Gary Bembridge

Gary Bembridge joined De Forest Search just under two years ago, bringing a wealth of digital marketing, advertising and technology experience to the De Forest team. Prior to joining De Forest Search, Gary led a distinguished progressive nine-year career at Microsoft in digital media, serving in senior roles across Strategic Sales, Executive Sales Leadership and Business Development while influencing an estimated $500M in revenue. This career at Microsoft began with the Online Yellow Pages on Prodigy and holds the distinction of closing and launching some of the very first Internet ads. Gary was recruited from the Yellow Pages by Microsoft’s local Sidewalk.com, which evolved into the very first version of MSN.com. Gary was one of the top performing sales executives and sales leaders in MSN history. In addition, Gary has recruited and mentored many of the talent who are top achievers across the ad tech, martech and digital landscape today.

For the past several years, Gary has reinvented himself as an Executive Recruiter focusing on digital and technology. He has been referred to by a previous colleague as “still the title holder when it comes to recruiting and building a great team.” Gary was able to take this amazing experience and start a digital strategy consulting business which evolved into assisting with identifying the appropriate talent to build out the digital teams for his clients. After a few years of success in his entrepreneurial business, Gary was inspired to focus on Executive Recruitment and made his way to De Forest Search. Without having the burden of operations, Gary hit the ground running and in his first year earned the coveted Pacesetter Award along with two of our more tenured recruiters, which afforded him and his family to an amazing vacation in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic with the top 25 out of 95 Search Firms in our Sanford Rose Associates Network.

Born in Jamaica and raised on the East Coast, Gary currently resides in Connecticut with his wife Jackie, daughters Haley and Hannah along with cats Mittens, Samuel and a diva dog named Jenna. Fun fact: Prior to launching a career in tech and recruiting, Gary was a morning DJ at a local radio station in Florida. When you speak to Gary, you will understand how he got that gig!