Stephen Bradford Search Expands Executive Search Practice into Management Consulting by Partnering with Bay Area Firm

• Leading Senior Executive Talent Search Firm Aligns with Heggen Group, Leading Management Consultancy for Communications and Digital Companies
• Partnership Combines expertise in Executive Search with Management and Operations Services to deliver interim executive placement and short term solutions in a down economy.

NY, NY - Stephen-Bradford Search (www.stephenbradford.com), the leading retained executive search firm in the marketing communications space, announced today a partnership with Heggen Group, a leading management consulting firm that has worked with more than 30 leading agencies and brands including Digitas, Wunderman, WPP, Microsoft, American Express, and H-P.  Heggen group Founder and President, Jayne Heggen, becomes Managing Director of Stephen Bradford Search’s new office in San Francisco.  The companies disclosed no financial terms.  

Stephen-Bradford Search has seen its business grow in the down economy by specializing in identifying and placing executives who can lead teams in a diverse and fragmented media marketplace.  Many of these executives have been tasked with building out their digital teams while integrating them with their counterparts in traditional media.  In the down economy, many of the companies hiring these executives wish to retain them only on an interim basis, as they build the teams, complete their training and organization, and move on.  To that end, as part of this partnership with Heggen Group, Stephen Bradford Search will deliver interim executive search services to clients as well as continue to work with companies in building their teams with quality talent  in marketing, account management, sales, human resources and operations.

“Jayne has built Heggen Group’s sterling reputation by advising agencies and brands how best to integrate their different teams and align them under shared objectives as the fragmentation of media has accelerated,” said Erika Weinstein, President of Stephen-Bradford Search.  “As executives we’d placed increasingly told us about her company and the quality of its service, we have joined in order to provide a more complete solution for our marketing agencies and brand marketing clients.”

Fixing “The Broken Agency”

The alignment of these disciplines has become a well-chronicled challenge for agencies, publishers and brands around the world, and has been chronicled in great detail by national press and analyst groups such as Forrester and others.  Forrester, which published “The Connected Agency” in March, 2008, described strategic and tactical dysfunction at the core of many major agencies, as they have struggled to keep up with both fragmenting media and the expectations of consumers and customers alike.  This report described the execution of this necessary alignment as far more science than art.  Since 2005, Heggen Group has executed on just that science for some of the best known agencies and brands around the world.

“At times, success in our engagements comes down to designing better workflows and collaboration processes after conducting a comprehensive 360 process, and sometimes it’s a whole lot more than that,” said Heggen.  “We’ve all read countless stories about the challenge faced by brands, agencies and media in this fast-fragmenting world, but somehow, some companies are succeeding and succeeding wildly.  That’s almost always about changing processes and personnel, not one or the other, which is why this partnership will work.”

Jayne has an amazing gift for focusing client-service organizations on ways of working that engender success - helping them think strategically about client and inter-agency relationships, effective processes and building high-performance teams. She has deep expertise in every area of agency operations and lends an experienced perspective to the unique marketing challenges that brands face in the digital age. She brings an unparalleled rigor to her practice, with an ability to wrangle data into insights and synthesize complex processes, without ever losing focus on the crucial qualitative and human factors that produce enduring and profitable client relationships based on performance, trust, and mutual respect.” February 16, 2009
Jason Bucky, VP, Executive Creative Director, Real Branding
worked with Jayne at HeggenGroup LLC

 ”Erika is one of the best executive recruiters I’ve worked with. She’s well-connected, knows the industries she services and is respected for her professionalism. Through her managerial efforts and hard work she has established her firm in the top tier of executive recruiters. She demonstrates a great personal warmth and a sincere interest in those she recruits that is seriously lacking in most of today’s recruiters. Erika is ultimate match-maker!” October 18, 2009 Ken Evans , President , E-Sales & Marketing
was with another company when working with Erika at Stephen-Bradford Search

Media Contact:

Mark Naples
WIT Strategy
(646) 265-7372
mnaples@witstrategy.com