Three ways to search


The Official Board offers three complementary ways to search.

Each search is designed for a different objective: exploring a market, finding precise profiles, or identifying former executives.


General Search

Best for  

  • Exploring a market
  • Finding executives quickly
  • Discovering companies and roles
  • Refining results step by step
General Search starts with one simple search term.
 
You can then narrow the results using filters such as industry, country, company, department, company list, or Job Title.
 
It is the easiest way to discover relevant executives and companies when you are not starting with a precise target.

Examples
  • Search Artificial, then filter by Industry: Banking
  • Search CFO, then filter by Country: Germany
  • Search Interim, then select Job Title
  • Search Microsoft, then select Company Name
  • Search Tim Cook, then select Executive Name


Advanced Search

Best for

  • Precise targeting
  • Complex searches 
  • Boolean operators 
  • Excel exports 

Advanced Search gives you full control over your search criteria. It supports Boolean operators and exact phrases, making it ideal for building highly targeted executive and company lists.

You can also combine industries, companies, Company Lists, executive roles, education, and degrees.

Supported operators

  • OR
  • AND
  • NOT 
  • Quotation marks for exact phrases 

Examples

  • Search revenue OR growth
  • Search sales AND marketing
  • Search revenue NOT (sales OR growth)
  • Search ("Chief Digital") OR ("Chief Artificial") OR ("Chief Data")
  • Find Harvard Business School alumni who are CFOs in the Global Fortune 500
  • Find MIT alumni with a PhD working in Healthcare companies

Advanced Search is particularly useful when preparing prospecting lists, market analyses, executive research projects and alumni-based networking initiatives.


See Who Left

Best for

  • Company alumni 
  • Executive departures 
  • Executive search 
  • Recruiting 
  • Relationship mapping 

See Who Left focuses on former executives rather than current organizational charts. It helps identify where executives previously worked, find former leaders of strategic accounts, and uncover alumni networks across industries and companies.

Examples

  • Find former CFOs in Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology
  • Find executives who left Food companies
  • Find former leaders of strategic accounts
  • Find former HR executives in Technology
  • Explore the alumni of a specific company

This search is especially valuable for recruiters, executive search firms, business development teams, and professionals leveraging existing relationships.


Which search should I use? 

  • Explore a market or function             -> General Search
  • Build a precise target list                  -> Advanced Search 
  • Find former executives and alumni    -> See Who Left 

Many users combine all three searches: General Search to explore a market, Advanced Search to build targeted lists, and See Who Left to identify former executives and alumni connections.