Talent Radar · May 2026 — GCC hiring slows in BFSI, AI roles up 14%.

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From your first hire to your first hundred.

A Global Capability Centre lives or dies on its first leaders. Get them right and the centre compounds. Get them wrong and you spend two years correcting. We build the centre leadership first, the country head, then the function heads, then the hundred beneath them, on the intelligence behind 4,000 senior placements into India's GCCs. New build or stalled centre, the order matters.

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Leadership first
Roles built for one pharma GCC in four years
0→500
Leadership retention at 12 months
94%
The Problem

Most GCC problems were set in the first ten hires.

A new centre feels like a headcount exercise, so it gets run like one: a target, a recruiter, a race to fill seats. Then the country head arrives to a team they didn't pick, a culture set by whoever got hired first, and a mandate that's already drifted from what HQ intended.

The stalled centre is the same story a year on. Attrition is high, the senior layer is thin, HQ has lost confidence, and nobody can quite say where it went wrong. It went wrong at the top, early, when the leadership came after the headcount instead of before it.

A GCC build is a leadership problem first. Get the country head and the function heads right, give them the intelligence to hire well beneath them, and the hundred that follows is sound. We run it in that order, for a new centre or a turnaround.

The cheapest time to fix a GCC is before the tenth hire. The most common time anyone tries is after the hundredth.
How a leadership-first build actually works
Our Approach

Leadership first. Then the team. Then scale.

We build a centre in the order that makes it hold: the leaders who set the bar, the team they shape, and the growth engine that keeps both intact as you scale.

01 · Lead
The country head and function heads
We run a retained, off-market search for the leaders who define the centre, calibrated against what HQ actually needs and what the local market holds. They're in place and aligned before the team gets built around them.
02 · Build
The team, shaped by the leaders
With leadership set, we build the team beneath them to one bar, using the market intelligence that tells us where the talent is and what the comp needs to be. The people who join inherit a culture the leaders chose, not one that happened by accident.
03 · Scale
To the first hundred and beyond
We grow the centre to the plan, with the hiring engine, comp framework, and employer brand to keep the bar steady as volume climbs. For a stalled centre, this is where we reset the foundation and rebuild HQ's confidence.
A Typical Engagement

How a centre goes from plan to first hundred.

Four phases. Most new centres place founding leadership inside the first quarter and reach the first hundred inside a year. A transformation runs the same arc, starting from where the centre stalled.

Phase 01
Weeks 1–4
Mandate & design
We align with HQ on what the centre is for, the leadership structure it needs, and the market it's landing in. For a transformation, we start with an honest read on why it stalled.
Phase 02
Months 1–3
Place the leadership
We run the searches for the country head and the founding function heads, off-market and calibrated. They're in place and aligned with HQ before the wider build begins.
Months 3–9
Build phase
Build the team
With leaders set, we build the team beneath them to one bar, standing up the hiring engine and comp framework as we go. The leaders shape who joins and how the centre runs.
Months 9–12+
Scale phase
Scale & hand over
The centre grows to its first hundred and beyond, then we hand the engine to the leadership team to run. You're left with a centre that holds its bar without us.
What This Changes

The numbers that move.

Aggregates across GCC set-up and transformation mandates, 2024–2025. Not promises, what tends to happen when the leadership goes in before the headcount.

0→500
Roles built for one GCC in four years
Pharma GCC build
94%
Leadership retention at twelve months
12-month leadership retention
50→300
Scaled for one retail GCC
Retail GCC build
Client Outcome

When a stalled centre got its second start.

See all case studies
Case Study · BFSI GCC · Pune
Mandate
GCC transformation · leadership reset

"Our Pune centre had stalled at 60 people with attrition we couldn't explain and a thin senior bench. Recruise reset the leadership first, then rebuilt under it. A year on we're past 200 and HQ trusts the centre again."

CHR
CHRO
Global BFSI GCC · Pune
94%
Leadership retention at 12 months
82%
Offer-acceptance rate
Read the full case study
Other Services

If this is part of a bigger build.

A GCC build pulls on the whole practice. The leadership searches, the team hiring, and the comp framework usually run as one of these alongside it.

Placement
Executive Search
The founding leadership is a retained, off-market search for the country head and function heads who set the centre's bar.
Explore Executive Search
Managed Services
Recruitment Process Outsourcing
For the volume beneath the leadership, an embedded team that hires the first hundred to one bar and reports into your leaders.
Explore RPO
Intelligence & Advisory
Compensation Benchmarking
Before you set the centre's bands, know what each function pays by city and seniority, so the offer holds the people you build around.
Explore Benchmarking
Placement
Build Brands That Win Talent
A new centre is unknown to the talent it needs. An employer brand gives senior candidates a reason to bet on it early.
Explore Employer Branding
Read the Thinking

Intelligence on building a GCC.

The reports, newsletters, and conversations behind how we set up and reset centres. All free to read.

Report
What separates a GCC that compounds from one that stalls
The early choices that decide a centre's trajectory, drawn from our set-up and turnaround work across India's GCCs.
Read the Talent Radar
The Signal
Why so many GCCs stall at sixty people
A weekly read on the talent market, what makes new centres in India hold or stall, and what HQ usually misses.
Subscribe to The Signal
The Builder's Brief
"The first five hires that built our GCC"
A country head on the founding leadership choices that set the centre's culture, and the one they'd make differently.
Listen to the episode
Frequently Asked

Questions we get asked.

If you don't see what you're looking for, the form below is the fastest route. Most enquiries get a response within one working day.

Do you set up the legal entity, or just the team?
We focus on the part that decides whether a centre succeeds: the leadership, the team, the hiring engine, and the comp and brand frameworks that keep the bar steady. We work alongside your legal and finance partners on entity and infrastructure, and we'll point you to the right specialists where you need them. If you want a team without carrying your own entity, our Dedicated Offshore Dev Centres model does that.
What does "leadership first" mean in practice?
We place the country head and the founding function heads before we build the team beneath them, so the people who join inherit a culture and a bar the leaders chose. It's the opposite of the common pattern, where headcount gets hired first and leadership arrives to a team they didn't pick. The order is what makes the centre hold.
Can you fix a centre that's already stalled?
Yes, that's the transformation side of this work. We start with an honest read on why the centre stalled, usually a thin or misaligned senior layer, then reset the leadership and rebuild under it. The arc is the same as a new build, started from where things went wrong, and the goal is to rebuild HQ's confidence as much as the headcount.
How long until the centre is self-sufficient?
Most new centres place founding leadership inside the first quarter and reach their first hundred inside a year, at which point the engine is built and the leadership team can run it. We hand over deliberately rather than lingering, so you're left with a centre that holds its bar without us. The exact pace depends on the mandate and the market.
How is this different from a dedicated dev centre?
A dedicated dev centre gives you an engineering team under your brand with Recruise carrying the entity and operations, built fast and focused on delivery. A GCC set-up builds a broader centre on your own entity, leadership first, across functions, and is designed to become self-sufficient. Some clients start with a dev centre and grow it into a full GCC; we'll help you pick the right starting point.
Which functions can the centre cover?
We build centres across the functions GCCs run in India: engineering and product, data and AI, finance and operations, and the leadership and support layers around them. We scope the function mix with HQ at the design stage, sequence the leadership hires accordingly, and build each function to the same bar as it comes online.
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Tell us about the centre you want to build or fix.

Give us the mandate, the stage, and the timeline. We'll come back with a read on the leadership the centre needs first, even if we don't end up running the build.

Tell us about the centre.
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Thanks, we'll come back within one working day with a read on the leadership the centre needs, regardless of fit.