JM Search Expands Financial Officer Practice
January 14, 2021 – JM Search, a senior-level talent provider serving private equity investors, portfolio companies and Fortune 1000s, has expanded with the addition of Kevin Logterman as partner in the firm’s financial officer practice. He joins current financial officer practice partners Drew Pressman, Brian Dwyer and David Robinson. “We are thrilled to have Kevin join our firm,” said John Marshall, co-founder and chief executive officer of JM Search. “Kevin’s prior experience placing CFOs and working with private equity companies will continue to solidify our longstanding commitment to helping our clients remain at the forefront of ensuring their companies have excellent financial leadership in place.”
Mr. Logterman has over 20 years of executive search experience, serving private equity and family-owned companies. His focus has been recruiting CEO and CFO executives for middle market industrial companies with specific industry experience in automotive, chemicals, distribution, plastics, capital equipment and industrial services. He joins the firm from Slayton Search Partners, where he co-led the firm’s industrial practice. Before that, Mr. Logterman served as a managing director with Cook Associates. He also gained executive search experience with Furst Search Group serving as a managing director.
“I am excited to join a firm I have known of and competed against for many years,” said Mr. Logterman. “I look forward to continuing to build the terrific reputation of JM Search and help to build the financial officers practice.”
JM Search’s CFO/financial officers center of excellence sources finance and accounting talent for major public and private equity-backed companies seeking high-profile roles including CFO, CAO, VP finance, VP treasurer, along with controller and FP&A roles reporting into the C-suite. The firm launched the practice in December. The firm has a 40-year track record placing CFOs and other senior finance and accounting executives into investor-backed and public companies across all sectors. Over the past decade, JM Search has placed more than 1,000 CFOs into public and private equity owned companies. This newly dedicated team will assist clients in finding top financial leadership necessary to increase enterprise value and generate improved shareholder returns.
“Since our founding 40 years ago, JM Search has established a significant track record of partnering with companies that require transformational leadership to help drive operational efficiency, revenue growth and increased enterprise value,” said Mr. Marshall. “By formalizing this practice as a financial officers center of excellence, we’re solidifying our long-standing commitment to helping clients remain at the forefront of ensuring their companies have excellent financial leadership in place amidst rapidly changing environments and required changes brought on by a global pandemic and the lasting consequences.”
According to the latest Hunt Scanlon ‘2020 Global Private Equity Talent Leadership Report,’ institutional investors increasingly see portfolio company talent management as a crucial lever for value creation, risk mitigation and growth. And virtually every PE firm and their portfolio companies – along with many traditional companies – have detailed playbooks at the ready for how to respond when the booming economy they enjoyed in recent years finally reversed course this year. Everyone knew it would come; it was just a matter of when. Yet, according to private equity operating executives and their talent leaders, no one was fully prepared for a disruption of the magnitude of the coronavirus pandemic of 2020.
“At the core of PE’s handling of the pandemic has been a vigorous focus on leadership” said Scott A. Scanlon, CEO of Greenwich, Conn-based Hunt Scanlon. “Beyond the chief executive, the roles of CFO, CHRO, heads of technology, CISO, you name it – they have all taken on heightened significance in the face of this crisis. We believe in many ways, seen and unseen, that this will continue longer after COVID-19 is beaten back.”
The pandemic, in fact, has rewritten the script for many portfolio companies in search of talent. According to one expert, even areas of businesses that are thriving because of COVID-19 – such as grocery store delivery and telemedicine – demand that companies make huge adjustments or risk losing customers. “It means that we need a reevaluation of leadership because we need a reevaluation of the strategy or the value creation plan that was in place when the investments were made,” said Hugh MacArthur, head of the global private equity practice at Bain & Company. “There are going to be some businesses that are going to be fundamentally different coming out of the crisis. What’s going to create value in those businesses is going to be fundamentally different than in the past.”
Delivering High Performance Leaders
JM Search is an advisor to CEOs, investors and boards of directors in recruiting, assessing and delivering high performance leaders and transformational leadership teams. The firm’s clients include private equity firms and portfolio companies, venture capital-backed businesses and publicly held companies across North America. Founded in 1980, the JM Search team brings together former operating and financial executives, investors and experienced search professionals with deep industry specialization, functional expertise and proven access to talent spanning multiple industry sectors.
This past September, JM Search expanded its dedicated healthcare technology center of excellence with the hiring of industry veteran Mike Forgash. As a sponsor-backed CEO, investor, and board member in the healthcare, life sciences and technology sectors, Mr. Forgash has assessed and built management teams, raised capital from top-tier equity firms, and led companies through successful exits, said Mr. Marshall.
Mr. Forgash said this is an exciting time to join JM Search. “The market for investment opportunities and leadership needs created and amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic could not make for a more opportune time to combine our resources and focus on this growing segment,” he said.
In June, JM Search formed a dedicated cybersecurity practice to assist public and private equity-backed companies in identifying and recruiting high-performance leaders. Partners Kevin Kernan and Tom Figueroa co-lead the firm’s center of excellence for cybersecurity leadership.
“Since our founding 40 years ago, JM Search has established a significant track record of partnering with companies that require transformational leadership to help drive operational efficiency, revenue growth and increased enterprise value,” said Mr. Marshall. “By formalizing this practice as a cybersecurity leadership center of excellence, we’re solidifying our longstanding commitment to helping clients remain at the forefront of security best practices and innovation amidst rapidly changing threat vectors, continued disruption, and required changes brought on by a global pandemic and the lasting consequences.”
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
