Adam Torres and Chris Berta discuss Laurel Group.
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Show Notes:
What’s the role of workplace culture in the Tech Industry to attract, hire, and retain employees? In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Chris Berta, Partner at Laurel Group. Explore what it takes to attract and retain top talent.
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About Chris Berta
As a partner at Laurel Group, Chris specializes in recruiting senior-level executives for companies within the software/SaaS, networking, online/e-commerce, and wireless industries. With over 19 years of experience in executive relations, client development, and candidate sourcing, Chris has worked with a diverse range of organizations, from venture-backed startups to large publicly traded corporations.
Their expertise lies in identifying top talent for leadership positions in general management, marketing, sales, and operations. Over the years, Chris has successfully placed CEOs, VPs, directors, and senior managers at some of the most prominent technology companies, including AWS, F5 Networks, DuckDuckGo, Expedia, Microsoft, PayPal, Disney, and Amazon. Additionally, Chris collaborates closely with investors from leading venture capital and private equity firms such as Madrona, Ignition Partners, Vista Equity, and JMI Equity.
By leveraging an extensive professional network, deep industry knowledge, and expertise in digital marketing, Chris consistently delivers high-quality results for both clients and candidates.
About Laurel Group
Building an executive team goes beyond simply finding the right individuals—it requires strategic talent management. It involves understanding the collective strengths of a team, identifying skill gaps, and selecting leaders who inspire excellence in those around them.
For the past 20 years, Laurel Group has been dedicated to sourcing, evaluating, and placing top-tier candidates for technology-focused companies. By uncovering each candidate’s unique strengths, motivations, and career aspirations, the firm has helped clients assemble world-class teams that drive their vision forward and achieve outstanding business outcomes.
Through deep engagement with clients and a comprehensive understanding of their roles and organizational needs, Laurel Group effectively connects them with high-performing executives who align with their goals.
Operating nationwide, the firm provides talent solutions across major business hubs, including Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Charlotte, Austin, Atlanta, San Diego, Los Angeles, Portland, and beyond.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres. And if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. So did I have Chris Berta on the line? He’s a partner over at Laurel Group.
Chris, welcome to the show. It’s nice to meet you, Adam. And thank you for having me and excited to be here. All right. We got, we got a lot to talk about today. A lot of business owners, a lot of entrepreneurs a lot of tech talent that watch this show and we’re going to get into hiring, retraining, retaining and attracting VP and C suite tech talent.
So we got a lot to talk about there, but to get us kicked off, Chris, we’ll start this episode the way that we start them all with what we like to call our mission matters minute. So Chris, at Mission Matters, our aim and our goal is to amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives, for experts. That’s our mission.
Chris, what mission matters to you? My mission, and I guess the Laurel Group’s mission is to drive technology companies, allow them to accelerate their growth. And we do that through not only finding the right functional roles that they need to have to augment their team, to find the right kind of capabilities to accelerate that growth.
But also the right kind of cultural fit. And this is where I think the secret sauce is when you have a team that gels, that clicks together. I like to use like sports analogies. And if you, if you know, crew and you know, a boat, and when all the oars are rolling at the same pace at the same force, it’s called the swing.
And when you get into that swing, it just moves and propels the boat that much faster. It almost feels effortless. It’s kind of like hitting a home run, you know, they say when you hit a home run, you don’t even feel the ball hitting the bat. And so when you have a team that can do that, it just accelerates the pace of that growth.
People want to be there. People are proud to be there. And now all of a sudden you’re going to run into obstacles as a company as it grows. And so you need to have a team that you can trust. You can know that you’re working, you know, not only with each other, but for each other. When that happens, you can overcome all those obstacles, and that’s what we look for is those complimentary skills, those, that cultural fit to go along with that functional fit, and that allows those technology companies to grow quickly.
Yeah. How did, how did you originally get involved in executive search or in this, in this team building? Like where, where’d that start for you? You know, it’s an interesting, I, I didn’t go to school to become an executive recruiter. And so did anybody, the interesting thing is that anybody actually do what they went to school for, for all the college kids out there watching this that are like 17, 18, 20, whatever.
See, nobody did. I didn’t go to school to be a podcaster. Continue. I just like to draw that out because for your kids, I think your kids are college age, right? Or what? Exactly. So it’s not something that we, I, I really kind of fell into it. I was at working at a company, you know one of the largest savings and loans banks called Washington mutual.
This is back, you know, getting close to 20 years. Yeah. And you know, I was just getting frustrated. I was had a lot of, I was running the online marketing. I was having a lot of plans, but just wasn’t getting the budget. I kind of felt my, my wife called it the Dilbert zone because I was having meetings upon meetings and Dilbert zone.
Well, and here’s an example. I had a meeting put on my calendar to talk about all the meetings we were having. And I went to the person that organized that and I said, what, what’s this? And they said, well, yeah, we need to talk about this. I go, well, don’t you see the irony here? And they didn’t see it. So I was like, okay, I need to do something different.
A couple of my friends were starting the Laurel Group and they had been at a company called Hydric Struggles. And Hydric Struggles is like the 800 pound gorilla in executive search, they’re a public company. And they said, Hey, we’re starting our own firm. We need someone who understands the intersection between marketing and technology.
And at that time, I thought of recruiting as kind of a used car salespeople. But they said, there’s a difference between, you know, just. Staffing and, and, and executive recruiting. And so I, we talked about it and eventually I came on board and you know, like I said, that’s been about 20 years ago. And the great thing was that was back in 2004.
And if you remember the economic cycle was, got some tailwinds heading into that. And so, you know, 2008, we were the fastest growing company in the Puget Sound Puget Sound Business Journal. So we had some great momentum, then all of a sudden the financial crisis hit and we’re probably the fastest shrinking company.
I was going to say that must have been beginning in 2008, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, we were probably the fastest shrinking company shortly thereafter because of that. But, you know, we’ve seen the different economic cycles. We’ve seen what’s worked, what hasn’t worked. We’ve built out other parts of our business where we’ve built out consulting practices.
For different disciplines that companies needed to have all starting from that conversation at the executive level saying hey We have these different needs. Can you help us? And so that’s really where we filled in those different gaps in addition to those leadership roles In other areas of their business that they needed to augment I’m a big fan of the industry personally.
I know that when I was so my previous career before this, I was in finance for almost 14 years. And prior to like, for, for that type of industry, like those type of the, the executive search, like. Pairing the right talent with the right firm. It just became really important in my career. And it also just the understanding of even just understanding what’s out there.
So I, I, I’ve always been a big fan of that ever since I kind of grew up through that whole finance, the whole finance track. So that was always interesting to me. What, what keeps you in the industry? Like what, what, what are some of your favorite parts of working within the business industry? I mean, this is going to sound silly, but I would say it’s the people.
And so every day I meet with people either in person or virtually understand what their goals are, understand what their needs are. And so in that case, you know, you’re kind of like a talent manager. And so you’re giving advice, you know, as people ping me and say, Hey, I’ve just got an offer from this company.
What’s your thoughts? You know, does this look like a good offer? And then of course you have the companies who, you know, actually pay the bills, call you and say, Hey, we need to have a certain, you know, a C level person our person’s leaving or, or we’re, we’ve just got some funding and now we need to add to the team.
And then, you know, it’s with all those conversations and those relationships that we’ve built over the years that you end up being able to put those two together. And, or if, you know, if they’re not interested, then they may know, and you’ve built that relationship that they’ll refer people in their network.
So it’s just an expansion of the network. I think the other piece is, like you mentioned, you get a broad overview of industries and technologies. And so before when I was in my operational role, I felt like I was really myopic and I didn’t really know what was going on around me and what was going around in the industries, you know, around me.
So now I have a much broader purview and a much broader view of all these different new technologies. And you know, now we’re talking about gen a I. And so now I can go deep on that, even if you know, I’m not implementing it myself. I’m not a technologist putting it into practice, but I’m seeing and hearing all these different reports and then able to test it in different scenarios as well.
And then talking with experts about that as well. So I feel like I’ve become much more educated On a lot of different areas of technology areas of how to do business and what has worked for some, you know, organizations and what hasn’t. And then you can take that wisdom and apply it to the next engagement, the next conversation you have.
Now, I know one, I know that you’re able to, you know, do search for, for, for many different industries and types of firms, of course. But I know one of your big, the big niches is. Tech talent, right? VP level or above C suite. Talk to me about, I know that’s a competitive competitive space for top talent.
Talk to me about what it takes. I mean, what are some of the core things to attract, you know, and hire that level of talent? Well, I think it’s expertise. And so, you know, from if I’m talking about from my standpoint, I have to demonstrate a level of knowledge and point of view and capabilities. So that they understand that when they’re talking and get nuanced in some of their capabilities and what they’ve accomplished, I can understand that.
And then I can ask the right question to follow on that and get it even a little deeper. And so it’s, I think from, you know, as a recruiter, I need to know that kind of again, going back to having a broad view of technology. I need to have an expertise in, or at least be able to speak to those intelligently enough to gain the confidence so that the, that person will want to talk to me further.
And it really engaged because I’ll know whether or not they’re a good fit or not. Okay. What about from the company’s point of view, right? From the companies, for the business owners out there, I would say in order to attract them, you know, for them to attract talent, it’s being a brand of choice. And so how do you establish that level of expertise in that respective field?
And it’s from different postings, different press releases that you have that show, Hey, we just had this new product release. We just have this point of view on this thought leadership piece. So, you know, a lot of consulting firms are, you know, developing a consistent cadence of white papers. around specific topics so that they can demonstrate their expertise there.
And then it’s also, when I said the employer of choice, it’s making sure that all the people that are in your organization, that they essentially are, and I’ve always felt this, that the whole company is our salespeople in some capacity, even if you’re in finance. When they’re in you go to when you interact with somebody, right?
Like you interact with somebody You’re everybody’s the face of the company, right? And so you need to have that employee, advocacy That is happening all throughout the the company. And so that, you know, if you have a product release, if you have some accomplishment that you’ve done, yeah, it’s the marketing person’s responsibility to get that launched and messaged out there, but it’s also, if they can empower the rest of the organization to share that on their LinkedIn, to share that on.
Different social posts that they may have, it’s going to show that that company has a lot of advocates and it’s going to increase that network awareness, you know, because all the people on the organization are pushing this message out there and it doesn’t have to be broad, you know, it could just be to their little network, but it makes an impact.
And people want to be a part of that kind of environment and then that’s going to attract the right kind of talent and then you’re going to be able to have those conversations when you reach out to that specific person. I always think that all these conversations, you know, wherever you are, are going to lead to something down the road.
And so leaders and we counsel people as execs all the time is whenever you’re talking to somebody. Make sure that you’re thinking about this as a recruiting piece too, that you’re, you know, keep that in mind that you may need that person down the road. So make sure that you have the kind of conversation and make it a pleasant one, an engaging one, so that if you do want that kind of skill set on your team that you could call that connection and say, Hey, we’re looking to expand in this area.
Are you interested? Yeah. What, what role does so that’s a lot of that’s maybe some of the external things and it overlaps, I guess I’d say, but what role does workplace culture play in the tech industry overall? And like, what does culture mean to you? I think it’s huge. And I think, again, when we try to focus on that cultural fit, there are some companies that, you know, yeah, they’re hard charging and you want to, you put a person that is not ready for that.
They’re going to get tossed out quickly. So you need to match that up correctly. And so each culture or each company has its own respective culture. And that really does come from the CEO. And they are the ones that will instill that type of environment. And there are going to be some people that want that hard charging and, you know, kind of mentality, but there’s others that are going to want something different.
And so you have to be true to who you are, be true to what you your, your personality. And then make sure that you find the right kind of people that are going to match that kind of environment and you’re going to then once that gets, and we’re talking about having all the employees being advocates for you once they start.
And they feel that sense of camaraderie and that sense of team, then yeah, they’re going to be proud to talk about you externally, but it comes from that internal bond, that internal trust and that internal common vision that the CEO has mapped out. For the organization. Oh, good. So talk to me about some of the the strategies for what it looks like to find this talent, whether it’s internal, like, like strategies that you’re using at the Laurel group or, or things that companies can be doing, like, give me some of the, like, how of this.
Yeah, a lot of it is like we were saying, having those, when you have interactions with anybody external, making sure that you build that relationship and that they’re going to be a resource for you later on. And it may not be them directly that you’d be interested in hiring, but it may be somebody that they’re connected to.
You know, LinkedIn, I think I saw that they have 900 million people on their platform. That’s a huge platform. So having a positive presence there and having any kind of literature that expands what your values are, what your recent successes have been, where there’s been some wins. You know, and that’s a great forum to have that placed making sure that your information not only the company’s information, but your information, people look these things up and make sure that that’s robust.
And, you know, it explains, you know, who you are as a person as well, because people want to know who they’re working with and want to feel that association. So, you know, I would say using LinkedIn. There’s also any kind of speaking engagement is where people are going to be either found or be seen depending upon that, that norm.
So making sure that you are present in those environments and you follow up and you engage that a lot of the smaller companies that we ended up working with that, you know, we’ll get some like VC funding or private equity funding moments of inflection for them. And so that’s a great time for them to be out on a, call it a speaking engagement or just getting their information out to the broader public so that now they’re on different talk tracks and now all of a sudden when they call a candidate or they reach out to a candidate.
They end up having a record brand that’s recognized and you’re not starting from zero. So that’s, you know, another piece. But it’s also reputation. You know, I, I was talking to a friend of mine, he was a CEO and I asked him how he came into be, you know, that role. And he said, well, I met with the board chairman who had gotten my name from a person I used to work with, who they respected.
And he goes, yeah, you know what, I’m just here to make sure you don’t have three eyes. You know, You’ve got great credit credentials from, you know, a person I respect. So yeah, I just want to make sure that we understand each other and we’re good to go. And he goes, it was the easiest interview I ever had.
And I said, but that’s because he’s moved up the ranks. He’s at that CEO level. He has a great network and everybody speaks highly of him. So now that final decision isn’t necessarily on a, you know, having to do a specific test or having to do these different answers. It’s, all right, I am just here to validate every, because everybody else has been working with you for years.
They know you, they know what you are, you know, in the foxhole and I’ll respect that. And so that’s the piece is your, your reputation over the years allows you to get to certain points. Quicker than others. Hmm. Any, any trends you care to comment on in your, in your space, whether it’s technology or otherwise, like, like, what are you following right now?
Well, I think everybody is talking about gen AI. And you know, it’s permeating all facets of our lives. You know, if you book it, you can go and ask chat GVT about travel and give you an itinerary for a fun trip to. Yeah, Europe. And then in recruiting, it’s no different. It’s permeating recruiting. It’s It’s a double edged sword though, quite frankly, because it’s almost too easy to apply to roles.
And so I don’t know if you’ve seen on LinkedIn, but they’ve no longer said, Hey, we have 600 people applying for this role. Now it’s, there’s over a hundred people applying because inundating the number of applicants for each role. And I did a paper about this last year. On average, there’s 400 applicants for every role.
And so if you think about it, an internal team that’s been cut already, I mean, companies have cut their recruiting teams. Now, you know, a recruiter has 10 roles. Well, she’s now sorting or he’s resorting through 4000 resumes to find those right people. I mean, that’s crazy. And so it’s just created too much noise in the market in the recruiting process.
And here’s another example. If you think about chat, GBT can write job descriptions for you. So a lot of recruiters are having putting the plugin into chat. GBT comes out with a job description. They post it. And then now there’s a company is like a resume hero. And what they’ll do is they’ll tailor your resume and create a cover letter.
For all the titles that you’ve defined and it’ll just spam about for all the different companies that have that job posting title. And so your name could get spread to hundreds if not more different job posts. Yeah. Now it goes into an internal system, an ATS, an applicant tracking system. So it’s another technologies that’s value evaluating those submissions.
So you have a three step process there that maybe some humans were overseeing, hopefully humans were overseeing it, but I think what’s going to happen, we’re going to end up seeing it go back old school where it’s your network. It’s who, you know, because to get above the noise, you got some information to somebody, you know, that’s going to then hear it to the hiring person.
It’s not going to be through a direct submittal. Another example, a friend of mine is over at Amazon. And, you know, they get inundated with resumes and he can’t imagine. Yeah, he goes, yeah, I don’t even look at, you know, we have to post it for legal reasons, but I don’t even look at the resumes that come through our careers page.
I, I end up getting referrals enough from my network and I’ll just talk to them and see if they’re good and I’ll just go through that. So even if you apply, you may not even get looked at. So it really is. Again, your network and your networks then built on your brand and the relationships you’ve established over the years.
And so that’s, what’s critical for getting around all this swirl that’s happening. And, and I’m hopeful that more companies will start creating tests or some sort of screening mechanism upfront so that the numbers don’t stay in this way, because it just, some good people are getting overlooked. As they try to apply them directly.
Man, Chris, that, that sounds so complicated. The levels and layers. I remember I’m thinking about growing up and I’m like, I remember when I had to think about, Oh my gosh, I have to get this resume printed. I got to go to, I’m like, Oh my gosh, I got to go get this. Gotta go to the, I’m talking young, young, I’m thinking about that.
And I’m like, now what do you got to do now? You got to have an army just to try to get an army of people. And you got to submit a thousand to try to get through to one. Yeah, it’s nice. And there’s, you know, I’ve talked to people that have said, Hey, I’ve, I’ve applied to a thousand different jobs and you’re like, Whoa.
I mean, it’s almost like the definition of being crazy is doing the same thing over and expecting different results. And I’m like, no, you, you, you shouldn’t be doing that. You’ve got to take kind of a sniper approach and go after that company that you want and really build a relationship either with somebody in that company.
Or come up with a point of view that is going to separate you and write to a person and offer some, you know, thought leadership pieces. And I’ll give another example. I was doing a search for a company. It’s a privacy search engine called DuckDuckGo. And I was doing a search for them like a head of product for that this story and a person I had fantastic person, he was doing great through the process.
And he goes, Hey, Chris, I, you know what, I’m, I’m going to actually have to pull myself from the process. And I said, really? Oh, that’s too bad. Cause you know, the client was really liking him. And he said, yeah, I just got a job offer. I, I, I’m going to take it with this other company to lead their product.
X, Y, Z. And I said, Oh, I didn’t know that they were had that role open. He goes, well, they didn’t, but I saw that they were launching a product and it was a similar space that we had been in before. So I wrote the CEO and just said, Hey, okay. You know, we had a similar launch a while back, we ran into these issues.
Have you come across these obstacles and he goes, surprisingly enough, the CEO wrote me back. And so then we had a conversation and the CEO said, Hey, I’m not, I wasn’t planning on opening this role for another six, nine months, but would you like to meet the team and talk to them? Because you’ve got a lot of ideas here and he goes, yeah, sure.
And so they hit it off and then all of a sudden, boom, you know, he got hired and I’m like, that’s a fantastic story. It shows that he. And I’m sure that the CEO was thinking, gosh, if I do open this role, I’m going to end up having, you know, 400, 500 applicants again. And now I’m going to wade through all this.
It’s going to take forever. So instead his thought leadership and his expertise got demonstrated by him just reaching out to that CEO and saying, Hey, you know what, here’s something I thought about, and you may run into this. And the guy was. Yeah, now he’s doing great What an amazing story that makes a lot of sense, by the way I can I can see it happening and they’re like, oh, this is good Like how’d I how’d this just get dropped in my lap?
I’m sure that’s Oh, yeah, i’m sure you know you could do that it’s not gonna happen every time no, no, no, that’s a given. Yeah You know, it’s demonstrating your thought leadership your knowledge in a specific space and your expertise and what differentiates you and so you know, as as candidates, that’s really what you’re trying to do is what’s your unique value proposition that is going to be separate you from everybody else.
And it’s going to be what that client or that company needs to that in that specific function. Yeah. Well, Chris, man, this has been a lot of fun. I learned a lot. I know our audience did as well. I’m sure. I just have to ask, I mean, what’s next, what’s next for you? What’s next for Laurel group? You know, we’re going to continue to expand our reach, you know, as more and more companies get into technology, we’re going to be not just.
solely in technology, but companies that want to be more technology enabled. So I can see us expanding into more of those types of companies. I see the markets evolving as well, you know, especially with AI. And I think there’s going to be with all that noise, our value proposition actually becomes more valuable in that they need to know, instead of going through and sorting through all those resumes, they need to know the right people to talk to, and that’s where we come in.
And so I think we’re going to end up seeing at the executive levels, much you know, more opportunities. To have that impact with companies. Amazing. If somebody wants to follow up and learn more and connect with your team at Laurel group, how do they do that? Sure. It’s Chris at Laurel dash group. com. And our website is www Laurel dash group.
com. Fantastic. And for everybody watching this, just so you know, we’ll definitely put the links in the show notes. So you can just click on the links and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with mission matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show each and every day. We’re doing new content, bringing you new stories and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button and Chris, man, appreciate you coming on. This has been great, Adam. Thank you so much for having me.