Your Search Partner

Affordable executive search powered by real talent experts

External partners, internal mindset

Barker Owen is a boutique search firm delivering affordable, best practice leadership hiring, inspired by our careers leading talent, hiring and executive search at world-class companies. We operate as a trusted extension to modern teams - delivering searches cross-functionally and globally.

We created Barker Owen to be the search company we never found ourselves. Offering broader value, a better experience and more competitive pricing.

We believe working with an external partner shouldn’t feel corporate or removed from your reality. It should be enjoyable and grounded in your culture, challenges and long-term goals. We’ve designed everything we do to provide the outcomes you need, in the way that works for you.

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  • Board & Executive

    • Board, NED & Advisors

    • C-Suite, Executive

    Senior Leadership

    • VP & Director

    • Global & Regional Functional Heads

    Functions

    • Corporate Functions

    • Design & Engineering

    • Research & Science

    • Supply Chain & Manufacturing

    • Robotics & Software

    • Digital, Data & AI

    • Sales & Marketing

    • Academia

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About us

We have decades of first-hand experience hiring world-class talent in over 75 countries in a variety of sectors from Retail, Tech & Media to Research and Formula One.

Our careers have been defined by an ability to deliver complex leadership hires, whilst doing the basics exceptionally well. Ultimately helping companies unlock real commercial success through the leadership teams we helped build.

After years of working in-house together at Dyson, the BBC and Aston Martin Formula One, we started Barker Owen to be the external partner we never found as leaders ourselves; an Executive Search company that understands and empathises with internal complexity and ambiguity along with the pressure to continually deliver results at pace with tightening budgets.

When you work with us, you have us operating as an extension of you, deeply invested in your goals and challenges.

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Sam Barker | Co-Founder & Managing Partner

Led Talent and built Executive Search at Dyson, Aston Martin F1, BBC Studios,  Fortescue-WAE, Colt Technologies and Danone.

Sam has delivered countless highly confidential, high profile Executive and Board placements partnering some of the most innovative business leaders worldwide. 

Most recently Sam scaled Talent Acquisition at Aston Martin F1 including optimising hyper-niche hiring such as Aerodynamics.

Superpower: Gets straight to the heart of the issue — pinpointing the real performance drivers, stakeholder dynamics and outcomes that matter.

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Dave Owen | Co-Founder & Managing Partner

Executive Search Partner by trade turned Global Head of Talent Acquisition at Dyson in Singapore.

Dave has also been a Hiring Strategy Advisor to the BBC and a handful of innovative Hiring Tech startups including Popp, Hackajob, Talent Spaces and Clu as former VC-backed Founder himself.

Dave’s specialty is researching and sourcing for talent roles that have never existed before.

Superpower: Creatively solving complex hiring problems using tech-powered strategies.

Get in touch

Interested in working with us? You can connect on LinkedIn or send us email at info@barkerowen.com