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Academic Career & Executive Search (ACES) selected by Best Merchant Partners for Senior Advisor to Founder Search

(September 29, 2026, WEST HARTFORD, CT) Academic Career & Executive Search (ACES), a leading higher education focused executive search firm, has been selected to recruit a Senior Advisor to Founder, Randy Best, of Best Merchant Partners. Jennifer Muller, Managing Partner, will be leading the search.

Best Merchant Partners (BMP) offers a distinctive opportunity to work directly alongside founder Randy Best, a highly successful entrepreneur who has spent more than two decades building businesses designed to expand access to affordable higher education around the world. This position is ideal for an accomplished professional who thrives in an entrepreneurial environment and offers rare insight and exposure to the growth and evolution of businesses across a global portfolio. The position provides the opportunity to expand experience and advance professionally.  The Senior Advisor to the Founder will work closely with Mr. Best daily, helping advance priorities across BMP and its portfolio companies. This is a hands-on role, not a traditional advisory position. The Senior Advisor will be an active member of the team, working with leadership, following through on priorities and decisions, helping to evaluate opportunities and challenges, solving problems, and stepping in wherever needed to move initiatives forward.  This role calls for an intellectually agile, highly responsive individual who learns quickly, listens well and is comfortable working in a fast-moving, entrepreneurial environment.  This is an on-site position based in Dallas and requires significant international and domestic travel and flexibility.

Randy Best is the Founder and Chairman Emeritus of Best Merchant Partners (BMP), the placement agent and strategist for a group of education companies, today in Latin America, Europe and Africa. An entrepreneur with an extensive history of founding and building businesses, Mr. Best has spent 25 years focused on mission-driven initiatives in education. His work began in child welfare and K-12 and later expanded to higher education, with a focus on technology to increase access to high-quality education in the U.S. and internationally.  In 1995 he founded Voyager Expanded Learning, a provider of in-school core reading programs, reading intervention programs, and professional development programs for school districts throughout the United States helping more than 6 million children learn to read. In 2005, he turned his focus to higher education founding Whitney University System, now Ilumno, a network of universities across South America, serving over 190,000 students. Also in 2005, he incorporated the American College of Education, now one of the largest online colleges of graduate education in America. In 2007, he co-founded Academic Partnerships, now Risepoint, an education technology company that partnered with higher education institutions helping them move their academic programs online and expanding accessibility.

Affordable Excellence 

Academic Career & Executive Search, a higher education focused search firm, specializes in affordable excellence, providing perfectly matched candidates to institutions quickly and accurately. Their methodologies, based on frequent touchpoints, pinpoint ideal candidates with speed and meticulous care resulting in highly successful placements.

They offer flexible service/pricing levels for all positions, ensuring affordability.

Contact Jennifer Muller, Managing Partner, at 860-740-2600 or Jennifer@ACESrch.com, or visit https://acesrch.com/.