ON Partners Recruits CEO for Searchspring
April 4, 2023 – Seth Harris and Jake Espenlaub of ON Partners have placed Alex Kombos as the new CEO of Searchspring, a global leader in site search, product merchandising, and E-commerce personalization. “I was impressed by Alex’s experience delivering value to customers,” said Kurien Jacob, executive chairman of the board at Searchspring. “The company has achieved strong growth and the combination of Alex’s passion and experience can steer Searchspring into the future.” Mr. Kombos has over 25 years experience building and leading E-commerce and SaaS-based companies, while driving business value. He is a seasoned entrepreneur and executive, having served as CEO at Pressable, part of Automattic, where he led the WordPress and WooCommerce hosting provider in redefining its go-to-market strategy, launching strategic new offerings, and building a global team to scale the company’s growth. Mr. Kombos has held similar positions in SaaS and E-commerce with Onoxa, InternetQ, and MusicNow.
Mr. Kombos’ experience will help guide Searchspring through its next stage of growth, continuing to build its arsenal of intelligent site search, merchandising, and personalization features and expanding globally. “Searchspring has delivered personalized, relevant E-commerce search experiences for over 15 years. It has become one of the industry leaders through product growth and international expansion,” said Mr. Kombos. “I am honored to lead this company with its experienced team and technology, in pursuit of its next chapter of growth.”
Mr. Kombos’ appointment comes six months after Searchspring announced a strategic growth investment from PSG, a growth equity firm, partnering with software and technology-enabled services companies to help accelerate their growth.
Related: ON Partners Recruits CEO for New Wave Design and Verification
As a global provider of search, merchandising, and personalization platform built exclusively for E-commerce, Searchspring enables brands to get the right product, to the right person, at the right time. With Searchspring, customers such as Chubbies, Pura Vida, Moen, Fabletics, Peet’s Coffee, SKIMS, West Elm, Specialized, Wildfang, Ripcurl, 2XU, and St. Frock are increasing cart size, conversion, and repeat customers. Founded in 2007, Searchspring has offices in San Antonio, Denver, Colorado Springs, Portland, Toronto, Krakow, and Sydney.
Search Industry Veterans
With a primary focus on technology, consumer, industrial, and the life science sectors, ON Partners recruits C-level and board talent for public and private companies, as well as venture capital and private equity firms. Founded in 2006, the firm’s consultants work from offices in Atlanta; Boston; Chicago; Cleveland; Dallas; Menlo Park, CA; Minneapolis. MN; San Francisco; and New York. ON Partners was named one of the fastest growing search firms this year by Hunt Scanlon Media. The firm is now ranked as one of the 20 largest search firms in the nation.
Mr. Harris has 20-plus years of retained executive search experience and focuses on the technology sector including SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, managed services, and IoT. He has over 375 completed executive searches across technology and enterprise functions. Mr. Harris’ clients range from late stage VC- backed, mid-cap, growth / private equity to global multinational organizations.
ON Partners Places Chief Marketing Officer for ETQ
ON Partners recently helped to place Maureen Pienta as the new chief marketing officer for ETQ, a provider of quality, EHS, and compliance management software in Burlington, MA. Ms. Pienta is responsible for all aspects of marketing strategy, planning, and execution at ETQ. Partner Lenny Vairo spearheaded the assignment for the search firm. Ms. Pienta brings strong strategy and market development experience along with deep expertise in demand generation to her new role. She is especially skilled at maximizing the marketing and sales dynamic to increase sales productivity.
Mr. Espenlaub serves the software, E-commerce, consumer, digital, and retail industries. He specializes in serving public, private equity, and growth equity organizations with a focus on digital transformation. The functions he serves include go-to-market, product, technology, digital, and customer experience. Previously, he ran the technology practice at the Benefits Advisory Group.
Recent Acquisition
ON Partners recently acquired Olympus Search Partners and added its founder, Ashley Estes, as senior partner to further expand its market growth in both PE-backed health and wellness, and TMT. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. “Ashley brings in over 14 years of executive search experience to our team in the areas of both PE-backed healthcare and software,” said Matt Mooney, co-president at ON Partners. “Over the last few years, ON Partners has expanded in the overall health and wellness market, specifically as it pertains to private equity-backed healthcare, IT healthcare systems, and overall health-tech. We see considerable demand and opportunity in this sector and Ashley is a wonderful addition to the team. Both her leadership and expertise will be extremely valuable.”
Prior to founding Olympus Search Partners, Ms. Estes served as a principal at The Lancer Group. She has conducted C-level searches for PE-backed portfolio companies across a variety of verticals for over a decade. Additionally, Ms. Estes also conducted board and operating partner searches for the funds directly.
Related: ON Partners Assists Unison Software in Chief Technology Officer Search
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
