Dave Mullarkey

Managing Partner

Dave joined SPMB in 1997 and became a Managing Partner in 2003. He has since played a key leadership role in the firm’s national and global growth, enabling SPMB to become one of the world’s leading mid-sized retained search firms.

Since joining SPMB, one of Dave’s greatest achievements has been developing and maintaining the firm’s first-rate culture, which in turn, has attracted a first-rate search team. SPMB has a long history of not only developing and attracting some of the industry’s most skilled search professionals but also retaining them.

Within his own search practice, Dave’s clients range from high growth Venture- and Private Equity-backed organizations to multi-billion dollar public companies. His primary focus is C-Level Go To Market execs in B2B. Over his 25+ years in search, Dave has led hundreds of successful assignments and has proudly helped build the leadership teams for brand-name companies like Okta, Blackline, FireEye, SendGrid, Xero, Cohesity, EverCommerce, BlueVine, to name a few.

Early in his career, Dave launched, successfully ramped, and sold a self-funded Internet company. He then relocated to the Bay Area in 1997 and met SPMB founder Lee Schweichler. Given Dave’s background in technology and innovation, it was a mutual (and enduring!) fit for both Dave and SPMB.

Outside of work, when Dave is not spending time with his wife or coaching one of his three kids’ teams, you might find him on a tennis court making someone chase a deftly placed lob…humble brag: Dave was an All-American tennis player at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and remains an avid player today.