Ridgeway Partners Expands Leadership Team

April 4, 2019 – Boston-headquartered executive search firm Ridgeway Partners has expanded with the addition of Julie Zadow to its leadership team. She joins the firm with over 20 years of leadership experience in marketing, talent strategy, culture mapping and organizational design. Ms. Zadow will be based in Boston.

“Julie brings a true customer-first lens to the growth of Ridgeway Partners,” said Andy Hunter, managing partner for Ridgeway. “She is a marketing leadership expert with a deep passion for talent acquisition and what it takes to build a great workplace culture. Her expertise and broad network of marketing, sales and customer success leaders will be immensely valuable to our growth.”

Prior to joining Ridgeway Partners, Ms. Zadow founded PinchHitCMO, a fractional CMO strategy and services agency. She is on the advisory board of DemandSpring and has served as chief marketing officer and marketing leader for companies including iCoachFirst, Globoforce and Harte Hanks.

“Julie has built marketing organizations from the ground up, launched new brands within established companies and partnered with C-suite counterparts to drive measurable customer engagement,” said Kevin McKeon, a partner at Ridgeway. “She is an accomplished thought leader and communicator on workforce issues, and she will be instrumental in partnering with our clients to find the best marketing and sales leaders to help their businesses grow.”

“Having been the customer of executive search in the past, both as a candidate and as a client, I was often disillusioned by the experience; I felt like the product of someone else’s gain,” said Ms. Zadow. “In Ridgeway Partners, I found an executive search firm truly focused on delivering an exceptional customer experience for both candidates and clients alike, which is why I am thrilled to join them.”

Growing Search Firm

Ridgeway Partners is a global advisory firm specializing in executive search, board appointments and succession planning for a select group of multi-sector, domestic and international companies. The firm has offices in New York, Boston, London, Glasgow and Hong Kong. Its clients range from privately-held companies to Fortune 100 organizations. Ridgeway focuses on banking, asset and wealth management, private equity, retail and digital recruiting.

Philip Marsden, who founded the firm in 2004, has been a professional advisor and business leader throughout his 35-year career. Before entering the executive search industry, he worked for 20 years in the financial services, oil and search industries, first at Citibank NA, then as head of M&A at NatWest Markets. Mr. Marsden currently serves as Ridgeway’s chairman.

Ridgeway Partners has seen a wave of growth in recent month. The firm recently named Deborah Markus as a managing director in its New York office. Specializing in asset management, she has a strong track record of recruiting for senior leadership positions, distribution teams and building new business lines. Ms. Markus has worked for more than 20 years in financial services with over a decade of experience in executive recruiting.

Ridgeway Partners also named Krystyna Nowak as a partner. She joined Louise Angel in the board practice, focusing on chairmen and non-executive director appointments across all sectors. Previously, Ms. Nowak was managing director for the board practice with Norman Broadbent. She has also worked as a director for specialist board-level search boutique Hanson Green.

Ridgeway Partners also added Katie Thomas as a partner. In her role, Ms. Thomas leads the firm’s growing omni-channel and retail practice. She has a particular focus on transferring leaders, from within the retail and broader consumer sectors as well as from other industries, particularly where digital know-how and transformation are more evolved, the firm said.

Ms. Thomas has spent 25 years in executive search working at the international level for a broad spectrum of publicly quoted, private-equity backed and privately-owned businesses at the board and C-suite level. She joined the firm from Russell Reynolds Associates, where she co-led the global retail and luxury goods practice. Her experience covers all categories in retail, fashion, apparel and luxury across multi-channel and pure-play businesses.

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor; and Andrew W. Mitchell, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media