Operators helping operators build exceptional teams.

Founder-led search for executive, product and engineering teams, backed by proprietary intelligence.

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The NextPlay team at the Peregian Digital Hub office

How we work

Three ways to engage us

01 / Board and C-suite

Executive Search

For C-suite, VP, and Head of appointments where the hire shapes what the company becomes. Confidential, hands-on, and run end to end by our most senior operators.

02 / Senior operators

Permanent Search

Full search for a specific senior or staff role. Role calibration, market mapping, candidate assessment, and reference work end to end. The intelligence engine running underneath every step.

03 / Scale programs

Projects

Multi-role engagement when you're scaling fast. We have built engineering, product, design, and GTM teams. From founding hires to building entire teams. Strategic from day one.

Clients

What our clients say

Pip
PipCo-Founder · Springboards
“Highly recommend NextPlay and the team. We will continue to partner in the future.”
  • VC-backed, Blackbird-backed AI company building the "Canva for the advertising industry"
  • We built out their AI engineering, software engineering, customer success, product and marketing functions to prepare them for Series A
Ben
BenCo-Founder · beyond
“Their AI knowledge is absolutely top-level. They're living and breathing it.”
  • $35M funded AI company building a playable Pinterest at the intersection of AI, entertainment and gaming
  • We built their foundational machine learning and AI team, including their Head of AI Research, Senior AI Engineers and design lead
Ariella
AriellaCEO & Founder · Ovum
“I thought your process was amazing. I couldn't fault one thing.”
  • VC-backed women's health tech company
  • Placed multiple senior engineers, instrumental in building out their AI capability for their new application
Jacqueline
JacquelineCOO · XY SENSE
“Great hires, great cultural and technical fit that ramped up quickly.”
  • VC-backed hardware and software company
  • Worked with them over a few months, placing their software engineering and embedded engineering team

Product

We built the intelligence layer inside our search firm and then released it as a product.

Get early accessSee it in action
Live example

“Founding engineers at Series A+ Australian fintech who came from Atlassian or Canva.”

47 matching people across 23 companies
Ranked by recent signal and team fit.
Live

The team

Meet the founders

Want to work with us? Get in touch directly.

James Jennings

James Jennings

Co-Founder

Thirteen years in the recruitment sector. Built and exited a recruitment tech business acquired by SEEK. Leads strategy and product.

LinkedIn
Kris Owens

Kris Owens

Co-Founder

Decade in startup and scale-up recruitment. Building exceptional engineering and product teams. Leads client delivery, and is deeply involved in AI and building our product.

LinkedIn
Greg Freeman

Greg Freeman

Co-Founder, CTO

Greg is a 3x CTO who's led global tech teams through two exits, one over $100M. At NextPlay, he's rethinking talent acquisition with a non-recruiter lens to build a powerful AI-Native platform.

LinkedIn