Senior Leadership Team Recruiters
When a critical leadership seat goes vacant, the pressure lands somewhere. It lands on the SVP who absorbs the workload, on the facility managers who lose a layer of direction, and on the business metrics that start drifting before anyone wants to admit it. Onboard Recruiting Partners works with growing companies as senior leadership team recruiters who treat that vacancy as the serious business problem it actually is, not as a transaction to close quickly and move on from. In our experience, a well-executed retained search reduces risk and speeds toward a durable leadership solution.
Headquartered in Rochester Hills, Michigan and serving clients nationally, Onboard Recruiting Partners is a boutique retained executive search firm focused exclusively on leadership and key functional roles across operations, HR, marketing, engineering, and merchant functions.
What Sets a Retained Search Apart
Contingency recruiting produces speed. Retained search produces fit. The distinction matters most when the role carries real organizational weight, such as a Director of Operations overseeing multiple facilities, or a functional leader whose absence is actively costing the business focus and momentum. Practitioners in this field often note that a retained approach aligns incentives with long-term impact.
Founder Chris Masson brings more than 25 years of hands-on management experience from corporate environments including Sherwin-Williams and AkzoNobel, as well as his own entrepreneurial venture. That background means every search is evaluated from an operator’s perspective. When a hiring manager describes what they actually need, Chris understands the operational context behind the words, not just the title on the job description.
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Mutual commitment: A retained engagement means Onboard Recruiting Partners is fully invested in finding the right long-term hire, not the fastest available candidate.
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Direct access: As a boutique firm, Chris personally runs every search. Clients work directly with the expert they hired from the first conversation through placement.
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Depth of evaluation: Candidates are assessed on leadership approach, team dynamics, and cultural alignment before they are ever presented. Resume matching is not the work.
Leadership Roles That Require More Than a Resume Review
The roles that matter most to a growing company are rarely filled well by posting on a job board and sorting applications. A Director of Operations who has managed through multi-site complexity brings something fundamentally different from a warehousing generalist with a polished resume. An HR leader who understands workforce planning at scale is a different hire than one who has only managed compliance and benefits administration.
Onboard Recruiting Partners structures every engagement around understanding what the team actually needs next, including how the new hire will inherit existing team dynamics, where the gaps in leadership depth exist, and what kind of decision-making style will complement the people already in place. That alignment work happens before a candidate is ever presented to the hiring manager.
As senior leadership team recruiters, Onboard focuses on roles in:
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Operations: Directors and VPs who can lead multi-site teams, manage operational complexity, and own performance across logistics, distribution, and fulfillment functions.
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Human Resources: HR leaders who partner with business operators on workforce planning, succession, and organizational design.
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Marketing: Functional marketing leaders who connect brand strategy to measurable business outcomes.
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Engineering: Technical leadership with the organizational influence to align product, process, and team.
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Merchant Functions: Buying, category, and merchandise planning leaders who drive commercial performance.
Learn more about Onboard Recruiting Partners on LinkedIn to see the firm’s background and approach.
A Process Built Around the Hire That Lasts
The hiring manager who has been carrying a vacant director seat for months does not need a firm that sends a stack of resumes and calls it sourcing. They need a search partner who has already done the work: understanding the team dynamics, pressure-testing candidates against the real requirements of the role, and presenting a short list of people who are genuinely ready to lead. In our experience, this approach consistently yields hires who stay and perform over time.
That is the standard Onboard Recruiting Partners holds itself to on every engagement. If the conversation about a role is honest and the evaluation is thorough, the hire is more likely to take root and stay, which is the outcome that actually moves the business forward.
If a leadership vacancy is creating operational drag or strategic distraction, starting a conversation with Onboard Recruiting Partners is a straightforward first step toward resolving it with intention rather than urgency.
Frequently Asked Questions
What types of companies do senior leadership team recruiters at Onboard Recruiting Partners typically work with?
Onboard Recruiting Partners focuses on SMB to mid-market companies in the 50 to 500 employee range that are building out or upgrading their leadership teams. These are often growth-stage businesses where a single leadership hire carries significant organizational weight, including companies in industrial distribution, manufacturing, and other operationally complex industries that need directors and VPs who can lead without hand-holding.
What is the difference between a retained search and a contingency search for a senior leadership role?
In a contingency search, the recruiter is paid only if a placement is made, which creates an incentive to move quickly rather than carefully. A retained search involves a committed engagement from the start, meaning the firm’s focus is entirely on finding the right long-term candidate rather than the first available one. For leadership roles where a bad hire creates real organizational cost, the retained model provides a more structured, thorough process and a genuine alignment of interests between the firm and the client.
How does Onboard Recruiting Partners evaluate candidates beyond their resume?
Before presenting any candidate, Onboard Recruiting Partners assesses leadership style, how the candidate has handled team dynamics in comparable environments, and whether their approach aligns with the culture and expectations of the hiring organization. For operations roles specifically, this means understanding how a candidate has managed through complexity, not just whether they have held a similar title. Founder Chris Masson’s background as an operator informs how those conversations are structured and what follow-up questions reveal about a candidate’s actual depth.
Does Onboard Recruiting Partners conduct searches outside of Michigan?
Yes. While Onboard Recruiting Partners is headquartered in Rochester Hills, Michigan, the firm serves clients nationally across the United States. The retained search model is well-suited to remote engagement, and the firm’s candidate evaluation process does not depend on geography. Client companies in any region can expect the same structured, personally managed search process.
What functional areas do your senior leadership team recruiters cover?
Onboard Recruiting Partners places leadership talent across five core functional areas: operations, human resources, marketing, engineering, and merchant roles. The firm does not conduct high-volume or entry-level staffing. Every search is a dedicated engagement for a role that carries meaningful responsibility within the client organization, including director, VP, and comparable functional leadership positions.
Why does having a founder with an operations background matter for an executive search?
When a hiring manager describes what they need in a Director of Operations, a recruiter who has only ever recruited will hear job requirements. A recruiter who has managed through operational complexity will understand the organizational context: the team pressure, the multi-site coordination challenges, the difference between someone who can talk about process improvement and someone who has actually led a team through it. Chris Masson’s experience at Sherwin-Williams, AkzoNobel, and in his own entrepreneurial venture means that Onboard Recruiting Partners brings that practical perspective to every search, which leads to more honest candidate evaluations and better-informed hiring recommendations.