About Sanctuary
Sanctuary is building nature-first residential communities in the Texas Hill Country. We are a small, ambitious global team entering the biggest growth stage in the company's history, and the next twelve months will be defined by the leaders we bring in: a COO, a Sales Director, and senior executives across finance, operations, development, construction, and capital markets.
We are hiring one exceptional person to go find them and close them.
The role
This is not corporate recruiting. There is no requisition queue, no inbound pipeline to manage, no agency doing the hard part for you.
You will own executive hiring at Sanctuary end to end. That means building the market from scratch, identifying the strongest operators in Texas real estate and adjacent industries, picking up the phone, getting in front of people who are not looking, and convincing them that this is the company worth leaving a good job for.
You will work directly with our CEO and People Operations Director. You will be measured on the caliber of the leaders you hire and how fast you hire them.
What you'll own
Lead executive and senior leadership searches
Build targeted market maps across real estate development, construction, homebuilding, finance, capital markets, sales, and operations.
Source and directly approach high performers, including passive candidates who are not in the market.
Run outbound through calls, referrals, events, industry relationships, LinkedIn, email, and whatever else works.
Represent Sanctuary to senior candidates and sell the mission, the opportunity, and the leadership team with genuine conviction.
Develop a real understanding of each role, the business problem behind it, and the kind of leader who solves it.
Assess rigorously. Push candidates past their resumes and past their rehearsed answers.
Partner with the CEO and leadership team through interviews, decisions, offers, and negotiation.
Manage every candidate from first contact through acceptance and onboarding, with relentless follow-up so strong people never fall out of the process.
Build a long-term network of executives, operators, investors, developers, brokers, and industry leaders across Austin and Texas.
What we're looking for
- Existing relationships across Austin and Texas real estate, construction, finance, or executive networks are a major advantage.
- Significant experience in agency recruitment, executive search, or another environment where you personally owned the hunt.
- A track record of sourcing and closing senior leaders yourself, not managing a team that did it.
- Experience filling roles such as COO, Head of Operations, Sales Director, CFO, or senior finance, construction, and development leaders.
- Strong cold outreach ability and complete comfort calling people who did not ask to hear from you.
- Exceptional communication, persuasion, and negotiation skills.
- Sharp judgment on leadership ability, ownership, intelligence, commercial instincts, and culture fit.
- The ability to understand a business, not just a job description.
- Comfort working directly with a demanding, fast-moving CEO and operating without constant direction.
- You'll be a strong fit if: You would rather call someone than wait for an email reply.
- You enjoy winning over candidates who start the conversation by saying they are not interested.
- You walk into an industry event already knowing who you want to meet.
- You are comfortable being measured on the quality and speed of your hires.
- You take ownership of outcomes instead of blaming the market, the comp band, or the hiring manager.
- You are persistent without being careless or transactional.
- You move fast while holding an exceptionally high bar.
- You want real ownership over building a leadership team, not recruitment administration.
What success looks like in 3 months:
A high-caliber COO hired and performing.
A proven Sales Director hired and performing.
Strong pipelines built for the next wave of executive and senior leadership roles.
A trusted network of high performers across Austin and Texas that Sanctuary can draw on for years.
A repeatable executive search process that consistently attracts exceptional people.
A genuine hiring partnership with the CEO and leadership team.
Ready to build a leadership team from the ground up? Apply now!
