The Right Angle

Stepping off the corporate ladder to a culture of camaraderie and collaboration

Ten years ago, Broadreach Executive Search founder and President John Schnauck was returning from a year-long sabbatical with his family aboard their sailboat when professional inspiration struck. The family had packed up, rented out their house, sold their cars, prepared to homeschool the kids (9 and 11 at the time) and set sail for an adventure in the Bahamas.

On the trip back, Schnauck knew he had to go back to work but wasn’t looking forward to the grind. He asked his wife, Alexa Schnauck — now the company’s business manager — when he had been the happiest in his career. Her immediate response was, “When you were a headhunter.” At that moment, the boat was on a broad reach — sailing terminology for the wind hitting the sail at an angle that results in the most comfortable and efficient ride.

John Schnauck wanted that happiness and feeling of satisfaction in his next gig, and Broadreach Executive Search was born. Now, it is celebrating its 10^th anniversary and second year as one of SIA’s Best Staffing Firms to Work For — milestones that are made possible by the unique experience and outlook of Broadreach’s 12-person team.

Experience Matters Most

Coming from a range of fields including banking and finance, fashion and technology, everyone at Broadreach is in a second career after long-term corporate success. “One of our people left a large enterprise where he had 300 direct reports and was responsible for $450 million in revenue. Another ran a high-frequency trading business for 17 years. They were tired of the corporate foolishness but didn’t want to retire,” Schnauck says.

Aligned goals, perspectives, levels of experience and a high-level understanding of business operations result in a stability and confidence that come through with clients and prospects.

The Boston-based international recruitment firm specializes in placing people in senior-level roles across a range of enterprises; it also provides retained and contingent searches for permanent, contract and contingent roles.

When pitching services to potential clients, the firm can promise the service of seasoned business professionals, which Executive VP Kevin Walker says has become its formula for success and its differentiator. “Recruiting isn’t simple. There are a lot of nuances to it, and we have the ability to understand how these subtleties impact hiring and other business decisions.”

A Small but Mighty Family

Schnauck hires internal staff mostly from referrals and chance meetings. A recent hire was Jeff DeSocio, a senior recruiter. The recently laid-off tech executive was looking for his next director of IT role when Schnauck and another recruiter decided he would be a perfect Broadreach employee, even though he had no staffing or recruiting experience.

“When we were talking to him as a candidate about an IT role, we knew he wasn’t the right fit. But we all had a feeling he would be perfect here,” Schnauck says. Even though DeSocio had no staffing or recruiting experience, he had spent years with Fortune 500 companies leading software and network engineering as well as business process management.

Now in his second year at Broadreach, DeSocio says the change has enabled him to help others through recruiting, mentoring and coaching. “I wasn’t thinking about changing careers, but what I’m doing today finally meets my expectations as a professional and as a human being.”

According to DeSocio, recruiters are successful because of the ways Schnauck and Walker manage the firm. The leaders act as mentors and coaches, not micromanagers. Each recruiter, he says, is trusted to run an individual shop with full team support. Every placement is celebrated by the entire company.

John and Alexa foster a kindness and generosity of spirit that permeate everything that happens at Broadreach, Walker says. He offered his favorite example: Before each management meeting, the team goes around the table and shares one piece of personal and one piece of business news — in that order. They know about each other’s grandchildren, weekend trips, pets and hobbies.

People stay at Broadreach because the team has fun and there’s not a lot of ego in the room. “We all spent time climbing the corporate ladder and realized we wanted something different. Now we have a great team, challenges and variety every day, and a personal feeling that we’re changing people’s lives for the better,” Walker says.

A Focus on the Future

After surviving the pandemic with no layoffs, the company focused on becoming even more resilient. “Our strength has been in being generalists guided by our experience. We’ve been in software and enterprise sales, insurance and IT at every level, from CFOs to help desks,” Schnauck said. “We survived Covid because we weren’t focused on just one sector.”

Now, the company is expanding into civil and environmental engineering, accounting, construction and commercial paving, biotechnology and non-profit C-suite executive placements.

Broadreach has traditionally worked with companies to build their entire sales teams, from heads of sales to support roles. Schnauck sees a growth opportunity in providing advisory services in organizational strategy and growth. Ultimately, he says, he would like to offer stock options to employees and move into an advisory role of his own. “I want to build something that’s going to generate a good income, and possibly substantial wealth, for my people in the future,” he says.

Walker agrees, adding, “What we have now will be what will make us successful in the future — the people, culture, camaraderie, collaboration and work-life balance.”