The headhunter everyone calls
before they make a hire.
We are a contingent search and headhunting practice built around five disciplines: Marketing, Marketing Technology, Product Marketing, Product Management and Design. Not generalist recruitment. Not a job board with a phone number. A focused practice that knows these functions deeply enough to tell you who is genuinely exceptional and who simply interviews well.
I'm from Chicago, and I do business the way people do it back home — straight with you, no runaround. I've spent years, in some cases decades, placing marketing, product and design leaders across AI, cybersecurity, cloud, data, enterprise software and digital experience. Every search I take on, I run myself — the calls, the digging, the tough conversations. Nothing gets handed off to a junior researcher. So when a company needs a CMO, a Head of Product, a Product Marketing lead, a MarTech operator or a Design leader, we usually don't start with a search. We start with a phone call, because odds are I already know who fits.
I put candidates and companies together because I know both sides well enough to know it's worth everybody's time. And I only get paid when the hire is real.
The relationship
is the product.
Most search firms talk about relationships. What they mean is a database. There's a difference. A big one.
A database is something you've accumulated. A relationship is something you've earned. One sits in an ATS. The other picks up the phone when you call, even when they're not looking.
The real bottleneck in hiring isn't sourcing. It's judgment.
Knowing which marketing leader can actually build a function rather than inherit one. Which MarTech operator can untangle a stack instead of adding to it. Which product marketer can hold the narrative and the roadmap. Which product manager ships. Which design leader raises the standard of everyone around them. That judgment doesn't come from a keyword search. It comes from knowing these people over years.
A note on the name: the .ventures domain reflects the world we recruit for, not what we do. We are not a VC firm. We do not write checks, take equity, or deploy capital. We find the people who build the companies.
We stay close to marketing, product and design talent long before there's a role on the table — and long after a placement is made. We give candidates honest counsel when there's nothing in it for us. Because the best hires are usually the byproduct of relationships that already exist. The shortlist is the visible part. The trust behind it is the real work.
"Not a recruiter. A headhunter with a specialty."
A specialist search practice.
There's a version of this industry built around volume. Post the role. Blast the market. Send twelve resumes. Hope one sticks. Protect the fee. Protect the pipeline.
We've never been interested in that model.
We recruit in five disciplines and only five: Marketing, Marketing Technology, Product Marketing, Product Management and Design. Depth beats breadth. Because you can't assess a Head of Product Marketing properly on Tuesday if you were pretending to understand supply chain engineering on Monday.
That focus is what makes the shortlist short. Three or four genuinely credible people, each of whom I know or have done real diligence on, each of whom I can tell you the honest strengths and the honest risks of. Not a long list designed to look like effort.
The access behind that isn't bought or automated or scraped from LinkedIn. It's built through years of taking candidates' calls when they weren't looking, telling clients the truth when it wasn't convenient, and never wasting anyone's time.
We only win when you win.
Our model is simple, and it's contingent. No retainers, no upfront fees, no invoices for effort. We take on a small number of searches at a time so each one gets the attention it deserves. No junior researchers, no handoffs, no bulk resume flow. I map the market myself, make the approaches myself, and manage the process end to end — offer, counter-offer and landing the person well.
We're only paid when the hire happens and the person starts. That alignment changes everything. It keeps us honest about fit, it keeps us accountable after the start date, and it puts our incentives exactly where they should be — in your corner.
Relationships are a
responsibility.
Empathy is where every search begins. Stewardship is what happens next. Every candidate we approach is trusting us with their career. Every client is trusting us with a hire that will shape their team for years. Every introduction puts our name alongside theirs.
That's not something we take lightly.
Most firms treat candidates as inventory. We treat them as people whose next move matters. That means telling a client when a role isn't ready to be filled. Telling a candidate when a move isn't right for them. Being genuinely selective about which searches we take, because our standing on both sides is on the line every time.
The market we can reach exists because people trust us with it. We've earned that one conversation, one placement, and one kept promise at a time. And we intend to keep earning it.
If the hire matters, let's talk.
I don't take every search — depth in marketing, marketing technology, product marketing, product management and design is the whole point. But if you're building one of those teams, or you're a leader in one of those disciplines quietly wondering what's next, pick up the phone. No pitch, no pipeline. Just a straight conversation about the role, the market, and who's actually out there.