The Race Conditions Model™
Charlie Solorzano — Executive Search Consultant
I’m Charlie Solorzano — Managing Partner at Alder Koten and creator of The Race Conditions Model™. For more than 20 years, I’ve placed C-suite and board leaders across the U.S. and Mexico, starting with the conditions the role actually demands rather than the résumé that looks right on paper.
Executive search, when it’s done well, begins with diagnosis. Before sourcing a single candidate, I assess the conditions the organization is actually operating in — founder dynamics, governance maturity, cultural complexity, cross-border friction, board expectations, and the pace the business requires. Only then do I evaluate which executives are calibrated for those specific conditions.
The goal is not the “best” candidate in the abstract. It’s the right candidate for the conditions the business is actually in.
The Methodology
The Race Conditions Model™
In Formula 1, teams don’t select purely on theoretical speed. Performance depends on the track — temperature, tyre degradation, fuel strategy, race distance, and competitor behavior. Raw speed means little if the setup is wrong for the conditions.
The Race Conditions Model™ applies that principle to executive search. It is a diagnostic framework built on the thesis that leadership success is determined by conditions, not credentials. Before evaluating candidates, I diagnose the organizational conditions surrounding the mandate — then assess whether a candidate’s operating style, decision-making patterns, and leadership calibration fit those conditions.
The model comprises six frameworks, each addressing a distinct leadership challenge I encounter repeatedly in search.
The Founder’s Paradox™
Diagnosing whether the founder’s involvement has shifted from essential to constraining, and designing the transition from operator to steward.
Read more →The Tire Compound Strategy™
Matching executive durability and speed-to-impact against the conditions and duration of the specific mandate.
Read more →The Stewardship Protocol™
Evaluating whether an organization is ready for leadership transition and designing the transfer of authority, relationships, and institutional knowledge.
Read more →The Track Limits Principle™
Defining decision authority and boundaries so incoming executives can operate with clarity rather than guessing where their discretion ends.
Read more →Director Telemetry™
Assessing board composition, dynamics, and effectiveness across dimensions that credentials alone do not reveal.
Read more →Driver Calibration™
Evaluating how an executive actually operates — decision velocity, risk tolerance, communication style, conflict approach — and whether those parameters fit the conditions they’re entering.
Read more →Professional Background
Executive Search Across the U.S. and Mexico
Managing Partner, Alder Koten
More than 20 years leading C-suite and board search across the U.S. and Mexico — venture-backed companies, cross-border manufacturing and nearshoring operations, life sciences, technology, hospitality and tourism, family-business institutionalization, and sports organizations.
Alder Koten →IMD International Search Group
Alder Koten is the Mexico and U.S. partner within IMD International Search Group — more than 40 offices in 25 countries. International mandates are coordinated through the IMD network when searches require cross-border or global reach.
IMD International Search Group →AESC
Alder Koten is a member of the Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants (AESC), the global professional body representing retained executive search firms committed to rigorous professional and ethical standards.
AESC →Cross-Border Experience
Working Across U.S. and Mexican Business Environments
Based between Guadalajara and Houston, I’ve spent more than two decades working across U.S. and Mexican business environments — multinational subsidiaries, Mexico-based industrial operations, U.S. headquarters relationships, family enterprises, and cross-border leadership mandates spanning both markets.
Cross-border executive search requires more than language fluency. It requires understanding how leadership mandates operate differently depending on ownership structure, labor dynamics, regulatory environment, headquarters relationships, and the institutional expectations on each side of the border.
That understanding comes from working inside both markets continuously, not from consulting on one from the other.
U.S.–Mexico Cross-Border Executive Search →Background
Where the Thinking Started
I grew up in Guadalajara. Competitive swimming shaped my relationship with preparation, discipline, and incremental improvement — years of training where the difference between winning and losing was measured in fractions, and where reading conditions mattered as much as raw ability.
Formula 1 has been a long-standing analytical interest. The sport’s language of conditions, setup, trade-offs, and performance under constraints became a useful way to think about leadership — which is why the Race Conditions Model™ draws on that vocabulary.
The analogy works because executive success, like racing, depends on matching capability to specific conditions rather than assuming that talent alone determines the outcome.
Photography is a separate interest — composition, light, patience, and the discipline of seeing. A different lens entirely.
Photography →Writing
Ideas, Research and Published Work
I publish on founder transitions, cross-border complexity, executive calibration, sports leadership, life sciences, governance, and the frameworks behind The Race Conditions Model™.
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Whether you’re considering an executive search, planning a succession, or trying to understand a leadership challenge before defining the mandate — the first step is the same.
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