By Derek Lutz - Chief Executive Officer Lean Six Search | Supply Chain Recruitment

From a laptop in Vancouver to 30 strong across the world

It started after a breakup. After a one-way ticket back to Canada from Singapore. After stepping away from a life I’d spent four years building, client relationships, routines, a sense of rhythm and belonging across APAC. I didn’t walk away out of bitterness or burnout. I didn’t torch the relationships, in fact, many of those people are still part of this story, still cheering from the sidelines, still partnering with us today.

But I did leave behind the comfort. The momentum. The stability. I gave up something good in the hope of building something great. I left a fast-paced, high-performing life in one of the world’s most dynamic regions not because I had to, but because I felt something tugging at me. A whisper that said, “It’s time to build your own thing.” I didn’t have a safety net. I wasn’t some startup darling with capital lined up. I had no office, no team, and no brand.

Just a laptop, a phone, and the willingness to start from zero.

I landed back in Canada and hit the pavement. Coffee shops became my HQ. Free wifi and cheap caffeine fueled the early days. No clients. No name recognition. No backup plan. Just a gut feeling and a stubborn refusal to settle. A deep, burning belief that there had to be a better way to do this work, and that I could be the one to build it.

So Lean Six Search was born. Lean, because we didn’t waste time. Six Sigma, because we valued process and precision. And Search, because that’s what we do… relentlessly. Globally.

Built in Motion

I’ve worked in over 120 countries from my laptop while building this business. Airports became my office. Tuk-tuks, cafes, cramped guesthouses with flickering lights, they all doubled as makeshift conference rooms. Travel isn’t a hobby for me... it’s my heartbeat. It’s where I’ve learned more than any overpriced seminar, LinkedIn webinar, or glass-walled boardroom ever could. Not from corporate playbooks or influencers with ring lights, but from listening. Watching. Being uncomfortable. Getting really, truly lost.

I’ve pitched retainers on rooftop bars in Bangkok. Held interviews on dusty back roads in Bolivia. I’ve taken client calls mid-sandstorm, rewritten proposals from train stations with dying batteries, and explained executive search through two translators and a smile. I’ve sat across from people who built empires out of nothing but grit, and others who lost everything and somehow kept laughing. That kind of perspective doesn’t live under fluorescent lights or inside catered Friday lunches.

Having that kind of flexibility (*true* flexibility) has been one of our greatest weapons. If a client needs me in Singapore, I’ll be on a plane. If I’m invited to speak at a conference in Vienna, book the ticket. We’re not tethered to time zones or cubicles. We go where the work is. We show up where it matters. And that’s by design. Because this business wasn’t built behind a desk. It was built in motion. One call, one conversation, one country at a time.

Don’t Let the View Fool You

Yes, I’ve worked from beaches, mountaintops, deserts, jungles, and 35,000 feet in the air. But let’s not romanticize it... this isn’t some fantasy travel blog with sunset selfies and laptops on loungers. The backdrop might change, but the pressure doesn’t. The deadlines don’t care how beautiful the scenery is. The expectations follow you, no matter how far you fly.

There were days I’d wake up in a place most people dream of visiting, waves crashing just outside the window, fresh coffee in hand, sun bleeding through the curtains, and still feel that tightness in my chest. Pipeline slipping. Clients ghosting. Offers stalling. That creeping anxiety that maybe this month would be the one where it all falls apart. And in those moments, the view doesn’t help. It doesn’t soothe you. Because the weight of running a global business doesn’t disappear just because you’re near an ocean.

I’ve stood on hotel balconies in cities I couldn’t pronounce, looked out over the Pacific, watched camels pass across Moroccan dunes, and quietly asked myself, Wouldn’t it be easier to just stay here? To check out for a bit. To disappear. To blend into the background of the world and let someone else take the wheel for a while.

But I never did.

I opened the laptop. I made the calls. I answered every damn email. I chased down feedback. I pushed for the close. I kept showing up. Not because it was glamorous. Not because it was easy. But because that’s what it takes when you’re building something that actually matters.

There’s no secret. No hack. No shortcut. Just discipline. Just consistency. Just doing the work, even when you don’t feel like it. Especially when you don’t feel like it.

Because no matter where you are, Christchurch or Calgary, Medellín or Muscat, discipline and consistency are what build something real. Something that lasts. And I didn’t come this far just to go halfway.

So Today, I’m Writing This from Mongolia

A remote corner of the world. No traffic. No signal towers. Just wind, dust, and space to think. The kind of silence that forces you to sit with your choices and realize just how far you’ve come.

I look around at the nothingness, and I feel everything.

Because from that one lonely gamble eight years ago, just me, a laptop, and a vision, we’ve built something real. We’ve built a business. We’ve built a team. We’ve built a global search firm that people now recognize by name, and more importantly, by reputation.

Today, we’re a 30-person force stretched across Canada, the US, Colombia, Venezuela, the UK, UAE, Hong Kong, and South Africa. Different time zones. Different languages. Different ways of working. But one common thread: tenacity, ownership, and a relentless drive to deliver.

We’ve moved families across continents.

From Shenzhen to Toronto. From Rome to Singapore. From Buenos Aires to Atlanta.

Sometimes with a week’s notice. Sometimes after months of interviews, negotiations, and “almosts.” Every time, it’s a life changed, a future rewritten, and we get to be part of that story.

We’ve placed over 350 key hires across supply chains in over 55 countries. Not filler roles. Not tick-the-box hires. But real difference-makers, people who shift company culture, scale global operations, drive transformation. We’ve helped founders find their #2. We’ve helped candidates go from being rejected five times to finally landing the dream job.

That kind of work sticks with you.

And somehow after all the calls, the red-eyes, the chaos, the quiet wins, and the deals pulled from the edge, we’re still just getting started.

There’s more to build. More to learn. More people to impact.

And if Mongolia has taught me anything, it’s this: You don’t need noise to make something meaningful. You just need clarity, conviction, and the guts to keep showing up.

To My Team

You are the heartbeat of this business. The engine. The edge. You’ve closed roles that were deemed unfillable. Landed clients that others couldn’t get in the room with. You’ve stayed up late, woken up early, and carried the kind of pressure that never quite shows up on a spreadsheet. And through it all, you’ve supported each other, not because a policy told you to, but because that’s who you are.

I’ve watched some of you sign your first deals, feeling that rush that never quite fades. I’ve seen you wrestle with doubt and come out stronger. I’ve seen the transformation—from rookies still finding their voice to full-blown rainmakers, closing global searches with confidence and swagger. From “Can I do this?” to “I just did that.”

You’ve helped build this company, brick by brick, call by call. You’ve taken ownership of your work. You’ve taken risks, backed yourselves, and stood in the fire when things got tough. And in doing so, you’ve made Lean Six more than a company; you’ve made it a movement. One built on tenacity, trust, and a shared hunger to be better, every single day.

To Our Clients

Thank you for trusting us with what matters most: your people. For letting us into your business, not just as vendors, but as partners. You’ve invited us into your challenges, your timelines, your moments of “we need someone yesterday”, and you’ve given us the space to deliver.

You’ve shown us the real stuff. The internal politics. The hiring freezes. The sudden pivots. The pressure to get it right. And you didn’t hand us job descriptions pulled from a dusty archive, you gave us real problems to solve. Problems worth solving.

You challenged us. You backed us. You grew with us. And some of you? You took a chance when we were just a strange-sounding firm with no footprint in your region and a scrappy founder replying to your emails at 2 am from a small town in Montenegro. You believed in the work, not just the logo. And we won’t forget that.

We built this together, and we’re only getting started.

To Everyone Who Said I Couldn’t Do It

You weren’t wrong to doubt me.

Being the top biller doesn’t teach you how to run a business. There’s no crash course on leadership when everything’s on fire and you’re the one holding the extinguisher. I didn’t have an MBA. I’d never started a company before. What I had was a phone, a laptop, a passport, and a refusal to play small. No safety net. No VC funding. No glossy pitch deck. Just raw ambition and the willingness to learn the hard way, on the fly, on the road, and usually under pressure.

I had to figure out how to register companies in countries some of you may have never heard of. How to build financial models with zero formal training. How to negotiate coworking leases in languages I didn’t speak, smile through it, and hope Google Translate didn’t screw me over. How to build a brand, a pipeline, and a team, while figuring out what the hell a CRM actually does.

And I made mistakes. Plenty of them. I trusted the wrong people. Said yes when I should’ve said no. Held onto hires too long, let others go too soon. I lost deals I was sure I had in the bag. I overdelivered for clients who vanished the minute the invoice hit their inbox.

There were nights I was awake at 2 a.m., staring at my bank account, wondering how I was going to make payroll and pay my mortgage. Not just once. More times than I care to count. It’s a special kind of panic, that 2 a.m. silence, when it’s just you, the numbers, and the weight of knowing it all lands on you.

But I kept going.

Not because I’m fearless. I’m not. But because I couldn’t not go. Because when you’ve made a promise to yourself, and to the people who bet on you, you show up. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard. And the funny thing is, those are the moments that built me. Not the headlines. Not the wins. Not the high fives when a retainer drops. But the setbacks. The pivots. The lonely flights and even lonelier decisions. That’s where the real lessons live. You don’t really know what you’re made of until it’s just you and the consequences of your own ambition. Until the world tells you you’re not ready... and you do it anyway.

And if I’ve earned anything in these eight years, it’s this: I didn’t inherit this. I didn’t luck into it. I built it with calloused hands, late nights, wrong turns, and pure fire. No textbook can teach you that. And no one can take it away.

To Anyone Building Something Right Now

Whether you’ve just stepped into executive search, you’re bootstrapping a startup from your spare bedroom, or you’re stuck in a loop of polite rejections and “not right now” emails... keep going. You’ll second-guess yourself. Clients will ghost you. Candidates who seemed perfect will disappear without a word. One week, you’ll feel like you’re unstoppable. The next, you’ll wonder if you’ve completely lost the plot.

But if you stay in it long enough, hard enough, you’ll break through. You’ll get that message from the candidate you fought for, the one who kept coming in second, finally saying, “I got the job.” You’ll watch your team pull off something that felt impossible a month ago and realize you built this, out of nothing but belief, persistence, and grit. And those moments? They’re better than any paycheck. (Though let’s be honest... the commission doesn’t hurt either.)

Remote But Human

We’re remote-first, but not in the gimmicky, “laptop-on-the-beach” kind of way. This isn’t a curated Instagram fantasy. It’s a real business, run by real people, delivering real results, no matter where in the world they’re dialing in from. We believe in showing up. In getting on planes when it matters. In shaking hands, breaking bread, and earning trust the way it’s always been earned: through presence, follow-through, and substance.

While the world leans harder into automation and shallow connection, we’ve stayed human. Our consultants might be based in Dubai working European hours to escape the summer heat, or closing deals from beach villas in Mexico, coffee in one hand, surfboard nearby—but the output never slips. There’s no micromanaging here, though we do have a robust process. And that process keeps us sharp. It gives us rhythm.

Because at the end of the day, discipline is what gets results. It’s what keeps the wheels turning long after motivation runs out. We don’t track hours... We track impact. And while some companies preach work-life balance, we don’t really believe in drawing that line. At Lean Six, work and life should be integrated.

When you love what you do, it’s not about clocking in and out, it’s about doing meaningful work on your own terms, wherever you are in the world. Balance isn’t a checkbox or a corporate slogan, it’s something we live. Something we build into the fabric of how we operate. We don’t reward facetime; we reward ownership. Results. Integrity. And the freedom to build a life and a career that actually make sense together.

Eight Years In, and Still Just Warming Up

Not to repeat myself, but I couldn't have done this alone...

To my team: thank you for showing up... not just when it was easy, but when it was messy. For grinding through the chaos, the ambiguity, the impossible deadlines, and the never-ending to-do lists. For carrying the weight when things got heavy, for celebrating the wins like they mattered (because they do), and for turning this scrappy idea into something real. You’ve taken ownership, pushed limits, and made this company better every single day. You are the heartbeat of Lean Six.

To our clients: thank you for letting us in. For trusting us with what’s most valuable... your people, your growth, your reputation. You’ve allowed us to step into your challenges, your hiring dilemmas, your mission-critical searches, and partner with you in a way that goes far beyond filling roles. Some of you took a chance on us when we were just a name and a promise. That trust means everything. You’ve helped shape who we are.

To the candidates: thank you for letting us step into your journey. For allowing us to walk beside you as you chased new opportunities, navigated rejections, and kept showing up. We’ve celebrated your wins, fought for your potential, and stayed in your corner even when it would’ve been easier to move on. You’ve let us be part of something personal, something life-changing, and that will always be one of the greatest privileges of this work.

And to the families, friends, and partners behind the scenes: thank you for the patience, the long nights, the quiet support that made all of this possible.

We’re still standing. Still scrappy. Still global. And the next chapter? It’s going to be even wilder, even braver, even more unapologetically us. Here’s to eight years of the ride. Here’s to the next eight.

Best,

Derek

Chief Executive Officer

Eight Years of Lean Six Search: A Love Letter to the Grind