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Executive Search Services

Finding and retaining top leadership and board talent can be a strategic game changer.

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Board of Directors Services

In for-profit companies and non-profit organizations, board of directors’responsibilities go beyond traditional governance and oversight.

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Leadership Advisory Services

There is compelling evidence that organizations perform better if they have a clear sense of purpose.

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The Allen Austin Difference

Since 1996, Allen Austin, has been dedicated to building lasting relationships and delivering real value to our clients.

As a global retained executive search and leadership advisory firm, our mission is to provide fully integrated executive search and leadership solutions that allow our clients to unleash the full potential of their organizations and deliver outstanding business results. Our fundamental commitment is to do the right thing, for our people, our clients and for the global communities in which we work.

Our Clients

What Our Clients Say

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When Tanglewood Legacy Advisors engaged Allen Austin for a retained search I expected just that. What we received was so much more.

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Andrew T. Gardener CFP , President, Tanglewood Legacy Advisors

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[Allen Austin’s] approach is different than the big three or four firms, and they deliver a much more hands-on experience led by senior executives.

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John Dennis , Managing Partner & Founder of WoodRock & Company

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I have had the opportunity to engage with a number of different recruiting firms over my career and have to say that I thought the experience with Allen Austin was exceptional.

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Bob Aylward , Chief Executive Officer & President of Jones & Carter

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Tom was not just a consultant; he was a member of our team. I very much appreciate the impact Tom had a me as a leader, and the impact he had on our performance for Hess.

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Brian Truelove , Retired Senior Vice President of Hess Corporation

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Allen Austin is pound-for-pound the best executive search firm that I dealt with over a 40-year career — no contest.

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Jim Eggleston , Board Member of Silberline Manufacturing Company

Consultant Spotlight

Rob Andrews

Chairman & CEO

Based in Houston, Rob Andrews is Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Allen Austin, a leadership advisory and executive search firm. Rob leads Allen Austin’s global CEO, Consumer Packaged Goods & Durables Practice, and is also a member of the firm’s Leadership Advisory, Private Equity, Industrial and Marketing Officer practices. Building on his earlier career experience as an operating president with major convenience store and…

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Darcie Murray

Managing Partner, Executive Search

Darcie’s responsibilities include client service, partner-level talent acquisition, and professional development. Darcie was drawn to Allen Austin because of its purpose and commitment to the highest levels of relationship management and client experience. Darcie’s understanding of the firm’s Foresight™ process, facilitating matches that work and last, make her an integral part of expanding the firm’s global footprint while building on the firm’s values and culture…

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Danielle Mairs

Managing Partner, Leadership Advisory

Based in Dallas-Fort Worth, Danielle Mairs is Managing Partner of Allen Austin’s leadership advisory practice. Her responsibilities include client delivery, talent acquisition, and strategic partnerships. Danielle was drawn to Allen Austin because of the firm’s groundbreaking Total Performance LeadershipTM architecture and its close alignment with the four pillars of Conscious Capitalism: higher purpose, stakeholder orientation, conscious culture, and conscious leadership. Danielle is a key member…

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Donna Gaines

Founder & Managing Partner, Gaines International

Donna gives a unique sensibility to executive and management recruitment and understands the impact of architecture and design on cultures and societies. Since 1981, Donna has assisted clients in finding key professionals with leadership talent to meet the challenges of modern business. Donna relocated the Gaines headquarters from Atlanta to Chicago following a decade that included the Gulf War, an economic downturn, and overbuilding that…

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Mike Rome

Senior Partner

Based in Houston, Mike Rome serves as Senior Partner and co-leads the Board, CEO, and Private Equity practices. He is a member of the life sciences, industrial, professional services, and financial services practices, and plays an integral role in the firm’s growth, culture, and client service excellence commitment. Mike was drawn to Allen Austin because of the firm’s history, leadership architecture, and disciplined approach to…

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Jackie Gorman

Senior Partner

She has a particular interest in the areas of Higher Education, Government, Workforce Development, and Non-Profit organizations, where she brings over 16 years of executive-level management experience. Jackie is also a specialist in diversity executive searches and can bring to the table the highest caliber of diverse candidates for any organization. Jackie has developed a reputation for superior customer service. Her client list includes major…

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Grant Heath

Partner

Prior to Gaines International, Grant was a Vice President with W.L. Handler & Associates, a generalist retained search firm specializing in mid to senior-level searches within the Fortune 500 markets. During his tenure with W.L. Handler & Associates, Grant was fortunate to work with such notable corporations as Anderson Consulting, Coca-Cola, Deloitte & Touche, Georgia Pacific, IBM, PepsiCo, and many more. As a Partner in…

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James Wilkson

Partner

Based in Tampa, Florida, James Wilkson is a Partner within our Executive Search,  Leadership Advisory, and executive coaching practices. He specializes in Medical Management, Environmental Health and Safety, Technology, Software, Manufacturing, Retail, Hospitality, and Financial Service verticals. James is a gifted profiler of executive talent and an accomplished search consultant delivering competitive leadership ranging from start-up and private equity-based companies to Fortune 500 organizations. Drawing…

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Ken Minter

Senior Partner

Ken has two key facets of his practice: C-level corporate placements, particularly in situations of change or distress (M&A, restructuring, and post-bankruptcy) and senior-level professional services: consultants in operations, turnaround/restructuring, finance, accounting, and economics. Ken takes a client-centric approach to understanding an organization’s needs and clearly finding the best-fit candidates for the situation, the culture, and the future. His integrity and success in identifying and…

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Earle Craft

Partner

He leads searches for the firm’s AEC clients domestically and internationally, as well as oversees business development and marketing for the firm’s Atlanta offices. Prior to joining Gaines International, Craft spent almost two decades as the Vice President of Human Resources and Administration for tvsdesign, inc., a premier A&E design firm with offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Dubai, and Shanghai. He has significant experience in a…

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Victoria Lopez Negrete

Partner

Victoria’s practice areas include all facets of financial services including retail banking, FinTech, payments, and insurance. She partners with clients who are global leaders in solving their senior executive talent and leadership needs. Victoria fills critical leadership roles at the C-Suite level that span general management, digital, data analytics, finance, marketing, and operations. She is also a leading member of the firm’s diversity and inclusion…

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Rick Hodge

Partner

Rick has eight years of search experience and has conducted C-Suite level searches across a broad range of sectors including Technology, Energy, Retail, Hospitality, Multi-Family, Logistics, Accounting, and Financial Services. Prior to joining Allen Austin, Rick has 20 plus years in Human Resources and served as the top HR leader for Star Furniture, a Berkshire Hathaway company. He also held similar positions at Dynegy and…

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Pat Carlucci

Partner

After a successful twenty-year career at Kraft General Foods, where he held a series of management and executive-level positions, Pat spent five years as Managing Partner of a Connecticut based management consulting firm that specialized in providing added value via client-specific sales and marketing solutions. Prior to joining Allen Austin, Pat was Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing for a Connecticut based, family-owned and…

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Stephen Buchanan

Partner

He began his search career in 1996, in research and research management. He managed research teams at two London-based executive search firms in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Over the last ten years, Stephen has delivered searches across multiple sectors, functions, and geographies. He has executed searches on behalf of some of the world’s biggest companies, including Disney, Sony, Microsoft, IBM, and PWC. He…

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Kelly Thomas

Partner

Kelly specializes in industrial, oil and gas, power, midstream, and consumer products, and has a unique talent for conducting search engagements across a broad range of industries. Kelly feels building relationships is her biggest asset. Prior to Allen Austin, she worked for one of the largest firms in Houston and successfully completed a large engagement with a rapidly growing midstream company resulting in fifty executive…

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Echo Green

Partner

By leveraging her global marketing, business development, digital transformation, social media, software, and project management experience, combined with her infectious energy, endurance, and tenacity, Echo wins the confidence of her clients in ways that result in real, sustainable solutions. Echo was an exchange student in Russia before attending Texas A&M University where she graduated with her bachelor’s in biomedical science and marketing. After graduating, she…

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News & Insights

TPL Insights: Building Peak-Performance Cultures #38 – Stakeholder Engagement – A New Definition of Diversity

How do you define diversity in 2020? For decades, we’ve been told that organizations that employ diverse teams perform better. But what does that really mean? Certainly, diversity includes gender, race, and nationality. But a more comprehensive definition should include diversity of thought, age, culture, hardwiring, political orientation, and more. Building a truly diverse and inclusive workforce is far more complex and difficult than most realize, and it affects every sector of the planet. Building a peak performance culture has always required engaging stakeholder groups in ways that celebrate diversity….”

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TPL Insights: Building Peak-Performance Cultures #37 – Clarity and Stakeholder Engagement – Tell It To Us Straight: Building Resilience

This article features paraphrased content from Marcus Buckingham’s September 29th article in Harvard Business Review. Psychology Today defines resilience as “that ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever. Rather than letting failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise from the ashes.” Marcus Buckingham began his article in the Harvard Business Review with a commentary about his good friend Sally. She had been diagnosed with ALS, a fatal neurodegenerative disease also known as Lou…”

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TPL Insights: Building Peak-Performance Cultures #36 – Stakeholder Engagement and Clarity – Clarity in Crisis: Stakeholder Communication

Southwest Airlines is a company to which we’ve paid close attention for decades. Herb Kelleher, the airline’s co-founder and first CEO, practiced all nine principles we observe in organizations that perform at the very top of their sectors, all of which enjoy cultures of peak performance. The principles continue to be practiced today under Gary Kelly, Southwest’s current Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. No organization, regardless of its cultural prowess, is immune to disasters like COVID-19. Companies in our Total Performance Leadership study are as diverse as the hardships they’ve…”

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Building Peak-Performance Cultures #35 – Ginsburg & Scalia: Honoring Our Opposites

Ten weeks ago, I wrote about self-deception, which causes people and organizations to get stuck in old patterns, old behaviors, old thinking, and old prejudices. Organizations comprised of people who possess the same mindset they’ve always had will continue to produce the same results they’ve always produced. If they have struggled with the very common challenges of prejudice, low engagement, poor collaboration, and lack of innovation, these problems will continue – unless they change what is actually causing the problems. We are most definitely navigating turbulent waters, and things seem…”

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Building Peak-Performance Cultures #34: Unified Leadership – Symptoms of the Abilene Paradox

  Written by Rob Andrews, with paraphrased content from The Abilene Paradox by Dr. Jerry Harvey. In last week’s blog post, we introduced Jerry Harvey’s concept of the Abilene Paradox – those situations where everyone knows they’re headed in the wrong direction, but nobody points it out. Each person assumes, incorrectly, that they are the only one with a desire to change course. Each person, afraid of rocking the boat, gives in to what they think is the majority opinion. This leaves the actual majority opinion unsaid. According to Jerry,…”

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Completed Engagement – Archer Systems LLC – Vice President of Lien Operations

Allen Austin recently completed a retained search engagement for ARCHER SYSTEMS, LLC with the selection of Alex Blacutt as Vice President of Lien Operations, based in Austin, Texas. Mr. Blacutt brings over 18 years’ experience in successful business process transformation, change management and cross-functional collaboration. He is an Industrial Engineer, graduate of the Franz Tamayo University, Bolivia. He is certified Agile Scrum Master, Six Sigma Black Belt, and Lean Practitioner with an MLC from University of Texas, Austin, TX. Robby Avery, Archer Systems’ Chief Executive Officer, stated, “We are delighted…”

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Total Performance Leadership Blog Post #33: Unified Leadership-How Avoiding The Abilene Paradox Will Help You Achieve Peak Performance

  Written by Rob Andrews with paraphrased content from The Abilene Paradox by Dr. Jerry Harvey, published December 6, 2014 Most boards and leadership teams (and married couples, for that matter) are destined to fall far short of their potential. The fault lies in what one of my favorite consultants calls the Abilene Paradox. I first heard Dr. Jerry Harvey in 1996 while attending graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin. I came to know him well through his writings, videos, and one memorable meeting at UT. From…”

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Total Performance Leadership Blog Post #32: Reexamine the Role of Your CHRO

Written by Rob Andrews with paraphrased content from Ariana Huffington’s article in the Harvard Business Review, June 3, 2020 A distinctive feature of the coronavirus pandemic has been to elevate the role of the CHRO. While this is a positive, the role of the CHRO is one of the most underappreciated positions around. It is unfortunate that there are still CEOs who have either never experienced great human resources leadership or have never given their top HR officer a real chance. Hopefully, an important and fundamental shift is underway. At…”

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Total Performance Leadership Blog Post #31: Why an Organizational Health Index Could Be Your Most Important Move This Year

Staying Healthy Matters Think about the lengths to which we go to protect our health, and that of the people and pets we love. We get thorough annual physical exams. We get two dental exams a year. We get annual skin and eye exams. We take our pets to the vet for checkups and vaccinations. Consistently, we make conscious decisions and commitments to invest time and money in our health. We eat right, take vitamins, and go to the gym. We value physical health above all else. Why then, are…”

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Total Performance Leadership Blog Post #30: Disciplined Hiring Practices-How the Principles Can Enhance Your Board Effectiveness

Paraphrased from Mark Wiseman and Dominic Barton’s article in Harvard Business Journal May 2015 with additional commentary from Rob Andrews Says Mark Wiseman, Boards simply aren’t working. It’s been more than a decade since the first wave of post-Enron regulatory reforms, and despite a host of guidelines from independent watchdogs such as the International Corporate Governance Network, most boards aren’t delivering on their core mission: providing strong oversight and strategic support for management’s efforts to create long-term value. This isn’t just Mark’s opinion. According to McKinsey, directors also believe boards…”

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Why Do You Do That?

Rob Andrews talks about why our team at Allen Austin operates the way it does; how it’s all lead by purpose and how we implement it into our Retained Executive Search and Leadership Advisory practices.

Retained Executive Search
Leadership Advisory Services