When a growth-focused company needs to hire a marketing leader who will genuinely shape the direction of the brand, the stakes are too high for a transactional approach. Chicago Executive Marketing Recruiters at Onboard Recruiting Partners bring a retained search model built around honest evaluation, cultural alignment, and long-term fit. Headquartered in Rochester Hills, Michigan, and serving a national client base across the United States, Onboard works with founders, CEOs, and leadership teams who want to make better, more deliberate hiring decisions rather than simply fill a seat.
Why Retained Search Produces Better Marketing Hires
Contingency recruiting rewards speed. Retained search rewards precision. Chicago Executive Marketing Recruiters operate under a retained model, meaning Onboard Recruiting Partners is fully committed to each search from start to finish. That mutual commitment changes the nature of the work. Rather than sending over a stack of resumes and hoping one lands, the firm invests time in understanding the client’s leadership style, team dynamics, and organizational direction before a single candidate is approached. In our experience, this depth reduces turnover and accelerates time-to-impact for new marketing leaders.
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 shapes how Onboard Recruiting Partners approaches every marketing search: with an operator’s perspective, not just a recruiter’s checklist. In our experience, direct founder involvement signals a disciplined, long-horizon view of leadership hiring.
Marketing Leadership Roles Onboard Recruits
As Chicago Executive Marketing Recruiters, Onboard Recruiting Partners focuses on leadership and key functional positions that carry real influence over business outcomes. These are not entry-level or high-volume placements. Every search is a structured engagement designed to identify talent that will have a lasting impact. Marketing and adjacent roles the firm regularly supports include:
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Marketing Director: Senior marketing leaders who own brand strategy, demand generation, and cross-functional coordination
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Brand Marketing Manager: Professionals who translate business objectives into cohesive brand positioning and customer-facing programs
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C-Suite: Chief Marketing Officers and other executives who set the direction for the entire marketing organization
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Regional Manager and District Manager: Leaders who bridge corporate marketing strategy with local execution
Beyond marketing, Onboard Recruiting Partners conducts retained searches across Human Resources, engineering, operations, and merchant functions. Explore the full scope of the firm’s search expertise to see how this cross-functional depth benefits clients building out entire leadership teams.
Markets Onboard Recruiting Partners Serves
As Chicago Executive Marketing Recruiters and as a national search firm, Onboard Recruiting Partners works across a range of organizational types where intentional leadership hiring matters most. The firm’s retained model fits naturally with:
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Mid-Sized Companies: Organizations in the range of roughly 50 to 500 employees that are building out formal leadership structures
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Growth-Focused Organizations: Companies scaling quickly and needing marketing leadership that can keep pace with expanding operations
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Private Companies: Founder-led and family-owned businesses where cultural fit and long-term tenure carry particular weight
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Corporate Teams: Established organizations seeking to upgrade or reshape a specific function
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Entrepreneurial Businesses: Ventures where the first senior marketing hire often defines the trajectory of the brand
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Leadership-Driven Environments: Any company where the quality of the leadership team directly determines competitive performance
A Search Process Built Around Alignment
What sets Chicago Executive Marketing Recruiters at Onboard apart from larger or purely transactional firms is how deeply the process examines fit before any candidate reaches a client. Chris Masson personally runs every search, which means clients work directly with the expert they hired, not a junior coordinator. Conversations with candidates go far beyond credentials, probing leadership philosophy, communication style, and compatibility with the existing team. In our experience, this approach yields hires who integrate quickly and lead with clarity.
Learn more about Chris Masson and the founding principles behind Onboard Recruiting Partners to understand how this approach translates into more durable hires for growing companies.
The result is a search process that treats hiring as a meaningful business decision rather than a logistics problem. For companies that have experienced the cost of a poor leadership hire, this distinction matters considerably.
Positions Filled with Confidence
Beyond marketing, Chicago Executive Marketing Recruiters at Onboard Recruiting Partners fill a broad range of leadership and key functional roles for clients. A complete list of positions the firm supports:
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C-Suite
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Director of Human Resources
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Human Resources Manager
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Talent Acquisition Leader
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Marketing Director
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Brand Marketing Manager
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Engineering Manager
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Operations Manager
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Divisional Merchant Manager
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Category Manager / Buyer
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Regional Manager
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District Manager
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Store Manager
Start a Conversation About Your Marketing Search
If your company is ready to approach a marketing leadership search with greater care and clarity, Chicago Executive Marketing Recruiters at Onboard Recruiting Partners are prepared to have that conversation. The process begins with understanding your business, your team, and what the right hire actually looks like for your specific situation. Connect with Onboard Recruiting Partners to start your retained executive search or follow the firm on LinkedIn to stay connected with insights on leadership hiring and team-building.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes Chicago Executive Marketing Recruiters at Onboard Recruiting Partners different from a general staffing agency?
Onboard Recruiting Partners operates exclusively as a retained executive search firm, which means the firm does not handle entry-level or high-volume placements. Every engagement is a dedicated, structured search focused on a specific leadership or key functional role. The retained model creates mutual commitment between the firm and the client, and it ensures that Onboard’s success is measured by finding the right long-term hire, not the fastest available candidate. Founder Chris Masson personally runs each search, so clients engage directly with an operator who has more than 25 years of hands-on management experience rather than being handed off to a junior recruiter.
What types of marketing roles does Onboard Recruiting Partners typically fill?
Onboard Recruiting Partners focuses on marketing leadership and key functional roles that directly influence business direction and brand outcomes. Common searches include Marketing Director, Brand Marketing Manager, and Chief Marketing Officer, as well as roles that sit at the intersection of marketing and general management, such as Regional Manager and District Manager. The firm does not fill entry-level marketing positions; every search involves someone who will carry real accountability for results and team leadership.
Does Onboard Recruiting Partners only serve companies in the Chicago area?
No. While the firm positions itself as a resource for companies seeking Chicago executive marketing recruiters, Onboard Recruiting Partners is headquartered in Rochester Hills, Michigan, and serves a national client base across the United States. Growing companies in any region can engage Onboard for retained executive searches across marketing, HR, engineering, operations, and merchant functions.
How does the retained search model benefit a company hiring a marketing leader?
A retained search creates full commitment on both sides. Onboard Recruiting Partners invests the time to thoroughly understand the client’s organizational structure, leadership culture, and specific expectations for the role before approaching any candidate. This means candidates are vetted against far more than a job description; they are assessed for leadership style, communication patterns, and long-term cultural compatibility. For a marketing leadership role, where the hire will shape how Onboard Recruiting Partners presents itself externally and how the team functions internally, that depth of evaluation significantly reduces the risk of a poor fit.
What size of company is the best fit for working with Onboard Recruiting Partners?
Onboard Recruiting Partners works best with companies in the range of roughly 50 to 500 employees that are actively building or refining their leadership teams. This includes growth-focused organizations, private and founder-led companies, entrepreneurial businesses, and mid-market corporate teams. These organizations often have the most to gain from a thoughtful, alignment-focused search because a single leadership hire can meaningfully shape the trajectory of the entire company.
What should a company expect when starting a search with Onboard Recruiting Partners?
The process begins with a thorough intake conversation designed to go well beyond the job description. Onboard Recruiting Partners works to understand Onboard Recruiting Partners’s current team dynamics, the leadership style that tends to succeed in the organization, and the specific business problems the new hire is expected to address. From there, the firm conducts a structured search, presents only candidates who have been evaluated for cultural and functional fit, and guides the client through a deliberate decision-making process. The goal at every stage is to treat the hire as a meaningful business decision rather than a transactional task.