Santiago Partners

Santiago Partners is an executive search firm placing senior operational and interim leaders across payments, fintech and digital risk. Launched in 2025 as a specialist venture under Gene East, it partners with C-suite teams in regulated markets who need proven leadership at short notice. Its network reaches from MLRO and SMF17 mandates to heads of fraud, payment operations and AI governance.

The Brief

Following our earlier work on the Gene East brand and website, the team at Gene East returned to us to launch Santiago Partners – a new executive search venture that needed a brand and site of its own. The mandate was to evolve the Gene East identity for an executive and C-suite audience, while establishing Santiago as a brand and service in its own right.

Actions

Rather than start from scratch, we evolved the Gene East identity for a more senior audience. We carried its arrow motif into the Santiago mark and ran it quietly through the collateral for subtle recognition, then paired Gene East’s signature green with a reserved palette of charcoal and white in a refined, exclusive typeface. We designed and built a website organised around Santiago’s three markets, with a section for each specialism, a defined placement process, and a resources hub.

The Results

A brand and website that let Santiago launch as its own business while staying recognisably part of the Gene East family.

They now have an identity that reads for an executive and C-suite audience – charcoal and white carrying the seniority, the signature green held back so it signals the Gene East lineage without repeating it. They have the arrow motif from the parent brand running quietly through their collateral, tying the two together at a glance. And they have a website that gives clients and candidates a clear route through all three markets, with each specialism, the placement process and a growing library of case studies set out in their own space.