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Management Team
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Larry S. Imely
Larry Imely is a Founder and Managing Partner of both paul-lawrence
associates and highbridge associates,
and operates out of the organization's corporate headquarters
in Hudson (Cleveland), Ohio. With over 14 years of executive
search experience, Larry practices across a broad range of
industries and functional areas, including manufacturing, retail
and consumer goods, financial services, health and life sciences,
and engineering and consulting.
Larry started his search career in 1993 as a vice president at
Christian & Timbers, among the seven largest retained executive
search firms in the country. He initiated C&T's Engineering
and Consulting Practice, and in 1996, was recognized by Engineering
News Record as one of the leading search consultants in the
field. While also involved in the firm's large technology-based
practice, Larry helped build C&T's Financial Services and Manufacturing
Practice, and was named a partner in 1994.
In 1996, Larry joined the staffing and recruiting firm of AIM
Executive as president of The StratfordGroup, an executive search
firm he founded with Paul Stefunek. Shortly after joining, the
combined entities were acquired by Interim Services (now Spherion
Corporation), and Larry went on to build StratfordGroup into a
top 15 U.S.-based executive search firm, with 15 offices in the
U.S. and one in London, while maintaining his own executive search
practice. It was during his tenure at StratfordGroup that he began
running HR focus groups and experimenting with "unbundling
executive search" into other human capital support services
for the various clientele. It was a model that would lead to what
is now highbridge associates.
In 2001, he and his two partners formed what is today paul-lawrence
associates and highbridge associates,
a combined human capital services firm that services a wide
variety of clients across more than 12 industry segments with
performance-based executive search and unbundled human capital
services such as research, competitive analysis, outsourced
recruiting, recruiter training and testing and assessment.
In his career before search, Mr. Imely led sales organizations
and managed P&L centers in four businesses. He holds a BS in
Education from Bowling Green State University and a Masters of
Administration from the University of Toledo. He has published
several articles in the human capital arena, and he speaks frequently
on the evolving world of search/research. He also sits on the Ohio
Board of Myasthenia Gravis.
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Frank G. Skedel
Mr. Skedel is a Founder and Managing Partner of paul-lawrence associates and
highbridge associates, LLC. Prior to co-founding paul~lawrence
associates, Mr. Skedel, a distinguished businessman, was Senior Vice
President and Treasurer of ALLTEL Corporation and, at that time, the
youngest Corporate Treasurer of a Fortune 1000 company. Mr. Skedel
later became Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of
LDI Corporation as well as President and CEO of LDI's largest
operating company. Frank subsequently formed and launched Target
Marketing Solutions, Inc., a one-to-one direct marketing Company. As
President, CEO and board member he grew the start-up company in a
three- year period to over $30 million. He began his career with The
B.F. Goodrich Company in Akron, Ohio where he performed strategic
and performance analyses of all Goodrich business units.
Frank's executive search experience was gained with the
StratfordGroup, one of the country's top 20 retained executive
search firms headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, as Executive Vice
President and Senior Consultant.
Mr. Skedel has extensive management experience in mergers and
acquisitions, business start-ups and compressions and management of
high-growth companies, and has developed and executed business
models and strategic plans for a variety of enterprises. His direct
executive-level experience includes general management, operations,
sales and marketing, finance, and new product development spanning
five different industries including small to Fortune 1000-sized
companies. On the financial side of the house, Frank has raised more
than $1.6 billion of debt and equity capital to finance over 50
acquisitions, domestic and international business expansions and
capital asset acquisition.
Mr. Skedel received his bachelor of science degree in business
administration from Ohio University and completed his master degree
studies at the University of Akron.
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Paul C. Stefunek
Paul C. Stefunek is a Founder and Managing Partner of paul-lawrence
associates and highbridge associates.
Previously he was the co-founder and Vice President at
StratfordGroup where Paul led the
Technology Practice and executed senior-level searches in
the computer hardware, computer software, networking,
telecommunications, and interactive media industries with an
expertise in the e-Business/Internet industry.
He has conducted searches in the e-Business/Internet industry
since 1994 for most disciplines and titles ranging from President
& CEO, Vice President, Director, Sales & Marketing, Finance,
Engineering, Research & Development, Technology, Advertising
Sales, Programming, Content, Editorial, etc.
Paul has over 16 years of experience in recruiting industry leaders
with a focused and in-depth
knowledge of the e-business/digital industry. A sampling of his clients include
America Online, AT&T, CBS SportsLine, LookSmart,
Reuters, Ticketmaster Online, Sony, and several others.
Prior to joining StratfordGroup, he was a consultant with
Christian & Timbers where he served as director of the company's
Interactive Media Division. Before joining the executive search
profession, Paul had a progressive career in district sales, sales
management, training and national management with Pitney Bowes and
Automatic Data Processing. He specialized
in the sale and training of computer management systems.
Paul graduated from Pace University with a Bachelor's of Business
Administration degree in Marketing, with a concentration in
management. He also sits on the board of several technology based
start-up organizations.
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Henry C. Deaver
Hank Deaver is Managing Director for paul-lawrence
associates in the Chicago office, and participates as a Practice
lead in the Financial Services and Real Estate practices of the
firm. Prior to joining highbridge, Mr. Deaver was a Partner at Ray
& Berndtson in Chicago, again associated with the financial
services and real estate practices, and focused on functional roles
such as CEO, CFO, treasurer, controller and a variety of roles in
the commercial and financial services industries, commercial real
estate and their various lines of business. During his term at Ray
& Berndtson, Mr. Deaver was a widely sought-after speaker, and
addressed the Financial Executives Institute and CFO Magazine.
Prior to his entering the executive search business, Mr. Deaver
spent 15 years with Continental Bank (now Bank of America) in
Chicago, initially serving both middle market and large corporate
clients. His term included nine (9) years in the real estate
department as a senior director working with commercial and
residential clients, and with a wide variety of investors in a
structuring and distribution capacity. Mr. Deaver was responsible
for establishing the department's hotel underwriting guidelines and
led efforts in the bank's first single asset securitization. Mr.
Deaver started his professional banking and finance career with the
First National Bank of Atlanta, where he worked as a commercial
officer and in the secured lending division.
Mr. Deaver earned his B.A. in Management Science from Duke
University, and his M.B.A. from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of
Management at Northwestern University. He serves on several industry
and non-profit boards.
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Eric E. Christ
Eric, a Senior Vice President with paul-lawrence associates, has broad and
multifunctional executive search experience supporting the
energy & utilities, defense & aerospace, consumer goods &
retail, financial services, manufacturing, healthcare,
academia, non-profit and transportation industries.
Currently, Eric leads the Energy & Utilities Practice for the
firm, which includes support for the oil & gas, alternative
and renewable energy industry sectors. Eric’s executive search experience includes placement
from the C-level executive to the most specialized technical
level, to meet the industry’s broad requirements. Over the past few years, heavy emphasis in energy has
been focused on alternative energy, fuel cell development,
environmental, health & safety, asset management and energy
consulting
In addition to Eric's business development and executive search
efforts, he has managed a number of outsourced recruitment project management engagements, including a long-term
engagement for one of the United States largest
investor-owned utility companies and a second with a
national top ten U.S. banking institution.
Prior to joining
paul-lawrence associates,
Eric served as a Senior Associate for StratfordGroup, the 13th largest
U.S. executive search firm. During his tenure with
StratfordGroup, Eric was responsible for execution on
recruiting and research activity involving name generation,
name qualification, competitive intelligence and industry
studies. Eric also
directed and developed primary recruiting and research
strategies for StratfordGroup's large project management
assignments including developing the blueprint for the
talent acquisition integration for one of the United States
largest retail mergers.
Eric holds a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration and
Psychology from Ashland University.
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Suzanne Conroy
Suzanne Conroy is a Director and Senior Search Consultant
with paul-lawrence associates, providing IT recruiting
and human capital consulting to our client organizations.
Prior to joining paul-lawrence associates, Ms. Conroy
was the Senior Recruiting Specialist for Eaton Corporation, a $12B
global manufacturing company, where she was responsible for recruiting
business leaders into their divisional and corporate headquarters.
At Eaton, she led the direct sourcing efforts for the North American
recruiting team, completing such searches as Director of Marketing
for a $500M high-tech UPS computer start-up division.
Suzanne has more than twelve years experience in executive search,
human capital consulting and recruiting. Before joining Eaton,
she served as a Partner with a boutique retained search firm specializing
in recruiting to the technology and internet services industries.
Notable clients include Printcafe, iName and Mondera.com and McGraw
Hill. For McGraw Hill Education, Ms. Conroy implemented their Global
Technology Transformation program by recruiting senior-level Oracle
practitioners, Director, Systems Environment Management and other
IT Directors to the company.
As a Human Capital Consultant and Experienced Hire Recruiting
Manager for Deloitte Consulting, Suzanne helped build their DC.com
practice by recruiting cutting edge technology consultants skilled
in web development and CRM. She recruited Deloitte Consulting's
Global eBusiness Director and regularly hired senior consultants
with expertise in WebMethods, Network Architecture, Websphere,
Java, C++, web development, CRM, data warehousing, ePiphany, Siebel,
and Vignette. Additionally, Ms. Conroy hired practitioners into
Deloitte's ERP practice including Oracle, Peoplesoft and
SAP consultants. At Deloitte, Suzanne not only led the recruiting
activity for seven consulting offices within the central region,
she also provided human capital and recruitment consulting services
to clients such as Caterpillar, Inc.
Ms. Conroy began her executive
search career with Christian & Timbers,
a leading technology based retained search firm. As a Search Director,
Ms. Conroy recruited senior-level executives across a wide array
of industries, multi-national corporations and start-up businesses.
Searches Ms. Conroy personally conducted include, CEO, Imagination
Network; CEO, AdOne.com; Vice President of Marketing, PC Docs;
Vice President of Technology, About.com; Vice President of Marketing,
AutoTrader.com; Vice President of Sales, Talkcity.com; Chief Technology
Officer, Checkfree Corporation; and Senior Vice President of Technology,
Disney.
Suzanne graduated from John Carroll University with a Bachelor
of Arts degree.
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Allen Esrock
Allen Esrock is Vice President and Managing Director of paul-lawrence associates in our Los Angeles office. He participates as Practice Lead in the Digital Media and is a key member of the Renewable Energy service practice of the firm. Prior to joining paul-lawrence, Mr. Esrock spent seven years as a consultant and entrepreneur at the forefront of the digital media revolution.
During this period, Mr. Esrock founded Jitter Fingers, a safe social networking site for tween girls and their best friends. Common Sense Media, among others, praised the website as a "'safe online social-networking environment for girls' - and follows through on the promise." Additionally, he helped establish Pericles Consulting, the first online political advertising agency.
Prior to his consulting career, Mr. Esrock spent seven years as the principal in charge of executive recruiting practice for the Larkin Group, a diverse professional services organizations serving the new media community. Larkin Group companies included Larkin Associates; LAWNMOWER, a networking company; and Origami New Media & Entertainment, a strategy and consulting company. Allen is a widely quoted new media expert and appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Los Angeles Business Journal and the Downtown News. Additionally, he was featured in a Harvard Business School study regarding the use of stock options vs. cash compensation for digital sales people.
Prior to executive recruiting, Mr. Esrock was a television comedy writer. He graduated from Indiana University with a B.A. in English Literature
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James J. Kacala
Jim Kacala, Research Director for paul-lawrence associates,
serves as the firm's primary point of contact for Research support
and information. He has conducted Research for senior-level searches
and managed projects within a variety of industries including
high-technology, financial services, manufacturing, healthcare,
computer hardware, software, networking and telecommunications,
non-profit, academia and more.
Prior to joining paul-lawrence associates, Jim
served as Associate Research Director for StratfordGroup, at that
time, the 13th largest executive search firm in the United States,
and Research Scientist and Research Manager with Christian &
Timbers. Jim's fifteen years of experience in Research, including
eight years at the managerial level, provides paul-lawrence associates
with focused, in-depth knowledge of a wide range of industries and
disciplines. Before entering the executive search world, Jim worked
at Penton Publishing's design engineering magazine, Machine
Design, as a Staff Editor.
Jim holds a Bachelor of Applied
Science degree in Systems Analysis with a concentration in
Management from Miami University of Ohio.
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Wendy A. LaLonde
Ms. LaLonde is Director-Administration & Operations of
paul-lawrence holdings, LLC. She is an accomplished professional
with 15 years management, marketing, business development, sales and
operations. Wendy was Manager of Corporate Administration with the
Stratford Group, a major national executive search firm with
responsibility for corporate policy administration and corporate
reporting. She also interacted with a wide variety of business
clients and prospects in a business development capacity. Ms.
LaLonde was previously Manager of Corporate Projects for a rapidly
growing direct marketing firm where she managed a wide array of
initiatives including strategic plan execution, acquisition
execution, and debt & equity funding processes. As corporate
secretary, she administered the stock plans and corporate record
keeping functions.
Wendy was also the Merchandise Marketing Manager for the Cleveland
Indians Baseball Club where she was responsible for managing all
operations and the expansion planning and execution for 33 team
stores. She expanded the operation from 3 stores to 33 stores,
increasing sales over five-fold during a three-year period. Her
interaction with Major League Baseball and the Indian's executive
management were key strengths in her executing this extremely rapid
and successful expansion program.
Wendy got her initial sales and marketing training with the May
Company department store group where she progressed rapidly during
her nine-year tenure to Senior Buyer for a 16-store region. ,
responsible for planning, advertising, marketing merchandising and
profitability. With an $8 million budget responsibility, Wendy
markedly improved sales and profits by over 30% annually over a
five-year period, earning numerous recognition awards.
Ms. LaLonde earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business
administration from Youngstown State University where she graduated
Magna Cum Laude.
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Mark Little
Mark Little is a Senior Vice President with paul-lawrence associates.
He brings over 20 years of human resources/talent acquisition experience
to the firm. Mark has earned the reputation as a dynamic recruiting
professional focused on delivering strategic, timely recruiting
solutions to the client.
Prior to joining paul-lawrence associates,
Mark spent two years as director of client services with a Cleveland
based career transition firm. During his tenure there, he provided
strategic leadership as well as new business development. He incorporated
many of the latest recruiting techniques into the career transition
process, including assuming the lead role in the design and development
of a leading edge, web-based career transition product. Previously,
he was manager of executive search and technical recruiting for
National City Corporation. Mark has a passionate commitment to
both clients and candidates. His numerous accomplishments at National
City include the management of many large and critical hiring projects,
designing National City's most successful employee referral program
and training both staff and management on the latest behavioral
interviewing techniques while developing the internal executive
search function. Mark successfully recruited a number of key individuals
for various disciplines, including the chief economist, manager
of asset/liability and securitization, managing director of the
asset management group, manager of process improvement, manager
of M&A, director of retail
brokerage and many others. His experience prior to National City
includes TransOhio Savings Bank, American Courts Inc. and Kmart
Corporation.
Mark earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University
of Akron. He is an active member in the Society for Human Resource
Management (national and local), the Employment Management Association,
and the Northern Ohio Human Resource Planning Society, the last
two where he serves on several committees.
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John Martiniere
John Martiniere is a Director for paul-lawrence associates in
the Atlanta, Georgia office and is the Practice Lead for the Consulting
and Engineering Practice of the firm.
Prior to entering the executive search business, Mr. Martiniere
was active in the environmental remediation construction and consulting
engineering industry for over 33 years; a Licensed Professional
Engineer. He has extensive experience both as an environmental
engineering professional and as an entrepreneur and executive.
John served as a consulting engineer with some of the world's
largest and most distinguished engineering/consulting firms. For
over 10 years, he managed and performed technical work on engineering
projects and served as profit center manager. In addition, he founded,
built, managed and sold two successful environmental remediation
companies, including recruiting the senior management and key technical
personnel for those two companies and molding them into an effective
team. He also founded and/or managed several other enterprises
in the technology development and human resources arenas.
John created an entity in 1982 known as HAZTECH, which, under
his direction as founder and President, grew in five years to be
one of the nation's three largest privately-held full-service environmental
remediation firms. After researching over one hundred companies,
Westinghouse identified HAZTECH as its number one acquisition candidate
for entry into the environmental remediation market, and purchased
both HAZTECH and its geotechnical engineering parent, Soil & Material
Engineers, at a significant multiple of earnings. As President
of a venture capital funded biotech startup company, Mr. Martiniere
guided the company in commercializing several innovative environmental
remediation technologies and initiating revenue generating activities.
During that time, he negotiated over twenty-five national/international
contracts and strategic alliances, including procuring additional
venture partners.
John received a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering
from Vanderbilt University, where he graduated Magna Com Laude
and was a member of Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu. He also received
a Master of Science in Environmental Engineering from the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. John attended Officer Candidate
School and served as an officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve, and
worked for a period at Proctor & Gamble after his service to
the Navy.
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Edward E. Richardson
Edward E. (Ned) Richardson is Director of paul-lawrence
associates' Sarasota,
Florida office.
An innovative and decisive financial services executive, Ned
has extensive experience in both the private and public sectors.
He established, de novo, several highly-effective sales and marketing
organizations, created and managed numerous award-winning advertising
campaigns, developed and directed strategic plans, and designed
numerous innovative products while maintaining a strong focus on
customer partnerships and bottom line results.
Prior to joining paul-lawrence associates in 2005,
Mr. Richardson was associated with The Federal Reserve Bank where
he was Vice President and Senior Sales and Marketing officer for
both the Cleveland and St. Louis Districts. In this role, he created
and led a market-driven business strategy, integrating this strategy
into the districts' culture. Through this leadership, revenues
grew to over $110 million and the banks became known throughout
the marketplace as payment system leaders. In addition, Ned worked
with industry and Federal Reserve System executives throughout
the country and represented the System on numerous policy issues.
Ned's private sector experience includes 16 years with the Dun & Bradstreet
Companies and several years with Cleveland area financial institutions.
At Dun & Bradstreet, Ned worked with business leaders on opportunities
for market development, territory deployment and improved asset/liability
management. His success earned him increased responsibilities as
National Accounts Manager, Division Manager and Regional Sales
Manager.
Recruited by a Cleveland area financial institution, Ned launched
a unique sales group which brought to the national market the first
retail funds consolidation system using electronic drafts, forming
the basis for many early cash management systems that are widely
used today. Ned also had responsibility as the Senior Marketing
and Sales Officer for a major savings institution where he successfully
managed M&A activity, advertising, new product development,
public relations, and direct sales for asset, liability and fee
products.
A native of Kansas City, Ned received his Bachelor of Arts degree
from the University of Missouri and did post-graduate studies at
The University of Missouri School of Law and Princeton University.
He has served several non-profit organizations as Chairman, President
and Board Member.
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