Spearheading the firm’s Technology Practice, Tom is the industry’s leading enterprise and systems executive recruiter. In his two decades of executive search experience, Tom has completed nearly 500 searches for over 80 clients, and brings extensive market insights to every search. Tom is known for his close collaboration with client companies, and many of his placements have proven to be game-changing executives who accelerated their company’s growth in both market share and valuation.
Tom honed his ability to discover engineering executive talent at Oracle, where he contributed in the technical acquisition of world-renowned technical leaders for over eight years during Oracle’s massive growth from a $5B to a $20B software giant.
Tom brings his search leadership, best practices, industry expertise, and love for tough projects to fill critical executive engineering roles in early-stage technology companies. Often closely collaborating with venture capital firms in highly competitive markets, Tom’s broad reach and extensive contacts deliver when companies are in stages of transformation or have complex requirements.
In his spare time, Tom enjoys urban hiking, learning about California wines and terroir, and is an avid organic juicer and art collector.
Tom earned a B.A. in Economics from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Tom's Qualities
- Keen market understanding
- Consultative hiring approach
- Well connected with technical experts
- Spanning Silicon Valley and international areas
Placement Seniority
- SVP, EVP, VP 75%
- CXO 25%
Top Roles Serviced
- Engineering / Infrastructure / Operations 70%
- Product Management 30%
Reach and Approach
Tom is connected to thousands of global executives within the areas of Infrasturcture Systems Software (kernel, database, middleware), SaaS, device (hardware and software), and has focused intently on developing and extending his network in Silicon Valley as well as internationally.
Tom is known for his consultative style and his insights about competitor nuances, business models, and candidate markets. He is persistent and deeply focused on the client search experience, and is determined to find a meticulous candidate fit.
Sectors
GigaOm launched a critical search for a SVP of Marketing and Product Management which we expect to add to our company’s growth and success. Tom’s process, dedication and tenaciousness delivered excellent results and we hired an outstanding executive who had the target domain expertise and experience level we wanted.
I have deep respect for Tom’s abilities because he takes an authentic partnership approach when it comes to engaging and representing extraordinary talent. I recommend Tom highly and I am looking forward to a long association.
I chose Tom for a critical and hard-to-fill engineering search. He found an excellent candidate quickly. Moreover, Tom was a pleasure to work with and demonstrated a keen grasp of our market / technology, but also brought a deep network on relevant talent. We were delighted with the process and the result, and I recommend him strongly.
We hired Tom for a CTO search, based on multiple referrals we got about his work. I am very glad we did so—he did an excellent job with sourcing, screening, selling candidates on the company, calibrating our feedback, deeply understanding our culture, and ultimately finding someone we are thrilled to have! Tom is smart, honest, flexible—I would hire him again in a heartbeat for a VPE/CTO role.
We retained Tom on an executive search at WhitePages for a key position. He was a pleasure to work with and delivered a great outcome. I should also note that there was an instance in particular where Tom pursued a creative idea that was in our best interest as a client, but probably not in the best interest of his own business in the short run. That kind of client focus impressed me especially, and I look forward to working with him again in the future.
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