Bespoke Partners

About Us

At Bespoke Partners, we identify and recruit your next leaders the way we deliver our own — efficiently and effectively. We leverage a proven search process to build tier one executive teams that drive faster and higher returns for our private equity clients. We are a group of driven, responsive, and passionate people who have vigorously examined every aspect of the search process and applied unconventional methodologies to drive faster and more successful results.

We partner with leading private equity portfolio companies to recruit elite executives throughout the entire investment lifecycle.

In the early days of private equity, funds could generate outsized returns for their limited partners through financial engineering. As more firms entered the industry, forward-thinking funds implemented operational excellence into their portfolio companies. These firms continued to generate outsized returns and became market leaders. Today, most private equity firms have internal consulting groups and operating partners who can enhance productivity across their portfolio. However, this expertise is no longer enough.

There are more investors and capital than ever before and sales multiples are at an all-time high. Succeeding in this environment requires precision in recruiting elite talent.

Enter Bespoke Partners.

Who are we? We are a retained executive search firm dedicated to partnering with leading private equity firms to recruit exceptional talent at every stage of investment, from late venture to growth equity to buy out.

What are we passionate about? Talent. And how talented people work together. We help companies build the organization and talent they need to accelerate growth and exceed expectations.

How do we partner? Bespoke Partners works side-by-side with private equity firms to evaluate and recruit top quartile leaders throughout the entire investment lifecycle – from Diligence through Value Creation to Exit.

Achievements

Placements

Bespoke Partners

Solutions And Expertise

Solutions
  • Executive Search
  • Retained Executive Search
  • Retained Searches
Industries
  • Private Equity
  • Software
  • Venture Capital
Functions
  • Board/Governance
  • C-Level
  • C-Suite
  • CEO/President
  • CFO
  • Chief Marketing Officer
  • Chief Technology Officer
  • CHRO
  • CIO
  • CISO
  • CRO
  • GM/Operations
  • Private Equity

Our search process is collaborative, thorough, accelerated and therefore effective. We kick off every search by conducting a comprehensive needs assessment. Out of the discussion we develop a detailed and weighted scorecard to assess for competency. We also spend time with the executive team to understand critical behavioral attributes for the role and culture to ensure successful transition into the organization. From there, we develop a tailored research and recruiting strategy to identify executives for the role that will have the right skill set and leadership profile. We leverage our previous searches and network in addition to conducting net new research and outreach to provide you with the most comprehensive view of the market and the most optionality for your search.

We conduct daily and weekly stand ups to review research and recruiting work flows. Throughout our search process, we provide you with access to the executives we are contacting along with feedback on how the opportunity is resonating in the market. We topgrade and back channel candidates through all phases of the search process to minimize surprises and ensure we understand every aspect of an executive’s candidacy. As a result our average time to close is 76 days and our candidate placement success rate is 99%.

Bespoke Partners

News Briefings

Bespoke Partners Recruits CEO for OfficeRnD

San Diego, CA-headquartered Bespoke Partners has placed Matt Keenan as the new CEO of OfficeRnD. He succeeds co-founder Miro Miroslavov, who after 10 years of leading the company will step into the role of executive chairman. Jenny Gray and Dakota Horn led the assignment. “Appreciation to Blue Star Innovation Partners for trusting Bespoke’s CEO, Board, and P&L Practice

Bespoke Partners Recruits CEO for Altvia

San Diego, CA-headquartered Bespoke Partners has placed Ryan Keough as CEO of Altvia, a private capital platform purpose-built for the full fund lifecycle. Partner Katherine Baker and director Dakota Horn led the process. “We’re thrilled to welcome Ryan as Altvia’s CEO,” said Nathan Pingelton of Marlin Equity Partners. “Ryan’s extensive leadership history and industry expertise align

The AI Adoption Curve in Executive Search

Executive search firms are moving rapidly along the AI adoption curve, integrating artificial intelligence into their workflows not as a novelty, but as a strategic advantage. Leaders from NU Advisory Partners, Bespoke Partners, and Accelent recently shared with Hunt Scanlon Media how AI is transforming research, accelerating search processes, and redefining candidate engagement—while also highlighting

Bespoke Partners Launches AI-Powered Talent Mapping Platform

San Diego, CA-headquartered Bespoke Partners has launched Calibrator, a scorecarding application accelerating executive search with an AI-powered talent market mapping platform for software and SaaS. Calibrator lets Bespoke’s clients to instantly see the complete talent pool for a given position based on adjustable scorecard parameters. “An executive hiring decision can impact billions of dollars in value

Bespoke Partners

Press Releases

Bespoke Partners’ ‘Search 2.0’ Process Delivers High-Impact Executives to Private Equity Portfolio Companies

(July 14, 2021) Bespoke Partners, a leading provider of retained executive search and leadership advisory services, today announced that its Search 2.0 process has produced industry-leading results in recruiting high-impact leaders for private equity portfolio companies. Search 2.0 is Bespoke’s comprehensive data-driven approach to executive search that holistically links leader recruiting to a private equity

Bespoke Partners Expands Executive Team

(Jan. 12, 2021) Bespoke Partners, a leading provider of retained executive search and leadership advisory services, today announced the addition of two senior executives to its executive team. Joining Bespoke as President is Eric Walczykowski, a technology industry veteran who has served in leadership roles in business development, sales, and marketing. Eric will drive Bespoke’s

Bespoke Partners Welcomes New Partner

(Sept. 2, 2020) Bespoke Partners is pleased to announce that Brian Waivada has joined the firm as a Partner. Bespoke CEO Kristie Nova shared, “Brian is an experienced search leader and client manager, and we are excited to bring his knowledge and expertise to the Bespoke team. Our model continues to evolve as we introduce

Bespoke Partners Appoints New Board Member

(July 1, 2020) Bespoke Partners is excited to announce the appointment of Matt Sharrers, CEO of Sales Benchmark Index (SBI), as a new Board Member. Matt was appointed to provide mentorship to Kristie Nova, CEO, as it relates to effectively scaling a professional services organization. “I have been tracking Matt and SBI for several years

Bespoke Partners

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