True Launches Boutique Search Practice for Venture-Backed Companies
September 24, 2026 – Global executive talent platform True has launched True Venture Studios, a boutique executive search practice serving founders and venture-backed companies across AI infrastructure, HardTech, SpaceTech, DefenseTech, Fintech, healthcare, and life sciences, among others. “True Venture Studios is our way of reasserting our roots, giving founders a dedicated team that moves at their speed and fights for the best talent in the market,” said Rhoda Longhenry, managing director and head of the venture capital practice. “Every business has unique hiring challenges. The True Venture Studios team understands those nuances for VC-backed companies.”
Founders are facing compressed company-building timelines in the AI era, and scaling from inception to late-stage rounds in a fraction of the time they once did, True explained. That pace requires hiring across functions faster and with greater precision than conventional searches allow.
True Venture Studios was designed for this, identifying the right executive in an average of 21 days. True Venture Studios brings together True’s strongest venture talent for every engagement, drawing on experienced talent partners who have built leadership teams for some of the market’s most successful VC-backed companies. Practitioners are embedded across the United States, Europe, and other key global markets.
“True Venture Studios brings the exact expertise required to deliver this caliber of talent by combining a high-touch, consultative approach with True’s extensive global talent network,” said Dan Miller, managing director and head of the artificial intelligence and venture capital practices. “We know that in venture, speed is everything,”
“Venture is where True began,” said Josh Withers, co-founder of True. “We have always moved at founder speed, long before AI made that expectation universal. We have worked alongside founding teams from mobile to cloud to SaaS, staying with them from their first institutional rounds through their IPOs. The world has transformed around us. Our commitment to venture has not.”
Related: True Acquires Jopwell
Working in both the private and public sectors, True has offices throughout the U.S. as well as the EMEA and APAC regions. Since the late 1990s, the firm’s founders have refined their search process with a blend of data-centric insights, relationship-building, and experience to produce a methodology that consistently improves hiring decisions and accelerates growth. The firm’s clients include Jet, Work Front, and Summit Partners.
True Search is a subsidiary of True Platform, a global portfolio of human capital services and products for high-growth tech and tech-enabled organizations. True recently placed No. 6 on the Hunt Scanlon Media “Top 50 Recruiters” ranking.
New Forensic Referencing Offering
True launched True Forensic Referencing, a new executive intelligence capability designed to help investors, boards, and executive teams make more informed leadership decisions before high-stakes investments, new business relationships, and governance milestones. The firm named Christopher Jaros as partner to build and lead the offering. This expands True’s executive intelligence platform, complementing the firm’s executive search, assessment, and leadership advisory services with deeper investigative insight when leadership decisions carry the greatest strategic and financial impact.
“Post-close leadership surprises are one of the most consistent and most preventable sources of value erosion in private equity and high-stakes corporate decisions,” said Sam McGrath, global GM, True Search. “Investors apply extraordinary rigor to the business, but often crave for more due diligence on the people running them. That gap has consequences, and they tend to show up at the worst possible moment. True Forensic Referencing exists to close that gap.”
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True Forensic Referencing gives investors and boards a more complete picture of executive leaders through structured, confidential conversations with high-signal sources across an executive’s full career. The offering surfaces consistent behavioral patterns, for example, how executives build teams, navigate pressure, make decisions, and are experienced by the people around them over time. “What emerges is leadership intelligence that sharpens conviction ahead of a deal or key decision, and informs the talent and strategic planning that follows,” True explained.
True also recently launched the True AI Capability Index, a proprietary framework that predicts executive performance in the AI-transformation age. “We are entering a phase where relationship depth and judgment matter more than ever,” said Brad Stadler, co-founder and CEO of True Platform. “The cost of finding names is decreasing. True’s advantage lies in our ability to assess talent using these advanced frameworks. We’re modernizing executive hiring to ensure our clients have the leadership they need to outperform.”
“The talent market is currently split between proven leaders who are failing to adapt their playbooks and high-potential candidates who lack the experience to manage large organizations,” Mr. Stadler said. “True’s AI Capability Index gives clients a clearer view of which leaders will continue to create value as the rules evolve.”
Related: True Appoints Regional Lead for Middle East and North Africa
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
