Mercedes Chatfield-Taylor, Venture Capital & Private Equity Lead – Caldwell

Mercedes Chatfield-Taylor is managing partner of Caldwell’s private equity and venture capital practice areas and a member of the firm’s technology, consumer, digital and media teams. She focuses on executive-level search for high-growth technology companies, with deep expertise in B2B SaaS, social, eCommerce, gaming and other transformative technologies. Mercedes has completed over 50 CEO searches as well as other CXO level assignments for her clients. She has deep expertise in helping to diversify VC & PE-backed company boards and leadership teams.

Prior to joining Caldwell, Mercedes held leadership positions at executive search firms including Heidrick & Struggles, where she helped re-establish and then managed its global venture capital practice; Highland Partners; and iCOM Consultants, an emerging technologies boutique she co-founded to address the unique hiring needs of venture-backed technology companies. Before founding iCOM, Mercedes was vice president of VF&Co, a Silicon Valley-based HR consulting firm where she established and managed its executive search practice. Prior to that, she was vice president of marketing for XL Insurance, a global excess insurance, reinsurance and financial risk-management company, with holdings of over $13 billion. Mercedes managed XL’s marketing efforts at their head office in Bermuda before moving to Sydney, Australia to open the company’s first office in the Pacific Rim and lead the firm’s efforts to impact the difficult Asian/Pacific insurance and financial risk management industry.

Martin Coulter, Operating Partner – TPG Growth

Martin Coulter is an operating partner with TPG Growth and The Rise Fund and is based in Boston, where he works with the healthcare group to support diligence of new opportunities and help the executive teams of portfolio companies reach their full potential.

Before joining TPG, Martin served as CEO of PatientsLikeMe, a digital health company and innovator in patient-centered healthcare that worked to advance the development and delivery of new treatments and therapies for chronically ill patients. 

Lara DeVito – Private Equity Talent Consultant

Lara DeVito is a leading senior level recruiter who manages her own executive search firm, FiveToolCFO. In that capacity, she serves as a consultant and trusted advisor to private equity leaders. Lara has more than 10 years of experience specializing in the placement of CFOs, controllers and other C-suite financial leaders. In the last five years that focus has turned primarily to addressing the talent needs of private equity portfolio companies. Over the past decade, Lara has built a strong network and has leveraged that group of high potential leaders for her expanding client base.  

According to some of her top clients, Lara has been described as a diligent, committed, well-informed, and energetic recruiter with a great eye for talent. Lara serves as an executive board member of California Women’s Network – a platform that brings together organizations and individuals to advocate for women’s initiatives.

Valerie Frederickson, Founder & CEO – Frederickson Partners

Valerie Frederickson, MS, CMP is founder and CEO of her eponymous company, Frederickson Partners, the largest independently owned people and HR executive search and consulting firm in the US.

As a people and talent thought leader and consultant for over 25-years, she guides some of the most important employers in the world with people, talent and HR executive searches, strategic HR consulting, and high-level interim HR support. Valerie places top HR executives in a variety of industries including high tech, software, wireless, insurance, pharma/biotech, and finance. Clients include Marqeta, Airtime, Dreambox Learning, ServiceNow, Workday, Autodesk, Uber and Alphabet.

Valerie is a leading human resource, people and talent executive search, and career management expert based in Silicon Valley. Recognized at a young age as one of “the top business thinkers in the country” (SF Chronicle), Valerie has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ABC News, Wired Magazine, MSNBC, SHRM Online, Elle Magazine, Diversity Inc., HR Executive, and HR Magazine.

Keri Gavin, Partner - Hanold Associates

Keri is a Partner at Hanold Associates focused on recruiting the best HR leaders in Talent Acquisition, Organizational Development, Talent Management, Operations and Total Rewards. Her signature strength is being a personable, skilled relationship builder who is able to build trust and communicate important information effectively.

Prior to joining Hanold Associates, Keri was the Director of Host Relations and Customized Training for Ragan Communications. At Ragan, she fostered relationships with communications leaders at Fortune 500 companies to secure event partnerships.

Before Ragan, Keri was a television anchor and reporter for KCCI-TV in Des Moines, Iowa. Her most memorable assignment was a one-on-one interview with First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House.

Ryan Greene, Operating Partner – Francisco Partners Consulting (FPC)

Ryan Greene is an operating partner with Francisco Partners Consulting (FPC), focused on human capital management and organizational topics. Ryan wears a multitude of hats at FPC, supporting FP deal teams and the senior management teams of FP’s 45+ portfolio companies on a broad range of value creation initiatives, including leadership team building and development (i.e., sourcing, assessment, onboarding, 360-degree feedback coaching, retention, succession planning), organizational consulting (i.e., restructurings, M&A integrations, org design), and various other initiatives in human capital operations. Ryan works as an advisor directly to the CEOs and HR leaders of FP’s portfolio companies and previously served as Interim Head of HR for the carve-out and stand up of Dell’s Software Group (now dba SonicWall and Quest Software).

Prior to joining FPC, Ryan worked as a principal with Green Peak Partners, specializing in talent assessment, executive coaching, and organizational due diligence with private equity clients. Ryan previously spent over 10 years with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where he primarily focused on organizational transformations, pre/post-merger integrations, and turnarounds for technology and healthcare clients.

Scott Gregory, CEO – Hogan Assessments

As Hogan Assessments’ CEO, Scott Gregory brings years of expertise in executive selection, development, and succession to his leadership and vision for all aspects of Hogan’s domestic and global business. He was one of Hogan Assessments’ first employees and, following a 12-year stint as vice president of talent management and organizational development at Pentair, he returned to Hogan in 2013 to continue to help clients leverage the science of personality.

He is instrumental in providing expertise on executive selection, development, and succession to Hogan’s global, corporate clients and supports the work of Hogan’s global business alliances with distribution partners.

Alan Guarino, Vice Chairman – Korn Ferry

Alan Guarino brings a unique perspective to Korn Ferry as a former chief executive officer and experienced consultant, working with corporate boards and executive teams to drive business and talent management strategies.

Currently, Alan leads major consulting initiatives for Korn Ferry across industries, with deep expertise in global financial markets, where he is responsible for ensuring that the firm’s largest client relationships have access to the full range of the Korn Ferry’s human capital solutions. In that context, he launched the firm’s Execution Accelerator initiative, helping business leaders better execute their strategies. He also leads senior executive search and C-suite succession assignments for Fortune 500 companies, as well as cutting-edge FinTech companies within capital markets.

Paula Judge, VP Talent – Accel Partners

Paula Judge joined Accel Partners in 2018 to focus on talent efforts across the firm’s wide range of portfolio companies. Prior to Accel, Paula led the Americas sector go-to-market recruiting efforts at Palo Alto Networks during a period of significant revenue and headcount growth. She joined Palo Alto Networks from Heidrick and Struggles where she conducted executive level searches for the technology practice.

She began her career in the non-profit sector, holding a number of fundraising and programmatic roles with San Francisco Ballet and the Toigo Foundation. 

Brian Kasser, Talent Partner – Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe

Brian Kasser is the talent partner for the WCAS technology team. Focusing on executive talent strategy and management, he is responsible for helping WCAS’s technology companies to build outstanding leadership teams. He brings to WCAS more than a decade of executive search experience having placed hundreds of leaders in many of the technology industry’s top organizations.

Prior to joining WCAS in 2019, Brian served as partner and head of executive talent for Lightspeed Venture Partners. Earlier, he was a longtime partner at Russell Reynolds Associates, a leading executive recruiting firm.

Before his executive search career, Brian was an investment banker at Salomon Brothers, Lehman Brothers and Thomas Weisel Partners.

Kevin Kernan, Partner – JM Search

Kevin Kernan brings 25 years of operational leadership experience within the technology sector to JM Search. As a CEO and senior executive, he has built management teams, raised capital from top-tier venture firms, and led companies through successful exits. His operational background, combined with nearly an additional decade in recruiting, makes Kevin a go-to executive search partner for private equity and venture capital investors, board directors, and CEOs of SaaS, cybersecurity, and analytics companies.

Kevin joined JM Search as a partner in 2016 after six years as a managing director at ChampionScott, a technology-focused executive search firm. Before pivoting into recruiting in 2009, Kevin spent 25 years in go-to-market leadership roles for software and cybersecurity companies. As CEO of Secure Software, he raised multiple rounds of venture funding, built the entire leadership team, and successfully sold the business within four years.

As a testament to Kevin, each venture firm that invested in Secure has since hired him to recruit for their portfolio companies. For the 17 years prior to Secure, he held a number of senior leadership roles at Rational Software Corporation and was instrumental in the company scaling its revenue to over $700 million before IBM acquired it in 2003 for more than $2.5 billion.

Jean-Marc Laouchez, President – Korn Ferry Institute

Jean-Marc Laouchez has accumulated over 20 years of consulting experience, partnering with boards, CEOs and business leaders to help them design and implement their strategies. Over the course of his career, Jean-Marc has developed a passion for helping leaders and organizations perform and grow by integrating business and people dimensions.

He has worked with companies in multiple industries and geographies in strategy and organization design and implementation, board governance, leadership effectiveness, culture transformation, turnaround, and mergers. Jean-Marc now leads the Korn Ferry Institute, KF research analytics and innovation arm.

Prior to these roles, he was Korn Ferry chief knowledge and transformation officer. He also led the global financial services sector, the global family-owned business practice and the Latin America key clients’ team. Before joining Korn Ferry in 2007, Jean-Marc was Brazil CEO and first global partner-elect of Axialent, an international corporate culture and leadership development and coaching firm.

He also worked over seven years at McKinsey & Company, a global strategy and management consulting firm. He was a leader of the organization practice and served large clients in Brazil, Europe and the USA. Before his consulting career, Jean-Marc worked at investment Banque Indosuez (now Crédit Agricole) as financial analyst, private banker and international controller.

Miia Laukkarinen, Vice President of Talent – Bessemer Venture Partners

Miia Laukkarinen is vice president of talent at Bessemer Venture Partners, where she leads the firm’s talent network and recruitment efforts. She works closely with Bessemer’s investment team and portfolio companies on all human capital programs and hiring strategies.

Prior to joining Bessemer, Miia spent over a decade filling vice president and C-level positions in venture-backed consumer internet and software companies. She was also an associate and a member of the venture capital practice of The Caldwell Partners and Heidrick & Struggles.

Robin Levitt, President – 4D Executive Search

Robin Levitt is a seasoned professional with an impressive track record in executive search and recruitment. She is a creative thinker, a tireless worker, and a true advocate for her clients.

Robin began her recruiting career in San Francisco in the mid-1990s. After honing her skills, she moved to Los Angeles, where she launched Human Resources International. Robin partnered with leaders across the country, to brand the company, build the internal ATS system and develop nationwide training. She regularly traveled the country delivering sales training. Robin grew the business to a two million dollar plus business in three years, ranking as the number one national office year after year. She was among the top billers, nationwide, during her five year tenure with HRI.

Robin moved on to recruiting in the bio/pharma arena, placing in the areas of R&D, operations, sales and marketing and scientific. She worked for a boutique search firm and St. Jude Medical, a leading cardiac device company.  While with St. Jude, Robin built the first Campus Recruiting program.

In 2002, Robin followed her entrepreneurial spirit and opened 4D Executive Search, formerly A&R Consulting, LLC. Within three years, she grew the company to nearly one million dollars in revenue. She focused on direct hire and contract recruiting in the field of human resources. She garnered Fortune 100 clients, mid-size and start-up companies with her winning, multi-dimensional approach: utilizing flexibility and looking at candidates from a technical, intuitive and value-based perspective– a groundbreaking methodology that produced impressive results.

Holly McCarthy, Founder & Managing Partner – Opus Advisors

Holly McCarthy launched her executive search career in 1997, with a boutique executive search firm. She rapidly became the No. 1 recruiter in the firm’s then 10-year history. After four years of exceptional record-breaking production, she was asked to buy out the former partners and take over the firm. Subsequently, Holly was asked to join Korn Ferry where she was once again a top requested recruiter, placing CEOs and CFOs in a number of Fortune 1000 companies.

In 2003, Holly decided to pursue her penchant for financial services and focus solely on investment banking, hedge fund, and private equity recruiting.

She founded Opus Advisors in 2006 in an effort to create a firm with an exceptional team culture, representing top-tier clients & candidate talent, with unparalleled ethics, sense of urgency, and care.

Teri McFadden, Vice President of Talent – Norwest Venture Partners

Teri McFadden brings more than 20 years of experience in management recruiting and human resources development to Norwest Venture Partners. During her career, Teri has cultivated a robust network of entrepreneurs, executives and key industry influencers to help grow portfolio companies with the best possible management teams and boards of directors.

At Norwest, Teri works closely with the firm’s investment professionals, co-investors and board members, as well as portfolio company founders and CEOs, to evaluate new investment opportunities and grow existing portfolio companies.

Before joining Norwest, Teri served as human capital partner at ComVentures. During her seven year tenure there, she worked closely with the investment partners and personally built out executive teams, including several CEOs, for high impact portfolio companies. Prior to ComVentures, Teri established the senior recruiting partner role at venture capital firm, Accel Partners, in 1999. She also helped with the formation of Accel-KKR in building its team and working with the firm’s portfolio companies.

Prior to her work with venture capital firms, Teri spent more than a decade in retained executive search with global search firms Spencer Stuart and Heidrick & Struggles.

Jonathan Morris, Co-Founder & Partner – TritonExec

Partner and Co-Founder Jonathan Morris pioneers TritonExec’s continued expansion in the U.S. market and is responsible for the company’s global growth strategy. He leads TritonExec with a reputation as a trusted advisor on critical matters dealing in the professional and technology services sector.

His knack for innovative responses to client and market needs is backed by ten years’ human capital advisory and recruiting experience. A leader in search and recruitment, Jonathan is the original disruptor of the tired traditions of the industry and the pioneer of the new economy of executive search.

Tom Nieman, Co-Founder – Signal Partners

Tom Nieman is a co-founder of Signal Partners. He is also founder & CEO of Signal’s predecessor company, Fortis Partners, a full-stack search firm that spanned both executive and non-executive recruiting. For the last 20 years he has recruited CEOs and their direct reports for venture and PE-backed companies nationwide, as well as partners for firms such as Kleiner Perkins and Silver Lake Partners.

Tom has led searches for companies such as: Houzz (VP Finance, VP Global Sales; VP Industry Solutions; VP Partnerships), Wealthfront (CFO; Chief Data Science Officer), Chegg (CEO), LifeLock (CMO), Rival (Head of People; Head of Finance), Telesign (CEO), Tastemade (CFO), RuffaloNoelLevitz (CEO), Acxiom (Board Members), and Invoice Cloud (President), among others.

Earlier, Tom was a managing director at Ramsey Beirne Associates, an early tech industry search firm that recruited CEOs for pioneers such as Netscape, Priceline, and eBay. Notable companies he worked with include: E*Trade (CEO; CMO; CFO; CTO), Epicor (CEO), Ariba (VP Global Sales), Trilogy (CFO), and Dell Computer (SVP & GM, Enterprise Division).

He began his career in the Chicago headquarters of DHR International, a global executive search firm.

Lisa Peacock-Edwards, Managing Partner – Wilton & Bain

Lisa Peacock-Edwards has over 15 year’s global executive search and leadership advisory experience with global corporate and PE-backed businesses in financial services and large B2C and B2B customer-centric business across retail, consumer, industrial, E-commerce, telco and media. She has led practices in EMEA, the Americas and Asia.

Lisa specializes in working with businesses going through growth or transformation especially within technology, data, digital and the customer. Her client list has included Wells Fargo, Citi, Goldman Sachs, TD, USAA, Barclaycard, AT&T,  Teradata, Elsevier, Euromoney, Tesco, Wal-Mart, Comcast, among others.

Lisa leads the global search and leadership advisory practice at Wilton & Bain with a team spread across New York, San Francisco and London. She also leads the assessment practice for Wilton & Bain, advising clients on discovering their current executives skills and development needs as well as building succession plans. She is known for her depth of insight in technology, digital, innovation and analytics.  

Kristin Richards, Director of Human Capital – TPG Growth

Kristin Richards is a director at TPG Growth based in San Francisco, where she serves as director of human capital.

Prior to joining TPG in 2016, Kristin served as vice president of executive talent for Greylock Partners. Before joining Greylock, Kristin spent close to 10 years at Spencer Stuart, where most recently she was a consultant in their technology, communications & media and board services practices. Prior to joining Spencer Stuart, Kristin spent four years as director of executive recruiting at Accel-KKR.

Joanna Riley, CEO & Co-Founder – Censia

Joanna (Jo) Riley is an entrepreneur in technology for the Future of Work. Jo is on a mission to eradicate human bias and enable companies to measure people by merit and capability. As CEO and founder of Censia, she has led her team to build an artificial intelligence and machine learning–based predictive recruiting solution powered by one of the largest talent data platforms in the world—automating the process of identifying talent for opportunities in the most efficient and fairest way possible.

Currently, she is the Chapter Chair for Young Presidents Organization, (SF Bay), is part of the Harvard Business School Presidents program and is an active angel investor. Jo has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Women in Tech, Diversity’s Council of the Most Influential Women, and as CEO has led her previous company to a successful IPO.

Leah Scanlan, Operating Partner – Khosla Ventures

Leah Scanlan is an operating partner at Khosla Ventures, where she works with entrepreneurs and advises portfolio companies on executive search strategy, leadership and talent development. 

Prior to Khosla Ventures, Leah was a partner at Daversa Partners, an executive search firm for high-growth, cutting edge technology companies. While there, she worked with the firm’s consumer Internet, healthcare and enterprise software practices. Leah also led and launched Daversa’s CFO practice, working with some of the most influential CFOs across the globe. 

Throughout her career, Leah has contributed to building high-performance executive management teams at companies including Uber, Twitter, Square, Dropbox, Airbnb, Yelp, Snapchat, AOL, Instacart, DocuSign, ZocDoc, Shazam, Lending Club, RelateIQ and Lithium Technologies. Earlier in her career, she ran marketing and e-commerce for a children’s publishing company. 

Jeffrey Warren, Managing Director – Russell Reynolds Associates

Jeff Warren leads the global alternatives practice at Russell Reynolds Associates and is the area manager for the firm’s Los Angeles office. He conducts leadership and succession engagements across the C-suite, including the investment and financial officer functions, working with public companies, private equity firms and their portfolio companies. He is a member of the firm’s CEO/board services practice and has also led engagements for a variety of financial services firms including private equity, investment management, banking, consumer finance and real estate clients. Jeff advises clients within private equity and alternatives, working across the investment firm and portfolio company levels.

Prior to joining Russell Reynolds Associates in 1999, Jeff was director of business development for KSL Fairways, a wholly owned subsidiary of KSL Recreation Corporation and a private equity affiliate of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. In this role, he oversaw business development, acquisition and strategic planning activities. Previously, Jeff was in the financial institutions’ investment banking group at Merrill Lynch and, earlier, with Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company in leveraged finance and merchant banking.

Jon Weber, Head of Portfolio Company Management – BlueMountain Capital Management

Jon Weber is the head of portfolio company management and serves on the firm’s investment committee. He works with management and boards of companies where the firm is an influential investor. Prior to joining BlueMountain, Jon headed groups at Anchorage Capital Group, Goldman Sachs Special Situations Group and Icahn Enterprises, where he was responsible for operational oversight, governance and value enhancement of portfolio companies. In those capacities, he has served as a board member, senior executive, and board-level advisor for companies in a broad range of industries over 15 years. Roles included president of Icahn Enterprises, L.P. (NYSE-IEP), CEO of Philip Services Corporation and Viskase Companies, and board member of American Railcar Industries, Bavaria Yachtbau, Crescent Communities, Martinrea Honsel, National Energy Group, WestPoint International, WIND Hellas, Xenith Bankshares and XO Communications.

Previously, Jon was an investment banker at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley, and an attorney with Weil, Gotshal & Manges. He is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He earned a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School, and B.S. and M.B.A., magna cum laude, from Babson College.

Josh Withers, Founder & GM – True Search North America

Josh Withers, founder & GM of True Search North America, brings 15 years of experience to executive searches for True clients in the software and Internet sectors. A True founder, Josh joined in starting True because he recognized his clients need for a firm focused on transparency, data, and a collaborative approach. He also believes in building strong relationships with up and coming talent and with established leaders in today’s disruptive technology companies.

Before starting True, Josh held consultant roles with Heidrick & Struggles, Howard Fischer and CTPartners. Josh has a B.A. in Communication from San Diego State University.

Jackie Xu, Partner – Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Jackie Xu joined Kleiner Perkins in 2013. She supports strategic hiring efforts for the firm’s portfolio companies and advises them on technical recruiting, compensation and team-building. Her passion is to connect talented people to innovative startups.

Prior to joining KPCB, Jackie managed a bi-coastal team of engineering recruiters and partnered with executive leadership on strategic acquisitions for Twitter. As part of the initial recruiting team at Twitter, she helped the company grow from a startup of less than 100 engineers to a publicly traded company with over 1,000 engineers.

Before Twitter, Jackie spent time at Facebook and in executive search placing senior executives at hedge funds. She began her career at Goldman Sachs in investment banking in New York.