Comhar Partners Lands SVP of Global Sales for Myers-Briggs Co.
February 4, 2020 – Executive search firm Comhar Partners has placed Steven Nolan as senior vice president of global sales for the Myers-Briggs Co. Karen Turrini, managing director in the search firm’s San Francisco office, led the assignment.
Based in Sunnyvale, CA, Mr. Nolan will report to Myers-Briggs’ president and CEO. He will oversee the global sales leadership team including the director of global multinational accounts, vice president of U.S. sales, head of European sales and two managing directors (Australia and Singapore). As part of the global leadership team, Mr. Nolan will be responsible for strategic sales leadership, planning and managerial oversight of the Myers-Briggs Co.’s direct and indirect global sales channels along with providing relevant sales updates on progress to goal.
“We hired Karen and her team to help us fill a critical executive level sales role for the company,” said Jeff Hayes, president and CEO of Myers-Briggs. “Karen and her team were able to source many qualified candidates, some looking for a new opportunity and others that were already gainfully employed. Karen and her team did the first round of screening for potential candidates to put in front of myself and our VP of HR and OD. This was extremely helpful in identifying the best candidates to put in front of us. We had more than half a dozen candidates that we met with. From there, with Karen’s help, we were able to identify the top choices and ultimately able to hire a wonderful candidate for the position.”
Mr. Nolan comes to Myers-Briggs from the Penn Foster Education Group, where for the last two years he was vice president of sales. Before that, he was head of global sales for North America for Study Group. He has also been senior vice president for sales and business development for LearningExpress, senior vice president of business development for the Student Conservation Association, vice president of business development for the American Councils for International Education, and senior director of global licensing and business development for Educate Inc., among other roles.
Customer Feedback
Mr. Nolan’s position also involves ensuring that customer feedback from the field on product and service offerings is systematically gathered and reported to guarantee that up-to-date understanding of customer needs and the needs of the broader marketplace informs future product development, said Comhar Partners. He will be tasked with the responsibility of elevating the overall talent of the organization ensuring the training, people, reporting, processes and competencies are in place.
The role called for an innovative senior executive, who was passionate about the learning and development space, with a demonstrated track record of leading global sales to achieve revenue targets, said the search firm. Myers-Briggs wanted someone with more than 15 years senior-level experience with a minimum of 10-plus years of executive-level experience in successfully leading sales leaders and teams globally in the learning and development market.
The Myers-Briggs Co. is a leader in organizational development using personality assessments. It is best known for the Myers- Briggs Type Indicator personality assessment, a tool used for years by executive search firms. After rebranding in 2018 and gaining global B-Corp certification status, the company continues to undergo a transformation from its publishing roots to reclaiming its market leader, progressive reputation through reinventing its solutions, market positioning and sales approach. The company headquarters is in Northern California, with offices in the U.K., France, Netherlands, Australia and Singapore, along with an international network of partners.
Veteran Recruiters
Comhar Partners was founded last year by former Stanton Chase recruiters Bernard Layton and J. James O’Malley, offering executive search, professional recruiting and talent advisory services. The firm is headquartered in Chicago with specialized recruiting consultants based in seven offices across the country, including New York City, San Francisco, Denver, Atlanta, South Florida and Mid-Atlantic, with additional offices to be announced in 2020.
Ms. Turrini, who has more than 25 years of experience in retained search, specializes in senior-level executive search assignments in the technology arena with a concentration on expanding high growth businesses specifically consumer internet, enterprise and security software, digital media, data analytics, infrastructure and mobile. Ms. Turrini places C-level, vice president and other senior-level executives with an emphasis on chief executive officer, chief operating officer, marketing, sales, product, finance and human resources. She helps lead the technology services-North America/Latin America industry practice group, as well as the chief financial officer and marketing and sales functional groups.
Prior to joining Comhar Partners, Ms. Turrini was president of Turrini Associates for 18 years, specializing in sales/marketing executive positions within the technology sector. Previously, she was a partner at Kingsley Gate providing services to Fortune 500 companies.
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
