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Fast-Growing Diversified Search Leads Change In The Executive Search Industry, Becomes The “Diversified Search Group”
Founder and Chair Judith M. von Seldeneck announced that after almost 50 years of finding great leaders for American companies and organizations, Diversified Search has now become the Diversified Search Group, with new brand messaging that reflects both its spectacular growth over the last several years and its unique business model in the executive search industry.
Founded in 1974, Diversified Search quickly established itself as one of the nation’s most trusted firms dedicated to finding C-Suite leadership, with deep roots in the area of diversity. Embarking on a bold growth strategy in 2016, over the next several years the firm acquired BioQuest, a life sciences executive search firm headquartered in San Francisco; Koya Partners, which specializes in mission-driven and nonprofit search and is based in Boston; Grant Cooper, a healthcare specialty search firm with its headquarters in St. Louis; and Storbeck Search, a premier higher-education search firm based in Media, PA.
Now operating as the parent company of this family of boutique firms, the Diversified Search Group is organized to offer wide expertise to employers looking for more diverse candidate pools and placements from across all industries and sectors:
- Diversified Search Group is the only recruiting firm in the top 10 firms nationwide with such diverse leadership: a woman Founder and Chair, an African-American CEO, and a woman President.
- The firm regularly produces more diverse candidate pools and placements than any executive search firm in the country.
- Its mission and leadership is reflected in its networks and placements: over the last two years, over 50 percent of placements have been women and over 35 percent people of color, with a 98% retention rate for CEOs.
“Ours is a unique model in our industry, the only one of its kind, where we have focused on our core sectors and built a cross-collaboration model that fields the very best experts in their respective fields,” said von Seldeneck, who retains the title of Founder and Chair. “All of this is overlayed with our continued commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, bedrock principles on which we were founded and which we brought to the market at a time no one else was. And they continue to guide us in our work today.”
“While our firm continues to evolve into an even larger and more dynamic search firm nationally and globally, our dedication to the high-touch, personal service to our clients that has defined the quality of our work for almost half a century endures,” added Dale E. Jones, the CEO of the Diversified Search Group. “Our commitment to be responsive, nimble, and innovative remains the cornerstone of our work in finding the next generation of leaders across the nation.”
Now, with its crisp new brand message—“Cultivating leadership for a changing world”—and a tagline of “Purpose. Progress. Performance,” the Diversified Search Group has secured its place as one of the nation’s leading search firms, with almost 300 employees and a dozen offices across the country. The firm also continues in its role as the U.S. partner of AltoPartners, the global alliance of international search firms with offices in more than 30 countries around the world.
Integrating the Diversified Search Group family of companies is its new mission statement, which in its first two sentences clearly defines the firm’s core values: We’re different—and always have been. Our life’s work has been to diversify leadership across all industries and sectors.
To reflect its new messaging, the DSG has implemented new branding across all of its firms, selecting a new color palette of royal blue paired with warm gold, and updating the logos, typography, and imagery on its websites, social media platforms, and business collateral to knit its firms together. The firm has also developed a sleek new version of the iconic Diversified Search triangles, which have been part of the firm’s brand for the past decade.
“Gold is the color of energy and hope, blue the color of strength and reliability,” said Katie Bouton, the Founder and CEO of Koya Partners, who also serves as the President of the Diversified Search Group. “Those four qualities describe the foundation of who we are as an organization, and what differentiates us in the marketplace.”
