Executive search for HVAC and multi-trade platforms.
INC'D recruits GMs, Directors, VPs and C-suite leaders for PE-backed HVAC, plumbing and electrical service businesses.
Capacity, conversion and recurring service.
HVAC leadership sits where technician supply, maintenance agreements, dispatch, replacement conversion, seasonality and local-market execution meet. In a multi-trade platform, the brief also requires judgment about what can be shared and what remains trade-specific.
We distinguish between leaders who inherited demand and those who built a repeatable operating system across branches, acquisitions and weather cycles.
Roles we recruit.
What matters in the brief.
- Residential and commercial mix
- Service agreements
- Technician recruitment and productivity
- Dispatch and call conversion
- Replacement sales
- Multi-trade integration
- Seasonality
- Branch economics
The market today.
Figures checked September 2026. Each links to its source.
Since January 1, 2025, most new residential and light commercial air conditioners and heat pumps must use lower global warming potential refrigerants, ruling out R-410A in new equipment. In 2026 the EPA removed the installation deadline for R-410A equipment already made or imported.
Associated Builders and Contractors, 2026 ↗In spring and summer 2025, supply problems caused shortages, price spikes and stockpiling of the replacement refrigerant R-454B.
US Environmental Protection Agency, 2025 ↗HVAC technician employment is projected to grow 8% from 2024 to 2034, with about 40,100 openings a year.
US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025 ↗
Where HVAC searches go wrong.
Replacing a founder with a corporate manager
Leaders without trade credibility can lose the confidence of field technicians quickly - and retention usually follows.
A CFO who misreads deferred revenue
Prepaid service agreements sit on the balance sheet in a way that can look like a liability to a finance leader from another industry. In HVAC they are a strategic asset.
Treating dispatch as a mid-level role
The dispatcher decides where a large share of each day's revenue goes, shapes technician morale and has to cope with huge spikes on the first extreme-weather day.
Undervaluing service agreement sales
Growing the share of revenue that comes from maintenance agreements improves margins and has a major effect on value at exit.
The roles, explained.
- CEO or President
- Keeps founders and technicians through a fast pace of acquisitions while managing the refrigerant transition, technician shortages and the choice between residential density, commercial growth and adding other trades.
- Chief Financial Officer
- Owns deferred agreement revenue, seasonal cash flow through slow spring and fall months, and acquisitions valued on their potential to grow agreements rather than on trailing earnings alone.
- VP of Operations
- Accountable for revenue per truck, first-time fix rates, technician utilization and dispatch, and for moving acquired companies onto shared systems and pricing without losing their local loyalty.
- General Manager
- Owns a branch or regional P&L across dispatch, agreement retention, technician productivity and the residential and commercial mix.
- VP of Service Agreement Sales
- Designs and grows the agreement program, trains technicians to turn one-time calls into ongoing relationships and manages renewals. One of the highest-impact roles in the business.
- VP of Commercial HVAC
- Leads commercial maintenance contracts, building automation and retrofit projects, with a longer, relationship-led sales process built around facility managers.
- Director of Workforce Development
- Builds apprenticeships, certification and refrigerant safety training, and a clear career path from apprentice to field supervisor to reduce costly turnover.
What INC'D brings.
- We can tell a leader who genuinely built a service agreement base from one who inherited a mature base and maintained it. They create value in very different ways.
- We know the finance leaders who understand deferred agreement revenue, seasonal cash flow and investor reporting. It is not a large group.
- We know where residential and commercial HVAC leadership overlap and where they do not, so we never present a residential operations leader for a commercial search, or the reverse.
- We assess whether former owners have genuinely moved into platform leadership: building through other leaders, working inside shared systems and staying accountable beyond the original business.
How INC'D searches this market.
We recruit HVAC and multi-trade leaders against the service mix, technician model, maintenance base, branch economics and acquisition plan. Candidates are assessed for the demand and weather cycles they have actually led, not general home-services proximity. A typical shortlist contains three to five qualified leaders within two to four weeks of engagement.
How our executive search works →
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