Kristen Baldwin, CEO.works Senior Partner and Chief People Officer – Selecta Biosciences

Kristen Baldwin, a senior partner at CEO.works, serves concurrently as chief people officer at Selecta Biosciences, a biopharmaceutical treatments company. She also served as chief human resource officer with The LIVEKINDLY COLLECTIVE, a plant-based foods company. These dual appointments present a unique opportunity to contribute to the CEO.works ecosystem while implementing the Connecting Talent to Value™ principles at Selecta Biosciences.

Previously Kristen led HR for Bayer Pharmaceuticals for the Americas regions, a $6B business, including commercial operations, radiology, and pharmaceuticals R&D. Earlier in her tenure at Bayer, Kristen served as the head of HR for consumer health North America, driving large scale business transformation and culture initiatives.

Before joining Bayer, she was with Otsuka Pharmaceutical Companies for seven years in roles of increasing leadership and responsibility. While at Otsuka, Kristen supported a large commercial leadership team and led the transformation of Otsuka’s HR operations function, including the implementation of Workday and SuccessFactors, and the creation of talent management processes and programs including cultural change initiatives. Her early career included roles in R&D finance and business consulting.

Kate Berkeley, Managing Director, Talent Acquisition – Gryphon Investors

Kate Berkeley joined Gryphon Investors in 2020 as the managing director of talent acquisition to lead and scale the firm’s talent acquisition capabilities, both internally at Gryphon and externally with Gryphon portfolio companies. She brings over 20 years of human capital and consulting experience with leading global companies across private equity (TPG), executive search (Spencer Stuart), enterprise technology (VMware and Borland), and strategy consulting (BCG and Bain & Company). Kate received her BA in physics and economics from Dartmouth College and her MBA from The University of Chicago, Booth School of Business.

Darcy Casarella, Talent Team – New Enterprise Associates

Darcy Casarella joined NEA in 2015 where she is a member of the talent team and focuses on partnering with heads of people and talent to recruit, hire, and develop talent across the portfolio. Darcy is passionate about bringing forth initiatives that encourage leadership development and education for NEA team members and portfolio companies. She works closely with teammates, search partners, and HR/talent experts to execute beneficial talent-focused programs and events.

Valerie Frederickson, Founder and CEO – Frederickson Partners

Valerie Frederickson is a human resources thought leader and entrepreneur. She founded Frederickson Partners in 1995 to address a growing need for strategic HR leadership, an expertise almost unknown at the time. Starting with her first clients Genentech, IBM and EFI, and later Facebook, Google and Workday, Valerie consults to CEOs and boards on everything HR, and identifies and develops cutting-edge HR talent for leading Silicon Valley and global employers. She documented the rise of the HR business partner role and evangelized corporate America’s diversity and inclusion practices. Frederickson Partners is now the largest and the most reputable HR executive search firm in the U.S. Valerie is also founder and CEO of Frederickson Ventures, whose investments include Vector Laboratories (now Maravia Life Sciences); Upwork (NASDAQ: UPWK); ShipServ, a maritime e-commerce platform; Annai Systems, the leading genomic data analysis company; SpinLaunch, launching rockets with less energy; and Toss, a mobile payments platform.

Valerie has been quoted by the Wall Street Journal over 30 times, and by Hunt Scanlon, New York Times, Elle Magazine, Business Week, HR Magazine, NPR, Wired and TLNT; and been featured on television and radio.

Keith Giarman, President, Private Equity & Principal Investing Practice – DHR Global

Keith Giarman serves as president of the private equity practice for DHR Global, based out of the San Francisco, CA, and New York, NY, offices. He is also a member of the firm’s North American Executive Committee driving overall strategy for the organization.

Keith led the launch and successful expansion of the private equity practice over the past 10 years. Today, under his leadership, the practice manages approximately 100 board, C-level, and senior search assignments per year working with management teams and top-tier investors where the mantra is rapid and long-term enterprise value creation. Keith has also been instrumental in the build out of principal investing teams.

Prior to DHR, Keith built the CEO practice for one of the premiere boutique executive recruiting firms in Silicon Valley serving the venture capital community. In previous operating roles, he worked extensively with VC and PE investors, most recently as president and CEO of Clarus Systems (acquired by OpNet), where he raised more than $20 million to launch the company. Prior to his experience in Silicon Valley, Keith was vice president of sales, service, and marketing at Citizens Communications (NYSE: CZN), today a $3 billion full‐service communications carrier that was merged with Frontier (NASDAQ: FTR). He was one of five executives on the senior leadership team responsible for 800 employees, $1 billion in revenue, and $200 million in operating income.

Ryan Greene, Managing Operating Partner, Human Capital – Francisco Partners Consulting

Ryan Greene joined Francisco Partners Consulting in 2014 as an operating advisor focused on leadership, human capital management and broader organizational topics.

Prior to joining Francisco Partners Consulting, Ryan worked as a principal with Green Peak Partners, specializing in talent assessment, executive coaching, and organizational consulting with private equity clients. Ryan previously spent over ten years with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where he primarily focused on organizational transformations, pre/post-merger integrations, and turnarounds for software and healthcare IT companies. Ryan serves on the board of directors of Civitas Learning.

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.

Ting Gu, Principal – Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe

Ting Gu is a principal at Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe (WCAS), a healthcare and technology-focused private equity firm that has raised and managed funds totaling over $30 billion of committed capital. At WCAS, Ting is responsible for identifying, executing and overseeing investments across the healthcare ecosystem. Since joining the firm in 2013, he has helped build multiple leading companies in partnership with physicians, health systems and payer organizations. As an investor and board member, Ting works with portfolio company management teams on a range of strategic, operational and financial initiatives to drive growth and value creation. Prior to joining WCAS, Ting worked in the global mergers and acquisitions practice of Citigroup’s investment banking division.

Chris Herd, Founder & CEO – Firstbase

Chris Herd is the founder & CEO of Firstbase. Firstbase is an all-in-one provisioning platform for remote teams. Their platform lets companies setup, supply, maintain, manage and retrieve all the physical equipment remote workers need to do great work at home as a monthly subscription.

Craig Hoven, Senior Vice President and Managing Consultant – Cejka Search

Craig Hoven is senior vice president and managing consultant of Cejka Search, Cross County Healthcare’s executive search division.

With more than two decades of healthcare staffing leadership experience, Craig leads all aspects of the executive search process for Cross Country, including candidate recruitment and interviewing, development of effective client and candidate relationship management and candidate placement.

Before joining Cross Country, Craig was a partner at Matteson Partners, where he led the healthcare and life sciences practice. Before Matteson Partners, Craig spent nearly two decades serving healthcare providers in consulting and advisory services.

AnnaRose Hughes, Director of Consumer Talent – Lightspeed Venture Partners

AnnaRose Hughes has 10+ years of talent experience, primarily focused in VC-backed startups and growth companies. She is currently Lightspeed Venture Partners’ director of executive talent for the consumer portfolio, where she partners with investors and founders on operational strategies & executive, advisory, and board placements. Prior to Lightspeed, she spent two years as the head of talent at hims & hers, where she helped the D2C pharmaceutical company scale the team to over 400 people and a successful 2021 IPO. She spent the prior four years at Lyft, helping focus on marketing, operations and finance leadership through their 2019 IPO. AnnaRose began her career out of school in New York City, spending 6 years working on creative talent for various corporate retail and fashion houses.

Scott Jacobs, Partner – Acertitude

Scott Jacobs is a partner with the technology practice at Acertitude, where he leads senior-level searches and company-wide assessment projects all over the world for clients who seek rapid, exceptional performance. He is highly specialized in serving the private equity community along with public and private enterprises across the software and infrastructure sectors.

Before joining Acertitude, Scott was the founder and managing partner of executive search and advisory firm Apex Advisors. Prior, he spent 15 years with Heidrick and Struggles. As a senior partner, he led the technology & services practice across EMEA and was a member of the board practice, leading several chairman and NED searches, predominantly for privately-backed mid-cap firms.

Additionally, he spent two years in the Heidrick Consulting business where he delivered projects focused on improving executive team assessment and performance, identifying organizational deficiencies, and driving improvements.

Earlier in his career, Scott worked as a management consultant around the globe for a range of board-level TMT clients. His teams addressed a variety of projects, from multi-million dollar restructuring projects at large organizations to new-business launches for technology start-ups.

Mia Jung, Talent Partner – Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe

Mia Jung is a talent partner on the healthcare team, having joined in 2022. Mia focuses on executive talent strategy and management and is responsible for helping WCAS’s healthcare companies build best- in- class leadership teams. She brings nearly a decade of executive search experience, having placed hundreds of leaders in many of the healthcare industry’s top organizations.

Prior to joining WCAS, Mia served as a partner at Oxeon Partners, a leading retained executive search and investments firm where she partnered with innovative healthcare organizations, boards and investors to build high performing, diverse leadership teams. She co-founded Break Into The Boardroom, an initiative that seeks to drive gender parity in privately held healthcare boards. She currently sits on the Board of Abzena, a WCAS portfolio company. Prior to her career in executive search, Mia held commercial leadership roles in the pharmaceutical and medical technology industries at companies such as Merck, Guidant, and Boston Scientific.

Raj Karanam, Managing Director – Sun Capital Partners

Raj Karanam, Managing Director, joined Sun Capital in 2016 after working at Danaher for ten years, recently as President of Qualitrol. At Sun Capital, Mr. Karanam focuses on General Industrials, Building Products, Business & Home Services segments with successful exits. At Danaher, Mr. Karanam developed the strategy and led the transformation of Qualitrol, an operating company of Danaher, from a sensor to a complete condition monitoring solutions provider. Prior to Danaher, Mr. Karanam worked at General Electric for ten years with commercial and operational responsibilities. Mr. Karanam has a Masters in Computer Science from Texas Tech University.

Anthony Keizner, Managing Partner – Odyssey Search Partners

Anthony Keizner is a managing partner at Odyssey Search Partners in New York. He has been involved with buyside talent for fifteen years. He oversees Odyssey’s recruiting and consulting work, that includes team build-outs, organizational design, and compensation structures. He has experience supporting numerous world-class firms to hire exceptional talent in roles such as investment leads, HR heads, IR/marketing heads and positions across deal teams. Anthony is the chief writer of Odyssey’s regular thought-pieces on topics including impact investing, diversity hiring, and compensation trends. A recognized expert in the buyside talent space, Anthony is regularly quoted in the financial press such as Reuters, Business Insider and Bloomberg.

Before a career in executive search, Anthony was a senior vice president at Gerson Lehrman Group, the networking platform, and a consultant a Monitor Group, the strategy consulting firm. He started his career at Citibank/Salomon Smith Barney as an analyst and rose to become a VP within corporate and investment banking.

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.

He 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.

Sean Mooney, Founder and CEO – BluWave

Sean Mooney is the founder and CEO of BluWave where he leads overall strategy and related sales, marketing, and operational activities.

Sean is a ~20-year veteran of the private equity industry. Prior to founding BluWave, he was a partner and member of the Investment Committee of SFW Capital Partners, a leading middle market private equity firm in New York specializing in information, data, and network enabled businesses. At SFW, he managed the origination, assessment, execution, and ongoing support of portfolio company investments.

He serves on the board of directors of Sachem Inc. and previously served on the board of directors of AGDATA, MD Buyline, Spectro Scientific, Ampac Packaging, FTI, and Alpha Sintered Metals.

Ahmed Nassef, Vice President of Talent & Partnerships – RevelOne

Ahmed Nassef oversees partner relationships with venture capital and private equity firms and other partners at RevelOne and leads select senior executive searches. Ahmed is an accomplished marketer and business builder with over 25 years of experience in startups as well as large corporate environments, both in the US and internationally.

Prior to RevelOne, he was a founder, VP of marketing, and GM in several direct-to-consumer and digital media startups, including Maktoob, which was acquired by Yahoo! for $164 million in 2009. After the sale, Ahmed joined Yahoo! as its vice president and managing director for the MEA region, leading double-digit audience and revenue growth during his tenure.

Nicole North, Partner, Executive Talent – Lightspeed Venture Partners

Nicole North joined Lightspeed Venture Partners in early 2019 as a partner to help lead the firm’s executive talent and platform organization with a mission to build the most transformational companies in the world, supporting companies like Calm, Cameo, Faire, Affirm, Rothy’s, The Honest Company, Carta, Rubrik, and Nutanix, to name a few.

Nicole’s passionate about advancing diversity and inclusion in tech and infuses that into everything she does. “As the tech landscape continues to evolve, it’s clear that we’re in an exciting era of venture capital requiring a new approach to how we holistically fund and support the long-term success of our portfolio companies which MUST include prioritizing diversity and inclusion — from ICs to the board.”

Born in Brazil and a citizen of the United States, Brazil, and Portugal, Nicole has a deep appreciation and love for different cultures.

Nipul Patel, Senior Consultant, Venture & Growth and Software Practices – Russell Reynolds Associates

Nipul Patel brings deep market insights to clients across the consumer ecosystem, with particular expertise in high-growth software companies, online networks and SaaS businesses. Based in San Francisco, Nipul helps companies of all sizes and geographies recruit, assess and develop senior leadership talent. He is a member of Russell Reynolds Associates’ consumer sector and digital & media practice.

Nipul leverages more than 15 years of experience in global consulting, operations and go-to-market strategy in his client work. He was the co-founder of Townsquared, a private online network for local businesses. The company grew into a popular platform and was acquired in 2019 by Upcurve, a subsidiary of New Media Investment Group. Previously, Nipul was a director at the Corporate Executive Board (now Gartner), where he focused on go-to-market strategies, product development and advisory services.

Jennifer Perry, Managing Principal – FMG Leading

Jennifer Perry came to FMG Leading from the healthcare sector, where she served for more than a decade as an executive in a leading healthcare company, driving corporate strategy, conducting market research, and overseeing leadership development initiatives.

In her current role as managing principal, Jennifer focuses on meeting the human capital needs of FMG Leading’s growing portfolio of healthcare and private equity clients, while consulting on large-scale change and leadership development projects.

Andrew Reid, Head of Talent – Lead Edge Capital

Andrew Reid is the head of talent at Lead Edge Capital providing human capital value creation across the firm’s portfolio including talent acquisition, retention strategies, succession planning, and executive leadership assessments. Prior to joining the firm in 2021, he built a career on the agency side working at Artisanal Talent and SPMB, both boutique executive search firms in the San Francisco Bay Area. He conducted national searches across private- and public-stage clients in technology for both the consumer & enterprise sectors.

Matt Richburg, Managing Partner – Ampersand Leadership Group

Matt Richburg understands that the quality of senior leadership significantly differentiates a company’s returns. With 25+ years of experience in human capital consulting, Matt builds long-term partnerships with CEOs, boards, and senior executives to assess and develop top talent. He brings deep experience across a broad range of industries, including financial services, media, retail, technology, and professional services. Matt has partnered with a number of the world’s top private equity firms and their portfolio companies. Leaders at Audax, Goldman Sachs, Welsh Carson, SK Capital, Berkshire Partners, US Foods, Staples, and many others appreciate Matt’s candor and pragmatism, as well as his ability to quickly connect “people” dynamics with tangible business results.

Across his career, Matt has conducted over 2,000 executive-level candidate assessments. With a passion for helping leaders gain broader traction in their organizations, he also advises clients on organizational and leadership diligence during M&A, organizational effectiveness, leadership development, and CEO succession planning.

Before launching Ampersand, Matt was a founding partner at Green Peak Partners, and prior to that a top- performing consultant at ghSMART. He was both a regional and national practice leader for Right Management, specializing in the areas of leadership coaching, executive assessment and development. In that capacity, Matt helped establish and build the Southern Region’s practice, was a three-time member of the president’s council and was also a member of a small global team chosen to design a coaching model deployed worldwide. From that work, he co-authored a chapter on Leadership Coaching featured in The Talent Management Handbook (edited by Berger & Berger, 2003).

In addition to his consulting experience, Matt led Bank of America’s internal executive development programs during a period of rapid organizational transformation. Executing against a strategic mandate to boost organic growth, he headed a team that created an innovative curriculum for over 1,000 bank executives.

Jackie Ross, Managing Director, Co-Lead Venture Capital & Growth Equity Practice – Russell Reynolds Associates

Jackie Ross co-leads RRA’s venture & growth practice and specializes in CEO and board search and assessment assignments in biotech and digital health. She finds it especially rewarding to work with founder-led startups and help entrepreneurs and their investors build sustainable businesses. Jackie is an active member of the firm’s diversity, equity & inclusion practice and co-leads several internal and external cohorts dedicated to promoting and supporting diversity at all levels.

Prior to joining Russell Reynolds Associates, Jackie was ​vice president of life sciences at GLG, a global information services company that connects investors and life sciences companies to experts to support diligence and commercial activities. Earlier, she led business development for World 50, an exclusive and confidential community for global C-suite leaders. Jackie also spent several years in client services with CEB (now Gartner), a research and advisory firm, where she taught industry best practices and facilitated confidential networking for Fortune 1000 heads of marketing. Early in her career, she held business development and marketing roles with Mental Health America and several content marketing organizations.

Tim Russell, Partner – The Tolan Group

Tim Russell is a managing partner at The Tolan Group. Tim’s primary focus is expanding the client base in behavioral health, healthcare services, substance abuse recovery, healthcare IT, digital health and healthcare portfolio companies owned by private equity/venture capital groups.

As a veteran healthcare recruiter of 22 years, Tim brings a variety of skills to his position. Having started his recruitment career in 1997, Tim has worked for two of the nation’s leading healthcare staffing firms which culminated into his co-managing an Atlanta-based physician recruitment firm for nearly five years prior to joining the TTG team. Throughout his time in the industry, Tim has been involved in over 750 recruitment projects ranging from staff level technologists to physicians of all specialties.

Sumeet Salwan, Co-Founder and Global Head of Advisory – CEO.works

Sumeet Salwan has spent the last 30+ years working on connecting human capital with business value. As co-founder and CEO of CEO.works, he leads their business with a vision towards the future of Human Capital management. He is passionate about working with CEOs, Founders, and PE firm partners to deliver their value agenda with a Talent edge while inventing new HR 3.0 models, methodologies and practices along the way.

Sumeet served as global head of HR for two of Johnson & Johnson’s business units: first, their worldwide consumer business and then their medical device company.

Previously, he spent over 20 years with Unilever, rising through the ranks from intern to director to leader of the global program office of HR in Rotterdam. He helped build Unilever’s talent strategy for emerging markets and then led its execution as head of HR in the Asia Pacific region. In his final role, he moved to the US as the Head of HR and drove a significant transformation for Unilever.

Nat Schiffer, President & Managing Director – The Christopher Group

Nathaniel Schiffer is the president and managing director at The Christopher Group, one of America’s best HR boutique agile business solutions firms. With over 30 years of experience in human resources, corporate executive services, and executive search, Nat has a keen understanding of business strategy, 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 for a myriad of consulting, executive recruiting, and HR contracting needs.

Diane Sheldahl, People Leader – Dexterity

Diane Sheldahl is a member of the executive leadership team reporting to Samir Menon, Dexterity’s founder and CEO, as the vice president of people at Dexterity. Diane brings a depth of c-suite and field experience leading the strategic human resource’s function across an employee’s lifecycle from newly established public companies, global Fortune 10 companies, to various start-ups.

Kris Snodgrass, VP Talent – Norwest Venture Partners

Kris Snodgrass comes to Norwest Venture Partners with more than a decade of retained executive search experience recruiting VP and C-level executives across the marketing, financial, engineering, operations and sales functions. As vice president of talent, under the umbrella of portfolio services, Kris works closely with both venture and growth equity partners and portfolio companies in the consumer and consumer internet industries.

Before joining Norwest, Kris was a principal at Howard Fischer Associates in Silicon Valley. In her prior experience she handled consumer internet searches for start-ups including Mint, Stella & Dot, Art.com, Wine.com, CafePress, Lending Club, and Trion Worlds, as well as venture-backed consumer and enterprise software start-ups including Anaplan, Bromium, and Solera Networks.

Kris started her career in search with retained executive search boutique firm Bialla & Associates and also spent time at executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles. Earlier in her career, Kris spent seven years in hi-tech sales at pioneering internet start-ups Netscape, RealNames, and VeriSign.

Christine Sobhani, Partner – August Leadership

Christine Sobhani brings over 20 years of recruitment experience to August Leadership. She has recently been named a Top 100 Women leader in New York City by Women We Admire. She is a leader in the talent acquisition and talent management space with a focus of senior leadership roles across sectors.

Prior to becoming a partner at August Leadership, Christine served as a managing director in Allegis Partners’ New York office, where she focused on identifying talented executives to lead organizations’ HR teams and leadership functions. Before this she served as the vice president of global client solutions at Korn Ferry, where she was responsible for the client management and service delivery leadership of global recruitment accounts, as well as management of a team of seven global account managers. Her clients are primarily in education, non-profit, technology, aerospace, manufacturing, life sciences, and financial services sectors.

Jackie Xu, Head of Talent – Kleiner Perkins

Jackie Xu joined Kleiner Perkins in 2014. As talent partner, Jackie partners with founders to build their leadership teams and create the foundation to support them in scaling their startups. Jackie has more than a decade of experience advising founders about organizational design, building HR functions, compensation, culture, leadership development, and board recruiting. She runs the Kleiner Perkins Women’s Leaders Community and is passionate about coaching individuals and teams to unlock their potential and increase performance.

Prior to joining Kleiner Perkins, Jackie was part of the initial recruiting team at Twitter where she led multiple recruiting teams and partnered with executive leadership on strategic acquisitions for Twitter. She helped Twitter grow from a startup of fewer than 50 engineers to a publicly-traded company with more than 2,000 engineers globally. Before Twitter, Jackie spent time at Facebook helping build the engineering org. and in executive search where she placed senior executives at hedge funds. She began her career in investment banking at Goldman Sachs in New York.