“From the time Craig and I were small boys, we always talked about owning our own business,” Paul says. “Of course back then we thought it would be a sporting goods store given that we are sports nuts, but the executive search thing has turned out great.”
Paul co-founded The Millard Group in 1996 and leads the firm’s Executive Search group and SaaS Software practices. “We are a boutique executive search firm focused exclusively on technology,” says Paul, who launched the enterprise software practice at New York-based Brandon Becker Associates before founding The Millard Group. “We’ve been part of the tech industry for over 20 years and we’ve been part of its evolution, so we understand what it takes to be a success in the tech world.”
Aside from The Millard Group’s extensive expertise in the technology sector, the firm’s secret to success is simple. “Everything comes down to listening to what our clients want, then listening to what our candidates want, and making a good match between the two,” Paul says.
That focus on good matches applies inside the company as well, and Paul says The Millard Group’s people, who have an average tenure of over 11 years, are what set it apart from the competition. “Recruiting is a performance business, and we hire people who thrive on the pressure to deliver. If The Millard Group was a basketball team, every single person here would want to be the one shooting the ball with a second left on the clock.”
But there’s still a lot of game to be played. “I don’t believe in resting on our laurels,” he says. “In executive search you build relationships with companies and candidates. If you’re not careful, those relationships will get stale. We’re always out there looking for the next great company, and we’re always building our database with great new relationships.”
Paul looks forward to continuing to grow those relationships, and the company, but not at the expense of quality. “We want to continue to round out the full stack of recruiting solutions we offer while at the same time maintaining the quality that is consistent with The Millard Group brand,” he says. “The last 20 years have gone by in a blink and I am even more excited about the next 20.”