Executive Search Expertise

It pays to look for “unicorns,” especially if you want to build a unicorn

The leadership pages of large technology companies are a homogeneous display of white male faces and telegraphs the obvious – corpo­rate America still has a diversity issue.

What’s true for large companies is am­plified for venture-backed startups.

The common refrain is that there simply aren’t enough qualified candidates. In September, Wells Fargo Chief Executive Charles Scharf made headlines while attributing the bank’s lack of diversity to a dearth of “qualified minority talent.” Finding great talent, is, of course, challenging, but we shouldn’t turn a speedbump into a roadblock. It’s our job to remind our clients that if the goal is to build an extraordinary company, then it’s necessary to employ exceptional recruiting efforts. It might be extra work, but there is a benefit in find the so called “unicorns.”

Download the latest piece from Mercedes Chatfield-Taylor and Gina Barge, for insights into why one of the most influential industries, concentrated in one of the most progressive states, can be both a loud and leading voice for social change and a bastion of “the old boy network” at the same time.