership through the final appointment.
1,000+
executive placements nationwide
20 Years
executive search experience
National
market research and targeted outreach
Retained
dedicated partnership through hire
National Recognition
Search Experience Backed by Independent Recognition.
Awards are not a substitute for search performance, but they provide another signal of service quality, recruiting expertise, client experience, and consistency behind the work.
Forbes
ClearlyRated Best of Staffing
Inc. 5000
Business Times & Journal Recognition
National Recruiting Honors
Is Scion the Right Search Partner?
This Search Model Is Built for Organizations Making a Consequential Hire.
If several of these statements describe your situation, retained executive search may be the right approach.
Tell Us About Your Search →
You are making a consequential tax leadership hire.
The strongest candidate may not be actively searching.
Industry or technical tax experience materially matters.
You need to look nationally, not only locally.
Multiple stakeholders must align around the hire.
Confidentiality is important to the process.
You want a partner to actively manage the search.
Long-term leadership fit matters more than simply filling the position.
Chief Tax Officer Search FAQs
Questions Employers Ask Before Engaging a Tax Executive Search Partner.
These answers are designed for CFOs, CEOs, boards, CHROs, private equity leaders, and search committees preparing for a senior tax leadership appointment.
Discuss Your SearchScion conducts targeted market mapping and direct executive outreach rather than relying only on applicants. Relevant leaders are identified across target companies, industries, tax environments, geographies, and adjacent executive markets, then approached confidentially about the opportunity.
Yes. Industry alignment can be built directly into the search strategy. Depending on the mandate, Scion can prioritize executives with experience in comparable sectors, ownership structures, company sizes, transaction environments, regulatory contexts, and global footprints.
Searches can include Chief Tax Officer, Head of Tax, SVP of Tax, VP of Tax, Global Head of Tax, international tax executives, tax accounting leaders, transfer pricing leaders, SALT executives, transaction tax leaders, indirect tax leaders, tax technology leaders, controversy leaders, and other senior tax roles.
Yes. Scion conducts retained executive searches nationwide and can build the candidate market around the organization's location, industry, work model, relocation needs, leadership requirements, and target-company environment.
The profile is developed through discovery with key stakeholders. The search can reflect the organization's business model, tax structure, global footprint, transactions, reporting environment, ownership, team, transformation needs, leadership priorities, and expected outcomes.
Yes. Confidentiality may be particularly important during succession, incumbent replacement, restructuring, transactions, or sensitive leadership changes. Outreach and candidate communication can be structured around the level of discretion required.
Evaluation extends beyond technical tax knowledge. Depending on the mandate, Scion assesses leadership capability, strategic influence, executive communication, tax depth, transformation experience, team leadership, stakeholder management, motivation, organizational alignment, and long-term potential.
Yes. Search management can include stakeholder calibration, interview planning, finalist comparison, candidate coordination, references, compensation discussions, offer strategy, and support through the final appointment.
Scion states that retained engagements include a service guarantee. In qualifying circumstances where a placement does not meet expectations, the search may be reinitiated without an additional search fee, subject to the specific engagement terms.
Yes. Scion also supports retained searches for CFOs, Corporate Treasurers, Chief Treasury Officers, Heads and VPs of Treasury, FP&A leaders, accounting executives, Controllers, Chief Accounting Officers, and other senior finance leaders.
Start the Conversation
Find the Tax Leader Your Next Chapter Requires.
Tell us what has changed, the tax environment ahead, the leadership capabilities required, and what success should look like. We can help define the mandate, build the market, and recruit the executives capable of leading it.