AGENTC is a Toronto-based recruiting firm specializing in hard-to-fill Manufacturing roles across Controls Engineering, Automation, and SCADA, from senior individual contributors through Director and VP-level leadership, serving clients across Canada and the United States.
• Owners and operators who need a search partner fully accountable for the outcome, not a resume-blasting contingency firm
• Manufacturing companies hiring for hard-to-fill roles in Controls, Automation, or SCADA, at any level from senior technical specialist to Director or VP
Most Controls and Automation searches don't fail because there's no talent. They fail because the search is scoped like a generic posting instead of a hire tied to plant-floor risk. A wrong hire, at any level, doesn't just underperform. Unplanned SCADA downtime, missed safety audits, and automation projects that quietly stall for months, that's what it actually costs, and it rarely shows up until 90 days in.
Before a single candidate is contacted, we run a structured scoping process to define exactly what "right" looks like for this seat, a working profile of the leader who can actually solve the plant's specific automation and controls problems.
You sign off on the candidate profile before we launch. This is the checkpoint that prevents the most common failure mode in executive search: sourcing against a job description nobody actually agreed on.
Every shortlisted candidate goes through a minimum of two structured calls before you see them.
Top Controls and Automation leaders are almost always employed and not actively looking. We approach them with a real opportunity outline, the kind of positioning that gets a passive, high-performing leader to take the call.
A 12-month off-limits clause on your organization is standard in every engagement.
If the placed candidate doesn't work out, capped against the originally signed profile, we run the search again.
AGENTC operates on a retained, milestone-based fee model, not day-rate, not pure contingency. You get one search partner fully committed to the outcome, with a fixed, predictable structure agreed before we start.
AGENTC is led by Ghaz Syed, who has spent over 10 years in retained and headhunting-style recruitment, most recently expanding into Manufacturing and Construction Technology leadership search. AGENTC is a solo-operator model by design: one accountable search lead, not a rotating desk of junior recruiters.
All hard-to-fill roles in Controls Engineering, Automation, and SCADA, from senior technical specialists through Director and VP-level leadership, primarily in Canada and the United States.
Retained. AGENTC runs one committed search per engagement rather than competing multiple contingency firms against the same role.
Plant-floor risk. A Controls or Automation hire who's the wrong fit, at any level, doesn't just underperform on paper, it shows up as SCADA downtime, safety audit failures, and stalled automation projects. The search has to be scoped around that risk, not a generic job description.
Toronto, Ontario, serving Manufacturing companies across Canada and the United States.
A fixed, milestone-based retainer agreed before the search begins. Full details are shared on a discovery call.
Book a Discovery Call