When we started in 1995 as Valerie Frederickson & Company, our goal was simple: Empower companies to improve flexibility with workforce planning by helping them humanely and quickly transition their former valued employees, and reduce post-termination employment litigation risk. Over the next twenty years, our growing network of HR professionals and their evolving needs resulted in the addition of new capabilities, including executive search for HR, People Operations, Culture, Diversity, Talent Acquisition, and Business Partners; leadership development and executive coaching; compensation consulting; recruiting assessments; on-call startup HR consulting.

In the past two decades, we’ve seen a lot happen in the tech market economically, both good and bad. We rode the wild wave of the dot-com boom, developing aggressive, same-day hiring strategies for our clients. We survived the bust, helping over 100 clients do the same by successfully and quickly adjusting their workforces in a humane and well-organized fashion. We weathered the Great Recession, coming out of it as the top HR executive search firm based on our reputation for fast, disciplined HR executive searches and our red carpet treatment of all candidates. Most recently, we’ve assisted our clients and candidates in returning to “normal” as the economy recovered and human capital became harder to attract, engage and retain. And now, at a time when creativity and innovation is the name of the people ops game, we’re helping our clients transform and pivot to stay ahead of the talent management curve.

Due to their outstanding leadership in critical HR searches, longtime Frederickson Partners employees Devin Schroeder and Rosemary Belden were promoted to Vice Presidents. The new organizational structure reflects the company’s shift towards greater specialization, with emphasis on the digital transformation practice which provides coaching to CEOs, board members, and CHROs looking to digitize their HR and People functions for transformative company-wide impact. As part of the change, Frederickson Partners executives Michele Li and Mathilde Pribula left the company.

Through it all, we’ve learned that agility, ability and leaning in are equally important. In reinventing ourselves, expanding our capabilities, and increasing our focus on metrics and analytics while remembering that we are ultimately working with people, we have helped our clients do the same. The wisdom and grit that evolve solely from experience guide our decisions and enable us to stay true to our core principles of compassion, integrity, excellence and preparation.