Page 1 - KI Insights July 2017

Kensington Insights

July 2017

My Journey

By Tim Bealert

Early in the spring of 2008, life was approach to the middle manage- now also had a wealth of experi-
going exceptionally well. I was ment level, which has traditionally ence doing retained search at a
healthy, looking forward to my been served by contingent firms. middle management level and saw
upcoming wedding, and enjoying DHR International had a division a huge opportunity in the market.
professional success in a challeng- which did exactly that on a very
By April, my colleague joined Ken-
ing role at DHR International, a large scale – and very successfully.
sington to start this business. He
large global executive search firm.
Most of my time up to that point had one other person on board
During a conversation, a friend was spent on large scale recruiting and they needed a third – some-
asked if I had heard of Kensington projects and, at the age of 26, I one to really drive the execution of
International. In fact I had; some- was given the opportunity to lead the searches – and thought I
time during the year prior, I re- a project for ServiceMaster. As should entertain the thought. By
ceived an email from Kensington they moved their corporate HQ this time, the ServiceMaster pro-
regarding an opening for an Execu- from Downers Grove to Memphis, ject was complete and I was work-
tive Recruiter. But I was happy and I led the efforts to replace over 90 ing directly for the founder on his
not thinking of pursuing anything people; all the middle manage- searches. The idea of leaving for a
new, so I deleted it without a sec- ment leaders and their teams, for start-up with my wedding just a
ond thought. I always laugh when this $4B+ private equity backed few months away was pretty scary
I think back to what he told me: company. It was great experience, - I tend to be more conservative.
“They seem like a pretty good however, I was essentially out on Yet, at the same time, I had tre-
firm…my brother works in their an island, expected to manage the mendous respect for the other
building and said they drive really project as needed and only report two individuals involved, so I de-
nice cars, dress nice, and seem like back if there was an issue. It cided to at least meet with every-
they have their stuff together!” pushed me outside of my comfort one at Kensington.
zone, which is important for
My colleague was introduced to My first meeting with Rick was
growth. I mention this project be-
Rick, Brian, and John and a dia- relaxed and informative and al-
cause, while at the time I was
logue began about starting a busi- lowed me to buy into the vision
working on the DHR side of the
ness to bring the retained search they had for a middle manage-
firm – true executive level search, I
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