The best finance and accounting recruiters in NYC for 2026 are Inner Circle Agency for Controller, VP Finance, and CFO searches at growing companies; Northbound Executive Search and Glocap for fund-side roles; Robert Half for volume temp staffing; and Korn Ferry for Fortune 500 CFO succession. The right firm depends on the level of the role being hired, and this guide ranks all 14 by what each does best.
New York has more finance recruiters than any other city in North America, and nearly all of them describe themselves the same way. In practice, they serve very different markets. The firm that fills fifty temporary staff accountant roles a month is built for a different job than the firm that runs a three-month Controller search, and both are built for a different job than the firm that handles CFO succession at public companies.
This guide ranks 14 firms with a real New York practice by role level, specialization, and search model, so a hiring manager can go straight to the right type of firm for the role on their desk.
Key takeaways
- There is no single best firm. The right recruiter depends on role level: temp and staff positions, Controller and VP-level leadership, or C-suite.
- Boutique firms, where a senior recruiter runs the search personally, consistently deliver stronger results for leadership roles above $150K. Volume firms win on speed and price for staff-level and temporary needs.
- Fee structures shape recruiter behavior more than branding does. Contingent, retained, and temp markup models each create different incentives.
- The most predictive question to ask any recruiting firm is not about fees or brand. It is: who, by name, will run this search day to day, and how many other searches is that person carrying right now?
How these firms were ranked
This guide is published by Inner Circle Agency. The criteria below are applied to every firm on the list, including ours.
Five criteria, in order of weight: (1) role-level fit, where in the staff-to-CFO range the firm actually places, verified against its own practice pages and active searches; (2) a genuine New York practice, meaning active searches for New York companies, whether run from a local office or a national desk; (3) specialization depth in finance and accounting versus generalist staffing; (4) search model, meaning who actually works the search: a senior recruiter, a junior associate, or a staffing pod; and (5) verifiable credentials such as third-party rankings, industry awards, and published market data. Firms whose New York footprint consists of a city landing page with no active searches behind it were excluded.
1. Inner Circle Agency
Best for: Controller, VP Finance, and CFO searches for companies from $5M to $500M in revenue, and ERP-critical finance roles (NetSuite, SAP, Dynamics)
Inner Circle Agency is a boutique executive search firm headquartered in Montreal and serving companies across the United States and Canada, with a practice built around permanent finance leadership: Controllers, Directors of Finance, VPs of Finance, and CFOs for companies between $5M and $500M in revenue. Founder April Ben-Sabat built her career in finance, accounting, and operations before recruiting, and oversees every search the firm runs. Each search is handled by a senior recruiter and never handed to a junior associate after the kickoff call.
The model is deliberately low volume: considered shortlists rather than resume floods, direct contact with the recruiter running the search, and a guarantee on every placement. The firm's fastest search to date went from brief to accepted offer in 11 days with a single candidate submitted. That pace is the exception rather than the norm, but it shows what a tightly scoped search with founder-level oversight can deliver. The firm is fully bilingual in English and French, a practical advantage for US companies hiring across the Canadian border.
Why work with them: founder oversight on every search, finance and ERP specialization, guaranteed placements, and shortlists screened against how the role is actually done rather than keyword matching.
2. Northbound Executive Search
Best for: accounting, finance, and compliance roles inside PE and hedge funds
Midtown-based Northbound has spent 15 years on one market: finance and accounting talent inside investment firms, including fund controllers, fund accountants, compliance officers, and CFO-track professionals. Acquired by HireQuest in 2022, the firm runs both permanent and consulting placements. For companies that are funds, Northbound knows the candidate pool exceptionally well. Operating companies are outside its core market.
3. Arrow Search Partners
Best for: accounting, tax, and operations hires at financial services firms
Founded in 2018, Arrow has grown from four recruiters to more than sixty and has appeared on Crain's list of New York's largest executive recruiting firms five years running. Practices cover accounting, tax, compliance, and investment operations, with a temporary staffing arm for interim needs. A fast-growing NYC native, with the usual trade-off that rapid growth brings more recruiter turnover than a boutique carries.
4. Landing Point
Best for: accounting and finance recruiting by former accountants and CPAs
Landing Point's recruiters previously held the jobs they now fill. Founded in 2015 and based on East 45th Street, the firm runs permanent and temporary desks across asset management, investment banking, real estate, and public accounting. The operator-turned-recruiter model measurably improves screening quality, and Landing Point's center of gravity sits in financial services and public-accounting-adjacent roles.
5. Glocap
Best for: CFO, COO, and finance hires at private equity, VC, and hedge funds
Founded in 1997, Glocap is one of the longest-standing names in alternative-assets recruiting, with a candidate database it reports at 750,000 and more than 20,000 placements across roughly 900 firms. For fund CFO and portfolio-company finance leadership, few firms match its pattern recognition. Like Northbound, its focus is the fund world rather than operating companies.
6. Brewer Morris
Best for: senior tax, treasury, and tax-leadership search
The tax specialist on this list. Founded in London in 1987 as part of The SR Group, Brewer Morris runs its growing US practice through New York and Orlando offices and describes its in-house tax recruitment team as the largest in the United States. The firm publishes a US in-house tax salary guide. For a Head of Tax or VP Treasury search, this is the specialist call.
7. Atlantic Group
Best for: mid-size accounting and finance recruiting across temp and perm
Founded in 2006 by John Ricco, a CPA who started at KPMG, Atlantic Group has grown into the 5th largest executive recruiting firm in New York by Crain's ranking, with offices from Boston to London. The firm runs both temporary and permanent desks with particular depth in corporate accounting and an asset-management slant. The mid-size trade-off applies: more capacity than a boutique, less certainty about who specifically runs each search.
8. Solomon Page
Best for: companies staffing several functions through one vendor
A New York institution since 1990, Solomon Page operates 14 divisions from its Madison Avenue headquarters, with accounting and finance among its founding practices and a strong client base in fashion, media, and financial services. Clients buy breadth and infrastructure. Leadership-level finance search is one practice among many rather than the specialty.
9. Tandym Group
Best for: interim and temp-to-perm accounting staffing
Tandym is the 2022 rebrand of The Execu|Search Group, founded in 1985 by CPA Edward Fleischman as an accounting and finance recruiting firm. Today it is a multi-vertical staffing and workforce solutions company with a temp-heavy model spanning accounting, healthcare, and technology. Well suited to volume interim needs; not built for retained leadership search.
10. Green Key Resources
Best for: multi-vertical staffing with an established finance desk
Founded in 2004 and headquartered on Madison Avenue with roughly 800 employees, Green Key spans executive search and temporary staffing across accounting and finance, healthcare, pharma, and IT. The finance and accounting practice is established and competent within a firm whose identity is multi-vertical staffing scale.
11. Phaxis
Best for: NY-metro staffing at staff-to-manager level
Phaxis formed in 2022 through the merger of Park Hudson International and Access Staffing, bringing more than 50 years of combined New York staffing history under a newer brand. Practices span accounting and finance, technology, healthcare, and office support, on both temporary and permanent desks.
12. Selby Jennings
Best for: front-office, quant, and risk hires at financial institutions
Part of Phaidon International, Selby Jennings was named the number one financial services recruiter in the 2026 eFinancialCareers Ideal Recruiter Report for investment banking, sales and trading, and support functions. That is a serious credential in front-office financial services recruiting. Corporate finance and accounting at operating companies is not its core market, which is why a firm this decorated sits at this position on this particular list.
13. Robert Half
Best for: volume temporary and staff-level accounting placements
The industry's most recognized name since 1948, publicly traded, with Manhattan offices on Park Avenue and Wall Street. Its annual Salary Guide remains the market-data standard; the 2026 edition places NYC Senior Accountants at $109K to $149K. For speed and scale at staff level, no firm matches the infrastructure. The volume model, with many roles per recruiter and database-first sourcing, is a mismatch for leadership searches where judgment and discretion drive the outcome.
14. Korn Ferry
Best for: Fortune 500 and public-company CFO succession
The largest name in retained executive search, in the business since 1969, runs a dedicated Global Financial Officers practice from its major New York office. For a public-company board planning CFO succession with global scope, this is the appropriate tier. For most private companies, the process and pricing are designed around a different class of engagement.
Comparison table
| Firm | Best for | Model | Role sweet spot | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inner Circle Agency | Finance leadership for $5M to $500M companies, ERP-critical roles | Boutique search, founder oversight on every search | Controller to CFO | Montreal, serves New York and the US nationally |
| Northbound Executive Search | Fund-side accounting and compliance | Boutique specialist | Fund accountant to fund CFO | NYC (Midtown) |
| Arrow Search Partners | Financial services accounting and tax | Specialist, temp and perm | Staff to Director | NYC |
| Landing Point | Ex-CPA recruiters, financial services | Boutique, temp and perm | Staff to Controller | NYC |
| Glocap | PE, VC, and hedge fund finance | Boutique specialist | Fund CFO and COO | NYC |
| Brewer Morris | Tax and treasury leadership | Specialist search | Tax manager to Head of Tax | NYC office |
| Atlantic Group | Mid-size full-service F&A | Mid-size, temp and perm | Staff to VP | NYC |
| Solomon Page | Multi-division staffing | Mid-size, 14 divisions | Staff to Director | NYC |
| Tandym Group | Temp-heavy F&A staffing | Mid-large staffing | Staff to Manager | NYC |
| Green Key Resources | Multi-vertical generalist | Mid-large staffing | Staff to Manager | NYC |
| Phaxis | NY-metro staffing heritage | Mid-size staffing | Staff to Manager | NYC |
| Selby Jennings | Front office and quant | Global vertical specialist | Analyst to MD (front office) | NYC office |
| Robert Half | Volume temp and staff level | National volume staffing | Temp to Senior Accountant | 2 NYC offices |
| Korn Ferry | Fortune 500 CFO succession | Global retained search | Public-company CFO and board | NYC office |
How recruiter fees actually work
Three fee structures dominate the market, and each shapes recruiter incentives more than any sales pitch does.
Contingent search. The recruiter is paid a percentage of first-year salary only if their candidate is hired. The typical market range is 20 to 30 percent. The structure rewards speed and volume, since only a hire produces revenue. It works well for staff roles with deep candidate pools. At leadership level, it can reward the fastest resume rather than the best hire, depending entirely on how many searches the recruiter is carrying.
Retained search. A fee, often structured in thirds, paid to run a dedicated search regardless of outcome, and typical for C-suite and board roles. The structure rewards thoroughness, since the firm is paid for the process. The trade-offs are cost and, at larger firms, the possibility that the partner who pitched the engagement hands the actual work to associates.
Temporary and contract markups. Staffing firms bill an hourly rate and pay the contractor a portion of it; the spread is the margin. Clean and flexible for interim needs, and a volume business by design.
One question cuts through every fee model: who, by name, will run the search day to day, and how many other searches is that person carrying right now? The answer predicts the experience better than the fee structure does.
Controller, VP Finance, or CFO: defining the role first
A significant share of failed finance hires trace back to the wrong title on the job description. A Controller keeps the numbers right: close, compliance, reporting. Most companies need one around $5M in revenue. A CFO decides what the numbers mean: capital, strategy, the road ahead. Most companies genuinely need one around $25M or more. Hiring a CFO to do Controller work burns cash and bores the executive; putting a Controller in a CFO seat caps the company's growth. Inner Circle Agency's guide to when to hire a Controller versus a CFO covers the decision in detail, and if the role involves an ERP implementation, this one word in the job description changes the search entirely.
About Inner Circle Agency
April Ben-Sabat is the founder of Inner Circle Agency, a boutique executive search firm placing finance leaders, ERP implementation talent, and director- to executive-level hires for companies across the United States and Canada. She built her career in finance, accounting, and operations before recruiting, and oversees every search the firm runs.
Frequently asked questions
What do finance recruiters in NYC typically charge?
Contingent searches generally run 20 to 30 percent of first-year salary, paid only when a candidate is hired. Retained searches are paid through the process and are typical for senior leadership roles. Temporary staffing is billed as an hourly markup. Structures vary by firm and search, so hiring managers should ask how the fee is built and what guarantee backs the placement.
Is a boutique or a large staffing firm better for a Controller search?
For leadership roles above roughly $150K, a boutique where a senior recruiter personally runs the search usually produces a stronger shortlist, because a Controller search demands judgment about the business rather than keyword matching. Large firms win when the need is volume or speed at staff level: temporary accountants, AP and AR staff, seasonal surges.
How long does a finance leadership search take in New York?
Most Controller-to-CFO searches take 60 to 90 days from brief to accepted offer. A tightly scoped search with a decisive interview process can move much faster; the fastest search on record at Inner Circle Agency closed in 11 days, though that reflects an exception a focused process made possible rather than a typical timeline. The biggest variable is usually not the recruiter but how quickly the company's interview loop moves.
Does hiring in New York require a New York-based recruiter?
The candidate market is national, and what matters is whether the recruiter genuinely knows the finance talent pool at the level being hired. Several firms appearing on national NYC recruiter lists have no New York presence at all. Every firm ranked above maintains a real practice serving New York.
What is the difference between a finance recruiter and an executive search firm?
Primarily role level and process. Finance recruiters typically run contingent, staff-to-director searches from candidate databases. Executive search means a dedicated, research-driven process for leadership roles. Several firms on this list do both, and the label matters less than who runs the search and how.