Adam Charlson serves as Managing Partner of Focus Search Partners. As Co-Leader of Vaco’s, FSP’s holding company, retained executive search division, Adam has been tasked with growing the firm and technology practice. Adam came to FSP and Vaco because of the acquisition of his firm, Charlson Partners.
Prior to the acquisition of Charlson Partners, Adam spent two years building his firm, which successfully served some of the largest publicly traded companies in technology, as well as the most respected private equity and venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. Over a two-year period, Adam took Charlson Partners from an idea to a multi million-dollar firm with offices in Northern and Southern California, as well as Austin and Chicago.
The foundation of Adam’s executive search career has been built on 20 years of experience with firms like Korn Ferry and Spencer Stuart. Over the course of Adam’s career, he has recruited senior leaders for such organizations as Adobe Systems, Cisco Systems, Convergys, DataPipe, FICO, Google, HP, Infor Global Solutions, Microsoft, PayPal, Salesforce.com, SAP, and Splunk, to name a few. Adam is also one of the search industry’s market leaders in “Big Data” and Data Officer/Data Science assignments, having authored the definitive white paper on the topic.
Adam holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Ohio University.