Sam Barthelme, Co-Founder & Managing Director – BrightTower

Sam Barthelme is co-founder and managing director at BrightTower, a New York City-headquartered investment bank focused on M&A advisory services, capital raising and debt capital markets.

Natalie Bennett, Chief of Staff – Kingsley Gate Partners

Natalie Bennett serves as chief of staff for Kingsley Gate Partners. Natalie has led the development and implementation of processes and systems for all day-to-day operations since the firm’s founding. She also leads internal and external communications, policies and procedure formulation, and provides insight and analysis of the firm’s operations. In her role, Natalie serves as the connective tissue for all departments and the leadership team to develop, prioritize and support both strategic and tactical operations worldwide.

Prior to joining Kingsley Gate Partners, Natalie spent 15 years with CTPartners as the firm’s director of quality and training. In this role, Natalie worked closely with senior management and practice leaders providing operational reporting and analysis, training, and professional development support. She partnered with senior leadership and the IT development team for all client-facing programs and platforms supporting search process excellence.

Cody Crook, Managing Director – Hunt Scanlon Ventures

Cody Crook is a managing director at Hunt Scanlon Ventures. Reporting directly to the firm’s co-CEOs, Cody is responsible for co-managing the firm’s investment portfolio, which includes executive search, talent acquisition, private equity, and investment firms. Leading the investment team, he spearheads all fund transactions and maintains portfolio developments. He is also responsible for sourcing, managing and monitoring investments and working with external portfolio managers, analysts and investors on active and prospective transactions.

Cody started his career in recruiting and later joined Accenture as a business strategy manager where he developed organizational and operating models and conducted M&A commercial due diligence for Fortune 500 companies. Following Accenture, Cody served as head of strategy & operations for Hirewell, where he built a modern recruiting tech ecosystem and led multiple acquisitions.

Juan Gaitan, Founder & CEO – TalentoHCM

Juan Gaitan is founder & chief experience officer at Talento Human Capital Management holding primary responsibility for managing the growth of the firm to $100M in revenue by 2025.

Juan is obsessed with TalentoHCM’s customers’ success and enabling their performance through custom design and implementation of talent & organizational solutions. With two decades of human capital management & transformation experience in 30+ industries placing over 20k professionals across 500+ organizations, Juan partners with senior business leaders and human resources management teams to facilitate, align, optimize, and execute.

Prior to TalentoHCM, Juan co-founded, managed, and grew a global professional services firm delivering management consulting in human resources & information technology as well as a robust recruiting services offering in search, RPO and staffing. Prior to the global professional services firm, Juan served as managing director of an executive search & HR advisory firm and held progressive business & HR roles with an emphasis in talent management, organization design, strategy & transformation, mergers & acquisitions, change management and technology.

Prakash Patel, Chief Financial Officer – Bespoke Partners

Prakash Patel is CFO of Bespoke Partners and has more than 15 years of experience in top-tier financial services and consulting engagements, including extensive work in private-equity-backed organizations. Prior to Bespoke, Prakash led multiple strategic initiatives at Kaufman Hall & Associates, including a minority equity acquisition of the firm, spinoff of a SaaS business, and four acquisitions. He previously led strategic transformation projects for client companies in a wide range of industries for Accenture. Prakash started his career at HSBC, where he managed major finance operations and reporting projects.

Justin Pinchback, Chief Revenue Officer – ZRG Partners

Justin Pinchback is chief revenue officer of ZRG Partners, one of the fastest-growing mid-sized global executive search firms in the industry. His thought leadership and expertise in human capital earned him recognition when he was named to Crain’s Magazine’s list of ‘2020 Notable Leaders in HR’. He has spoken at leading conferences including Linked In’s “Talent Connect” and MIT’s “Sloan Sports Analytics” conferences. His work has been featured in Harvard Business Review and he has been a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School and Princeton University.

Justin most recently served as chief administrative officer at Bluegrace Logistics, a $400M logistics brokerage and digital freight matching platform. While there he successfully led numerous large-scale initiatives including the organization’s COVID-19 response.

Prior to joining Bluegrace Justin focused on finance, technology and data science talent management and hiring. He designed and led Citadel’s global Datathon program, a hiring approach that focuses on ‘talent auditions’ as opposed to interviews. At Datathons professionals in the field of math, statistics, technology, and engineering compete by analyzing data to solve business and social problems.

Immediately following graduate school, Justin joined Bain & Co., where he was a strategy consultant focused on human capital, corporate restructuring, post-merger integration, and private equity. His career in talent started when he began recruiting MBAs to join the firm. Prior to Harvard and Bain, Justin worked in front line roles at top financial institutions including HSBC and Moody’s where he gained foundational training in finance, markets, and credit.

Umesh Ramakrishnan, Chief Executive Officer – Kingsley Gate Partners

Umesh Ramakrishnan is chief executive officer at Kingsley Gate Partners. He is responsible for executing Kingsley Gate Partners’ ambitious global expansion plan. Using both his operating experience and his search experience, Umesh is uniquely qualified to lead this firm into the future.

Over a career that spans three decades, Umesh has held several positions like vice chairman, chief innovation officer, president, and chief operating officer in the technology and service industries that have given him both strategic planning and operating experience. Most recently, he was co-CEO of Kingsley Gate Partners. He infuses this experience with the firm’s state-of-the-art scientific, cloud-based tools to execute searches for a select group of clients.

In his search career, Umesh has placed members of the boards of directors, CEOs, CFOs, CTOs, COOs, CDOs and other senior management positions in North and South America, Europe and Asia. When using our Synchronous Fit® framework, he utilizes relevant data from hundreds of these searches to ensure success. He is considered a thought leader and his quotes can be found regularly in major industry and global publications. He is a sought-after speaker and has been a regular guest on shows like CNBC’s Closing Bell and Power Lunch. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed “There’s No Elevator to the Top” published by Penguin worldwide.

Trevor Romeo, Equity Research Analyst – William Blair

Trevor Romeo, CFA, is an equity research analyst at William Blair covering companies the global services sector, with a focus on staffing, talent solutions, and human capital management services. Prior to joining William Blair in 2016, Trevor was a senior associate in KPMG’s economic & valuation services practice, where he provided business and intangible asset valuations to assist clients with financial and tax planning and compliance.

Nat Schiffer, President and Managing Director – The Christopher Group

Nat Schiffer has held virtually every job at The Christopher Group. Today he is the president & managing director. Nat has played a key role in the rebranding of TCG as an Agile HR & Business Solutions company that includes the launch of the firm’s interim HR leader and consulting divisions. Among his many accomplishments at TCG, he is most proud of TCG being recognized in 2019 and 2020 by Forbes as one of the nation’s top executive search firms.

With over 30 years of experience in human resources, corporate executive services, and executive search. Nat has a keen understanding of business strategy and operations, organizational structure, and talent acquisition/assessment/development. This unique combination of experiences enables him to play a pivotal role in partnering with senior executives at Fortune 500 firms, start-ups, P/E backed as well as private and closely held companies. Nat specializes in all levels of HR search but frequently leads the firms most senior-level searches to include CHRO, VP, and other levels with critical succession implications. He has recently completed searches across multiple industries and HR verticals with the likes of Phillips 66, Lamb Weston, Parker Hannifin, Air Products, Altria, SC Johnson, Delta Dental, VCA/ Mar’s Pet Care, Alcon/Novartis, Cal State Fullerton, and Acorn start-ups such as OYO Rooms.

Prior to assuming a full-time leadership role with TCG in 2010, Nat launched and sold a successful startup in the specialty logistics industry. In addition, he spent over 20 years in the financial services industry, 10 years of which was with Merrill Lynch & Co. in a variety of corporate advisory service roles that included corporate executive services and human resources benefit program roles. He was a member of the Merrill Lynch Advisory Council and Circle of Excellence.

Drew Seaman, Managing Director – Hunt Scanlon Ventures

Drew Seaman is a Managing Director at Hunt Scanlon Ventures. He is responsible for co-managing the firm’s investment portfolio of executive search, talent acquisition, private equity, and investment firms. In addition to sourcing new opportunities and managing the firm’s current investments, Drew leads the technical aspects of client engagements, including valuation and financial analysis and the preparation of investment marketing materials.

Drew began his career in wealth management before joining BMO Capital Markets as an Investment Banking Associate in the Financial Institutions Group. Drew assisted with transaction execution and prepared comprehensive valuation and financial analyses for clients in the specialty finance, asset and wealth management, and insurance sectors.

Tobey Sommer, Managing Director – Truist Securities

Tobey Sommer is a managing director at Truist Securities covering the commercial and government IT services sectors. He has 20 years of experience covering the services sector as an equity research analyst. His current coverage focus includes human capital management, consulting, government services contractors, and business services. Before joining the firm in 2001, Mr. Sommer held the position of director at E.J. Krause & Associates, where he organized international technology and industrial trade shows for six years, including establishing Brazilian operations. He served as a forestry volunteer in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic.

Eric Walczykowski, Chief Executive Officer – Bespoke Partners

Eric Walczykowski serves as chief executive officer of Bespoke Partners. He is passionate about building high-performing teams that value doing their best, working together, overcoming adversity and learning.

As a proven growth executive, Eric has served as CEO, president, board member, investor and advisor for technology companies that achieved over $4.5B in successful exits.

Eric brings to Bespoke Partners significant professional services experience from Deloitte and Andersen, as well as the high-growth client executive perspective for private equity-backed technology companies.