Senior Vice President

liz@centerstonesearch.com Throughout her career in retail management and recruiting, Liz’s work has spanned the U.K and the U.S., including work for Henri Bendel in New York and Plummer & Associates, a national retained recruiting company. Before being recruited by Kim Villeneuve eight years ago to join what is now CenterStone Executive Search, Inc.’s New York office, Liz had her own research and recruiting practice that served the Retail, e-Commerce and Foodservice industries.

Her extensive industry reach has served the needs of such clients as Starbucks, eToys, Jamba Juice, Nordstrom, 1-800 Contacts, Crate & Barrel, Hollywood Entertainment, Eos Airlines, Denny’s, Au Bon Pain, Tony Roma’s and BabyCenter. In Venture Capital, she has worked with Maveron, Oak Investments and Golden Gate Capital.

Liz holds a B.A. in Business Administration from DeMontfort University in Leicester, England.

Finding gems in another field

Liz has an eye toward entrepreneurial candidates who can scale up for a start-up’s high-growth mode or take an established brand to the next level.

With an experienced sense of meshing process with creativity, she manages search to reflect the fast pace of the consumer businesses it services.

The search world has become much more nimble, Liz says. That allows her to drill down efficiently, and focus on talent and evaluation for a thorough outcome. Email and video conferencing have taken the place of thick dossiers on each candidate as clients rely more on a seasoned search partner than on piles of data.

Retail, e-Commerce and the Foodservice industries are also more open-minded these days about welcoming exceptional candidates who cross over from different fields, thus adding important dimension to growing a business.

“It wouldn't surprise us to place a person who resides in a conventional role,” says Liz, “but I love it even more when I find somebody with a blue-ribbon background, tucked out of sight. It just reminds you that there’s a huge world out there to recruit from.”