Heads: Business Lessons from an Executive Search Pioneer

CHAPTER 4THE BIRTH OF RUSSELL REYNOLDS ASSOCIATES

After three years with Clark, the notion of striking out on my own had taken hold of me. I never seriously considered the possibility that I wouldn’t be successful. I felt I had everything going for me. I was good at the business. I was young. My biggest problem was that I may have been a little too young. What’s more, I looked even younger. (At 35, I had trouble buying liquor in a store, even with two young sons in tow!) While youthful looks are the sort of problem many people would like to have, they weren’t to my advantage in the executive search business. Interacting with and impressing senior executives was critical, and so I found that I had to work extra hard to be taken seriously.

A CERTAIN ...