Background
I was born and raised in the Bay Area. My father was an entrepenur and investor. As a result, I was fortunate to see, early on, how the technology scene worked. I got early access to investors and technology companies. I remember seeing the license plate “WOZ” in town. I was hooked from the start and been fixated since.
I started my career in financial services (retail brokerage) targeting Bay Area Technology companies stock plans. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it for many years. As I interacted with these executives, I realized I could add more value and have more influence working with them in another capacity. My real passion was private equity, but at the time, they didn’t need anybody with my skill set. They had Harvard and Stanford MBA’s willing to work for free. So, I realized, I needed a different path in. Living in San Francisco at the time, one of my neightbors worked for the legendary Tom Perkins as his personal assistant. She said, “Hey, I know the team at CT Partners is hiring, maybe that could be your way in!” I thought it was a long shot, but went in for the interview and never looked back.
18 years ago, in early 2007, I got into executive search when I joined CTPartners (formerly Christian & Timbers) as part of their Private Equity Group — a subset of TMT (Technology, Media, and Telecom). It was the perfect place for me to learn the business. I was at CT Partners for about 2 years before the Great Recession hit. The company had to adjust to market conditions, and it did, but my goal was to replicate that culture and focus my entire career on privately held businesses. It was a truly global boutique, focused on serving growth-stage technology companies — something I’ve aimed to emulate ever since. Over the next 10 plus years, I worked at two other search firms. One was a tiny boutique and the other was one of the largest firms in the world. This was before I joined Calibre One, almost six years ago. I wish I had joined earlier. Having known our Founder and a couple of the other partners for most of my career, it was the perfect home for me. More to the point, I was attracted to Calibre One’s transatlantic presence, intensive research capabailities, and rigid search methodology.
Areas of Specialization
The majority of my searches are growth-stage companies between $25 and $250 million in revenue, privately held, traditionally growth equity or late-stage venture, enterprise software with spikes in cybersecurity and payments.
And then, mainly go-to-market and general management roles, those that report to the CEO on the revenue side of the house or the CEO itself.
What Do You Love About Your Role?
Search isn’t really a job to me. It’s something I enjoy doing and something that happens naturally. I enjoy helping companies solve problems and build teams. I enjoy figuring out the unique challenge of every search, and I love working with CEOs to build those teams and working with boards to find management teams to get them to the next level. You get to work with interesting people, with interesting technology, help solve problems, and help build companies. No two days are the same, and no two searches are the same. You’re continually learning, always on the move.
What is the Landmark Placement for a Client?
Over the past 18 years, I have placed more than 250 executives. My most notable is Rene Bonvanie. I placed Rene as the Chief Marketing Officer at Palo Alto Networks when the business was doing $100M in revenue. He helped drive exponential growth to about $3B in revenue. Today, he is a EIR at Battery Ventures working with founders and management teams.
What Does Success in Executive Search Look Like For You?
Success to me is not just about a smooth process, though we strive for that. It’s about a well-scripted, quick-to-identify top candidates process. Success means understanding the requirements of the role, capturing those, and then delivering to the client in a seamless fashion that is quick, painless, effective, thorough, and with constructive feedback along the way.
What is the Greatest Opportunity of the Decade?
Everyone’s going say AI. That’s not me. The biggest opportunity, I think, still stays the same: helping growth-stage tech companies build their management teams for the future. I don’t really see it changing unless you’re talking about a specific domain.
What’s your favorite quote?
Everything happens for a reason.