About Banba | Executive Search for AI and Data Leaders

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About Banba

Banba is a founder-led executive search firm that places senior AI and data leaders, from London, New York and Berlin. Our current focus is healthcare and life sciences AI.

In short: Banba finds Chief AI Officers, Heads of AI and Machine Learning, Chief Data Officers and the clinical AI, data and governance leaders around them, for healthtech, digital health, biotech, pharma and medtech organisations. Every executive search is led personally by the founder, Fergal Nolan; talent-acquisition programmes are led by Doreen Happatz. Banba’s ethos is one sentence: solve a problem worthy of you.

What Banba does

Executive search. Senior AI, data science and analytics leadership: Chief AI Officer, Chief Data Officer, Head of AI, VP of Data Science and equivalent roles. How executive search works at Banba.
Interim. Interim and fractional AI and data leaders for defined deadlines and transitions. Interim.
Talent acquisition. Building a pipeline of AI and data talent below board level. Talent acquisition.
Talent programmes. Reskilling programmes that grow an organisation’s own data talent. Talent programmes.

Who leads Banba

Fergal Nolan founded Banba and leads each executive search personally, from the brief to the appointment. He has worked in talent acquisition and executive search for more than 25 years, placing Chief Data Officers, AI leaders and analytics executives. Before Banba he founded Upstream, a specialist talent advisory and executive search firm working with FTSE 100, Fortune 500 and private-equity-backed businesses across Europe and the US. Earlier, he was part of the founding team at Real Staffing, one of SThree plc’s divisions.

Doreen Happatz, Talent Acquisition Strategist, leads Banba’s talent-acquisition programmes. She is a global talent acquisition and executive search leader whose career spans Tesla, Zalando and adidas, where she led global talent acquisition including the development of the MakerLab, hiring 50 technical experts worldwide in six months. She works in English, German and French. Find Banba on LinkedIn.

Selected work

Searches and talent programmes delivered by Banba’s team.

All case studies

How Banba is different

The founder leads every search. The person you brief is the person who runs your search.
Specialist, not generalist. Banba’s search specialism is AI, machine learning, data science, data engineering and analytics leadership, applied to healthcare and life sciences.
Research with a method. Banba’s Insights cite primary sources and say what the evidence does not show.

Key facts

Company: Banba (Banba Associates Limited, registered in England and Wales)
Founder: Fergal Nolan
Offices: London, New York, Berlin
Current focus: Healthcare & life sciences AI
Who leads each search: Fergal Nolan
Selected work: McKinsey & Company, Carlyle Group (Addison Lee, RAC), Sainsbury’s Argos, dunnhumby, Mindshare, Yell, CACI, Nordex SE, Tesla, adidas
Contact: Contact page

What is executive search?

Executive search is the targeted recruitment of senior leaders. The search firm maps the market for people who fit the brief, approaches them directly (most are not looking), assesses them and presents a shortlist. It differs from advertising a role, which reaches only people who are actively applying.

Does Banba only work in healthcare and life sciences?

No. Healthcare and life sciences AI is Banba’s current focus, and Banba also takes on AI and data leadership searches in other sectors. Banba’s team has delivered searches and programmes in consulting, retail, media, transport, automotive, sportswear and renewable energy.

Who does the work?

Fergal Nolan, Banba’s founder, leads every executive search personally. Doreen Happatz, Talent Acquisition Strategist, leads Banba’s talent-acquisition programmes.