Bialla Partners Land CEO for San Francisco Chamber of Commerce; Adds New Partner
March 22, 2017 – Following an extensive national search, Bialla Partners has placed Tallia Hart as president and chief executive officer of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. Partner Jeff Hodge led the assignment. Ms. Hart was selected for her inspiring leadership, in-depth non-profit management experience and passion to advocate for the business community. She is the first woman, minority, and youngest to lead the 167-year old organization.
The San Francisco Chamber board has charged Ms. Hart with charting a course that engages a broader swath of the business community, forging new strategic partnerships, and building revenue for greater investments in talent and programs to serve San Francisco businesses.
Ms. Hart currently serves as president and CEO of the Irvine Chamber of Commerce, the largest Chamber in Orange County. During her seven-year tenure there, she moved the Irvine Chamber into the forefront of Western Chambers in terms of profitability and engagement. She oversaw advocacy for the organization’s 1,000 member companies and established economic development and international programs for the City of Irvine.
Prior to that, Ms. Hart was president and CEO of the San Rafael Chamber of Commerce in Marin County. While there, Ms. Hart’s strong leadership and management skills earned her recognition by the North Bay Business Journal as one of the area’s top ’40 Under 40′ business leaders.
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“Tallia will be a tremendous asset to San Francisco’s business community,” said Mario Alioto, chair of the Chamber’s board of directors and executive vice president for business operations at the San Francisco Giants. “Her strong background and fresh voice will inspire our members and be a formidable influence and resource in the city.”
“I’m honored to lead the Chamber of Commerce in one of the most innovative cities in the world,” said Ms. Hart. “The San Francisco Chamber already has an impressive depth of programming and plays an important public policy role. Now we have an opportunity to think outside the box to further strengthen our relationships with business leaders to grow and diversify the organization.”
The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce is the largest and most influential business membership organization in San Francisco. It serves more than 2,500 member businesses and over 200,000 employees from companies of every size and industry in San Francisco and across the Bay Area. Its mission is to attract, support, and grow business through advocacy, economic development, and business development in San Francisco.
Veteran Recruiters
Bialla Partners identifies leaders across a variety of industries, including consumer goods, consumer technology, sports & entertainment, retail, life sciences, media, financial services, healthcare, business technology, and marketing. The firm recruits senior executives ranging from CEOs and heads of businesses, to functional area heads of marketing, sales, finance, HR, and legal, as well as outside directors.
The firm offers a number of leadership solutions in addition to executive search, including executive development, talent pipelining, and growth company solutions. Bialla Venture Partners, a related business, invests equity capital in start-up and early stage companies.
Mr. Hodge, who joined the firm last year, joins managing partner and founder Vito Bialla and his colleagues. Mr. Hodge has conducted board of director and C-suite search assignments for more than three decades, working with leading companies in most industries from the Fortune 50 to private equity backed portfolio companies. In addition, he consults with leading companies to assist in the identification of board roles for key senior management executives. He will lead the firm’s board search development practice, which focuses on matching top succession level executives with targeted potential board roles.
Recent Expansion
Bialla Partners also recently named Matt Huffman as a partner. For close to 20 years, Mr. Huffman has designed and led board and executive searches for financial services firms ranging from investment banks and global asset managers to insurance companies and wealth management firms.
Prior to joining Bialla Partners, he founded Myriarch Advisors in order to bring the blended experience of running a corporate executive recruiting function with a specialist executive search practice to clients in the financial services industry.
His wealth management experience includes building and leading the executive recruiting function for the corporate headquarters of Edward Jones, the third largest wealth management firm in the country. In this role he worked with the firm’s leaders on hiring strategy, led and executed executive searches across the entire broker dealer, and represented Edward Jones to the executive talent marketplace. This role was specifically responsible for identifying, engaging, assessing, interviewing and hiring candidates for the firm’s most senior level leadership roles. Prior to joining Edward Jones, Mr. Huffman operated niche executive search firm Capital Markets Recruiting Partners.
Contributed by Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor, Hunt Scanlon Media
