Welcome to the Facebook home of BridgeGate Executive Search. We will use this platform to post relevant information about BridgeGate, the human capital space, BridgeGate's clients and other information we think will be of interest to BridgeGate's Facebook "Fans". Thank you for your interest in BridgeGate Executive Search. We look forward to your comments and contributions.

This is our Year End 2009 post. We will use this as an opportunity to do a brief review of a small portion of BridgeGate's 4th quarter activity.

Notable Placements, BG News & Events:

AccelOps - BridgeGate Partner Joel May placed Steve Tsuchiyama as VP Sales for AccelOps. Steve was previously Director of SaaS for HP Software and VP/GM Asia Pac for Opsware. Santa Clara based AccelOps is a portfolio company of Orange County based venture fund Miramar Venture Partners. http://www.accelops.net/news/112309.php

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies - Hitachi extends its strategic partnership with BridgeGate by engaging Partner Kevin Rosenberg to execute two confidential executive leadership searches in Asia.

Ning - BridgeGate Partners Joel May and John DiSanto placed John McDonald- VP Customer Advocacy and Policy for Ning - John was previously Senior Director Sellers Experience as well as Senior Director Trust and Safety at eBay. Ning (www.ning.com) is an online platform allowing people to create their own social networks. Launched in October 2005, Ning was co-founded by Marc Andreessen and Gina Bianchini. This is BridgeGate's third executive placement for Ning.

OpTier -Business Transaction Management software company OpTier, based in New York hired Wendy Perilli as VP of Marketing. Prior to OpTier, Wendy was an executive at VMWare. OpTier provides the highest level of application performance and availability by helping IT assure the quick and successful execution of end-user transactions and simplifying the complexity of IT management. BridgeGate Partner, John DiSanto led the search for OpTier.

Playboy Enterprises Inc. - Iconic global brand Playboy recently announced its selection of BridgeGate LLC to conduct its national CFO search. Playboy's recently appointed CEO Scott Flanders and recently hired President Alex Vaikus have entrusted BridgeGate to augment the leadership team during a time of significant transformation as the company refocuses on its global licensing business. http://www.playboyenterprises.com/home/content.cfm?content=t_press&packet=986B450B-9422-C722-FC36170E511CA32E&MmenuFlag=news

Rockmelt - Silicon Valley start-up with blue-chip roots, Rockmelt continues its hiring streak at the hand of BridgeGate's Director Steve Brown and partner John DiSanto. Steve and John just landed two senior software engineers for Rockmelt which has been in "stealth mode". All we can say is that the company is funded by the original investors in Google, Facebook and Twitter. http://www.rockmelt.com/

Interesting Read:
In challenging markets, the actions and thought leadership of select business leaders and strategic thinkers are often challenged and on occasion revered. While even the stopped watch is accurate twice a day, Forbes recently published an article on The Most Influential Business Thinkers for 2009. We thought it was an interesting read....

http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/13/influential-business-thinkers-leadership-thought-leaders-guru.html

BridgeGate Milestones:
In the fourth quarter, BridgeGate honored the achievement of two individuals. BridgeGate practice head and Director, Steve Brown celebrated his 15^th year as a member of the BridgeGate team and Managing Partner, Kevin Rosenberg crossed 20 years with BridgeGate.

Market Outlook:
The "War for Talent" became a knife fight in the last quarter of 2009. BridgeGate's leadership was reasonably optimistic based on "heavy demand" in Q3 2009. Now as we near the end of Q4, the year end lull we all typically lever in order to recharge batteries and re-center was no where to be found. "Search Guys" have always been a leading economic indicator.  If the surge in newly opened searches and the make-up of our current client list being both established clients and new clients (something that were all but unheard of in prior quarters) is any indication, our forecast for the coming year is quite bullish. BridgeGate will finish 2009 with activity (placements) and revenues on par with 2008. In a market where service businesses are down between 20 to 60 percent, we consider ourselves quite fortunate.

Happy New Year:
The entire team at BridgeGate would like to wish each and every one of our clients, friends and "fans" a very safe, prosperous and rewarding New Year. Thank you not only for your loyalty and support but also for your interest in our continued success.

More to come...

3rd Quarter 2009 Post Follows:

Welcome to the Facebook home of BridgeGate Executive Search. We will use this platform to post relevant information about BridgeGate, the human capital space, BridgeGate's clients and other information we think will be of interest to BridgeGate's Facebook "Fans". Thank you for your interest in BridgeGate Executive Search. We look forward to your comments and contributions.

Since this is our first post, we will use this as an opportunity to do a brief review of a small portion of BridgeGate's 3rd quarter activity.

Notable Placements, BG News & Events:

Apria Healthcare - in concert with Apria's private equity sponsor, Blackstone Capital, BridgeGate's Josh Goodman and Andrew Johnson successfully placed Apria's Vice President of Accounting and their new Chief Procurement Officer.

Areva - BridgeGate Cleantech practice Director Samantha Simonnet places the VP Engineering at Areva Bio-Energies leading the design and construction of a fleet of 50MW biomass-to-electricity power plants. http://us.areva.com/scripts/home/publigen/content/templates/show.asp?P=738&L=EN

Corinthian Colleges - This $1.3 billion for profit proprietary education company has been a BG client for several years. Most recently BG Director Josh Goodman placed the company's VP of Financial Aid and Director Credit Risk. Currently we are leading CCi's Director of Product Management for Online. http://www.cci.edu

Clean Tech Open - BridgeGate's Cleantech Director Samantha Simonnet places the Director of Development at Clean Tech Open and is a VIP guest at the Nov 17th Gala Award, the culmination of the world's largest clean technology business competition, designed to showcase the boldest cleantech ideas, the most ambitious entrepreneurs and the brightest, most engaged investors, venture capitalists and prospective technology customers. http://www.cleantechopen.com/app.cgi/events/view/84

Freedom Communications - Another Blackstone company, Freedom engaged BridgeGate to identify a CFO to lead them through a Chapter 11 proceeding and manage their financial and operational turnaround. Kevin Rosenberg & Josh Goodman led the search which resulted in the hiring of Mark McEachen. http://www.freedom.com/company/full_news2.asp?id=1488

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies - BridgeGate's long standing relationship with HGST has resulted in the placement of Michael "Mick" Murray as CFO of this more than $5 billion Hard Disk Drive manufacturer. BridgeGate's managing partner, Kevin Rosenberg recruited Mick from Yahoo! where he was Chief Accounting Officer. http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/en/company/pressroom/

PSS Systems - A market leader and innovator of the legal governance and compliance solution market, PSS has used BG to select Jeff Johnson as VP Worldwide Sales. This is the second senior executive brought to PSS by BridgeGate. The search was led by BridgeGate partner, Joel May. http://www.pss-systems.com/news/090909.html

Rockmelt - The talk of Silicon Valley, Rockmelt has hired its lead User Experience Designer using the services of BridgeGate's Director Steve Brown and partner John DiSanto. Rockmelt has been in stealth mode and is funded by the original investors in Google, Facebook and Twitter. http://www.rockmelt.com/

Tech America - Rick Farrell and EcoTek Lighting Receive Green Engineering Finalist Award The Green Engineering Finalist Award was presented to Rick Farrell and EcoTek Lighting by Samantha Simonnet, the director of the Cleantech Practice at BridgeGate.

Zend - Joel May helped his client Zend hire Matt Elson as VP Business & Corporate Development. Zend is a PHP services firm who's founders are key contributors to PHP and the creator's of PHP's core scripting engine. http://www.zend.com

Interesting Read:
For several years, BridgeGate has enthusiastically recommended a book to each of it's executive placement candidates called "The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels" by Michael Watkins. This book is an invaluable tool to assimilation into a new role. Now there's a great summary of the book published by AudioTech. Email us and we will send you a copy or click here: http://www.bridgegate.com/First-90-Days-Book-Summary.pdf

Market Outlook:
Despite fears of a double dip recession and a consumer that has not yet opened his wallet, BridgeGate's pulse of the market is positive and cautiously optimistic through 2009 and into 2010. Strategic clients are forecasting continued shuffling in the executive ranks in a bid to drive growth. In the start-up world, the best companies are getting funded and using professional search to attract talent that can weather the storm. Large enterprise clients are consolidating overhead to reduce spend and bolster bottom line and are also using executive search to hire people into broader roles designed to increase effectiveness.

More to come...