The Firm
The partners who run every search.
No junior bench, no handoffs, and a deliberately limited number of retained mandates at any one time.
Ricky West
Ricky leads the firm's search strategy and its finance and accounting practice. He is a founder first. He built and runs a financial operations firm that keeps the books for more than twenty companies, from churches and nonprofits to manufacturers, contractors and multi-location operators. Those financials cross his desk every month, which is why a CFO search he runs starts with the balance sheet rather than the job description.
Tim Vida Jr.
Tim leads client partnerships and placement delivery. He has spent his career in retained executive search across manufacturing, mining and industrial markets, running eight to twelve searches a year personally and putting a working shortlist in front of a client inside three weeks. His network is built on operators he has known for years, which is why the strongest people he presents are almost never on the market.
Neither of us learned this from the outside.
Most search consultants have never carried a P&L, never made an executive hire with their own money, and never had to live with one that failed. Both partners here have. It is the reason we will tell you a candidate is impressive and still wrong.
Ricky WestManaging Partner · Finance & AccountingCompanies under his financial oversight
He founded and runs the financial operations firm that keeps their books. Their statements cross his desk every month, across churches, nonprofits, manufacturing, construction, hospitality groups and professional services.
Not an agency career
He has hired executives with his own capital at risk, paid them, and lived with the ones that did not work. A CFO search he runs begins with your numbers, because reading them is his day job.
He has already had the conversation your next CFO will walk into.
Tim Vida Jr.Managing Partner · Industrial & TechnologyRetained searches a year, run personally
A deliberate load. There is no volume model underneath him and no junior bench to hand a mandate down to, which is what makes partner attention on your search a structural fact rather than a promise.
Days to a working shortlist
Speed that comes from relationships already built across manufacturing, mining and industrial markets. He is calling operators he knows, not running a database query and forwarding what it returns.
The best people in his markets are working, not looking. He knows them anyway.
What you can hold us to.
No off-limits list
We are not conflicted out of any company. If the strongest candidate for your seat works somewhere we have served, we can still call them.
A capped load
Two partners and a deliberately small number of live mandates. Ask how many we are running right now and you will get the number.
The market answer in week one
If the profile or the compensation is wrong, you hear it while changing course is still cheap, not in month three.
Twelve months, in writing
Not ninety days. Executive hires reveal themselves between month six and month twelve, which is where a guarantee has to reach.
Each of these is a constraint rather than a capability. A capability costs nothing to claim. A constraint is expensive to honour, which is the only reason it is worth printing.
What we hold ourselves to.
Most search firms describe their values. We publish our commitments, because a standard you will not put in writing is a preference, not a standard.
One partner, first call to close
Your search is never handed down to a junior team. The partner who takes your mandate runs the research, the outreach and the references.
A first shortlist in 21 days
Calibrated, qualified and interested. If the market says the profile is wrong, you hear that in week one, not month three.
Weekly reporting, in writing
Every week you receive what we did, who we spoke with and what the market is telling us. You will never wonder where your search stands.
Original research on every mandate
We map your market from scratch. Recycled databases produce recycled candidates, and you are not paying for a mailing list.
Every candidate hears back
How a firm treats the people it does not place is the truest measure of how it will treat you. Every candidate receives an answer.
A guarantee we sign
If a retained placement leaves within twelve months, we run the search again. It is in the engagement letter, not the sales conversation.