In a special episode of the Hiring For Good podcast, Molly Norton, Senior Director of Talent, interviews Suzanne Hanifin, the President and Founder of Acumen Executive Search, to celebrate the firm’s 17th anniversary. Known for her insightful interviews with leaders from across various sectors, Suzanne steps into the spotlight herself for this unique conversation. This milestone episode gives listeners a rare opportunity to hear about the growth and success of Acumen, the values that have shaped the company’s trajectory, and Suzanne’s personal leadership philosophy.
Suzanne Hanifin Bio
Suzanne approaches the search process with heart, insight, a commitment to giving back, and a steadfast dedication to doing what’s right. She ensures that everyone she works with feels genuinely cared for, valued, and confident in her company’s hands. Suzanne believes in win-win solutions, ensuring all parties leave negotiations feeling heard, respected, and fully satisfied under her guidance.
A strong advocate for professional women across industries, Suzanne often states that nothing energizes her more than interacting with and supporting smart, strong, innovative, and caring women. She is a co-founder of Leader and Executives Across Professions (LEAP) – an innovative mentorship organization for professional women.
Additionally, she is a board member and co-president of the Oregon chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), a member of Vistage, an Executive Group Leader of ProVisors, and a Board Member of the Pacific Northwest Defense Coalition. (PNDC).
Hiring for Good Transcript
0:00 all right well we have a pretty special Hiring for Good podcast today uh today
0:05 I’m uh for those of you that follow Tanis and Suzanne’s hiring for good
0:10 podcast today we’re we’re actually going to be interviewing our fearless leader
0:15 Suzanne Hanifin who’s the president and founder of Acumen Executive Search um
0:20 you’ve so you’ve seen her interviewing some pretty impactful leaders to sort of
0:26 glean their best practices uh and she and Tanis are are are really great at
0:31 that have had some wonderful people on the show but many people don’t know
0:36 Suzanne’s own hiring or her own uh leadership journey and so we want to we
0:41 want to talk about that today it’s it’s very interesting how she started Acumen
0:46 and I’m Molly Norton I’ve worked with Suzanne and Acumen for almost a decade
0:50 now going on a decade uh doing is one of her Executive Search colleagues and uh
0:56 so now I want to turn it over to you Suzanne Suzanne tell us a little bit
1:00 about how you started Acumen Executive Search oh my goodness I tell you you
1:05 talk about a journey and and something that was really kind of unintentional so
1:11 let me back up a little bit and share with you kind of my career so um after
1:17 college went to work for a big Consulting Global
1:21 organization um worked full-time did grad school I was one class away from
1:29 graduating ing when I had Johnny and and my oldest son and you don’t go that far
1:35 and that long without finishing so I took my maternity leave if you can say
1:40 it as leave and um and did my Capstone and did um finish up and then
1:48 like a good consultant I got hired by one of my largest clients again another
1:54 global organization I think at the time it was Fortune 200 and you reach a point
2:01 where sometimes at least I did that I felt kind of like a cog in the wheel and so I
2:08 went to a recruiter I went on four or five job interviews got four or five job offers
2:15 and just didn’t want to do it and she said come and sit with me help me
2:22 recruit you have such a great network and that’s kind of how I fell into
2:27 recruiting itself again it wasn’t that I’m out of college going I’m going to be
2:32 a recruiter no I actually have a degree in history and a degree in marketing and
2:38 then an MBA in finance and um and then how I started
2:44 Acumen is actually kind of funny um there’s a 10-year gap between Johnny and
2:50 Max and I was so excited to have a summer baby because I thought okay I’m
2:57 actually going to take the summer off again in maternity leave is that really
3:02 a vacation probably not but and I knew I wasn’t going to go back to my old job
3:10 and so here I am Max is 9 days old when one of um my good girlfriends who you
3:17 know was a client became a girlfriend called me up and said and she was the
3:23 CEO of a large healthcare organization that just purchased another large health
3:29 healthcare organization and we’re you know
3:33 integrating those two organizations and she called me up and she said Okay
3:38 Suzanne have you started your own business yet because I have some
3:42 recruiting for you and I go Paula you know I here’s Max you know literally on
3:50 me at all times nine days old and I said okay Paula I can get a business license
3:57 I will start my own company and I’ll do some recruiting here and there and
4:02 really again not intentionally starting a business so I think Max was two weeks
4:10 old when we got our business license Johnny at the time is 10 he helped me
4:15 write our did our website Mike my husband is an attorney who did our
4:21 business license and and the corporation and things like that and we started and
4:28 so we measure I measure everything of Acumen to Max’s age mmhm so by the time he
4:35 was 3 and a half months old I hired my first employee I think he was five and a
4:41 half months old our second employee and again I wish it was a better story but
4:47 it all fell together and you know and and it’s Acumen today yeah yeah 17 years
4:55 later 17 years later I mean how many people can say that they had had the
4:59 energy and the chutzpah to start a company while they’re breastfeeding I
5:04 mean really interesting and and so um so is there I I know you know you’ve had a
5:11 really interesting uh you know career path uh but is there anything whether
5:16 it’s personal or professional uh anything else that people don’t know
5:21 about you oh my goodness you know it it’s interesting
5:26 because we place people at that director level in a and we work with such good
5:31 leaders I would say for me as a leader I recognize that I’m a very poor
5:38 manager and and people always go well you have such long tenured employees
5:44 take you Molly you know 10 years this is amazing but it’s it’s recognizing I
5:51 think your own weakness and hiring that and I don’t want to say that bridge or
5:57 that person to fill the gaps necessarily but like for me knowing I
6:02 don’t enjoy managing when when I left Corporate America I had 32 people
6:09 directly and indirectly reporting to me and I was young and half of them
6:16 probably 70% were older than me and it was I I didn’t enjoy it and I didn’t
6:23 love it so again looking at Acumen not only are we all women but I also knew my weakness and I think
6:33 that’s what a good leader has to understand we we don’t have it all you
6:38 know we have weaknesses and strengths and mine was really managing people so
6:45 there it made me hire people that didn’t need management that you know whether
6:52 it’s you Michelle Chris you know anybody Tanis it’s it’s allowing them
7:00 the runway to really create their own sense of responsibility you know to
7:08 to not need that management so I think if there’s one thing I’ve learned is to
7:13 recognize where your weakness is and to hire to make that a stronger unit
7:21 together I I don’t think you give yourself enough credit because part of
7:25 leadership is getting the right people on the bus and letting them kind of do
7:29 their thing and having their their their backs and being able to uh you know
7:34 infuse your years of of wisdom you know and uh give them the tools and what they
7:39 need to be successful and the training to be successful and that’s something
7:42 that you do you know very very very well yes yes so give yourself some credits
7:48 you’re actually much better than you think you are well you’re saying that
7:52 because you don’t need management I need some we we definitely
7:58 have to collaborate and and we’re I think the whole team we’re really good thought-partners
8:03 together and an extremely collaborative approach so absolutely yeah yeah and and
8:08 not transactional it’s all everything we do is very relationship driven um but uh
8:14 so what do you attribute so we’re going on 17 years uh now right September yeah
8:22 so 17 years what do you attribute Acumen success to oh boy I think you said it beautifully it’s those
8:31 relationships and what we do is really an art and a science that people think
8:37 recruiting you’re matching a with b or you’re looking at a resume and you’re
8:42 doing a checklist but that’s not what we do you know we have after all these
8:48 years developed such a sound methodology and we call it our nine-step process and
8:54 it’s really understanding these soft cultural attributes to the company to
9:00 the leader to the position and equally as important to the team and so again
9:08 it’s yes people have to have certain skills and qualifications but it’s really about
9:14 aligning both you know the the goals vision values and making sure that alignment is
9:22 there between the organization and the the candidate and I go back 17 years ago we
9:30 created this tagline and it’s We Listen We Care We Deliver and we haven’t changed our
9:39 tagline we’ve changed a lot of things that we haven’t changed yeah and so when
9:45 you break that down and you go we listen it’s all about the questions that
9:51 you ask it’s we care I love what we do I mean I we’ve we talk about it all the
9:59 time we not only change companies but we change individuals lives every day which
10:07 then impacts our community that we live in and that’s the care yeah we truly do
10:13 care and then we deliver you know we measure everything and we have such success stories
10:20 that it it’s it’s amazing to see how this has grown and one growth is hiring for good and
10:29 looking at hiring for good and what does that mean so it’s it’s building trust
10:35 it’s working in a collaborative environment and making a difference and
10:40 I think uh like the global networks and and they trusted networks right it’s
10:45 it’s uh what we do is not transactional it’s relationships that have been built
10:49 over 17 20 30 40 years so that uh I think sets us sets acument apart and a
10:57 lot of people like talk about the AI and how AI is going disrupt recruiting it will
11:03 never disrupt what we do because yes AI is a tool a tool we use even
11:09 today but with those relationships and really listening to the
11:16 nuances what is said and equally as important what isn’t said right and
11:23 matching and hearing that and coming from that perspective of I’ve been a
11:28 hiring manager you’ve been a hiring we’ve all been hiring managers and have
11:34 seen how one person can raise up an organization or how one person yeah can
11:41 hurt an organization and um I’ve heard people sometimes refer to uh recruiters
11:47 or search professionals as uh candidate therapists but really it’s it’s both the
11:53 the the the candidate therapy and the leadership or hiring manager team
11:59 therapy because you know sometimes you have to be able to go in there and help
12:04 really get at what they really need and for a candidate is this is this really a
12:10 next step for them is this something that’s going to make sense and really
12:13 elevate them for the rest of their lives you know it’s a big it’s a big job so
12:17 well in 17 years we have seen these placements that we’ve done then and you
12:22 look at the career path of some candidates and they have said to us
12:28 years later you put me in that position that launched me into this second half or
12:35 this next chapter and again it’s it’s amazing the impact that we do yeah and
12:41 then I love the fact that we have the trusted consultants around us so if if
12:46 organizations need to get deeper uh that um you know if they need a a deeper
12:52 bench of of consultants that can go in and do things that are um more specific
12:57 to their needs and a little bit outside scope that you know we bring we bring
13:01 you know those concentric circles of expertise with us too so um anyway
13:07 wanted to to to mention our our partners as well absolutely wonderful you’ve
13:12 developed a wonderful partner partner ecosystem as well um so what would you
13:16 say are some of your proudest achievements in terms of this impactful
13:19 search work that Acumen’s done over all these years oh my goodness I mean I I a
13:24 number of clients and placements come to my mind we’ve placed people in living
13:30 buildings that are pushing sustainability we’ve placed people with
13:35 counties and governments that actually build bridges we have done again amazing
13:44 amazing organizations but I will say there’s I’m going to give you one
13:49 example Molly of a time that where I think really highlights us and and why
13:56 somebody would call Acumen in um I went to a small organization I think there
14:02 was probably about 30 people um and and it’s a female owner who who has been doing her business for
14:11 30 35 years and she said I really need a CFO and as we went in and we talked and
14:20 we kind of talked through why she thinks she needed a CFO when she had a
14:25 part-time CFO through uh CFO services and a really strong controller and as we were talking about
14:35 roles and responsibilities and what she likes her transition her succession plan
14:41 I looked at her and I said I don’t think you need a CFO I think you need an
14:46 operations person to take away a lot of the stuff you don’t want to do right and
14:53 you are already paying for a CFO consultant why don’t you have that CFO
15:00 consultant really train up your controller and teach him how to become
15:07 to the next level and she looked at me and she said wow yes this makes sense
15:15 well the person we placed just celebrated her third year yeah we’re
15:19 working on two positions with them they continue to grow the owner is so happy
15:25 because she gave up a lot of those operational responsibilities she did not want to
15:32 continue doing and when we got the call to do a new recruitment she said
15:39 you again you pushed us into a path that 3 allowed us to grow yeah and if I would
15:45 have just taken an order for a CFO and play I mean again I think that’s why I feel
15:53 like we’ll never be replaced with AI and a great example of really how we
15:59 differentiate really understanding the the business needs and yeah need to do
16:05 right by right by the client and understand their their needs and their
16:09 business really holistically exactly and you do that all the time you know we do
16:12 that all the time make those recommendations even if they aren’t
16:15 necessarily in our favor you know um so uh let’s see here so so who
16:22 would you say are your ideal clients oh my goodness we we laugh about this and I
16:28 again being all women and being fairly subjective but we do really look at this
16:34 and I remember there’s been a time Molly that you’ve said no I don’t want them as
16:39 a client and as a salesperson you know that’s a that’s hard to hard to but
16:45 number one here’s the subjective requirements do they value their
16:49 employees yes you can walk in and talk to a CEO in 2 minutes you know they value
16:57 their their employees or they don’t mmhm two do they value US do they understand
17:02 that we came from business we were hiring managers and we chose
17:09 recruiting you know we we all had these 2 careers and probably three which is the
17:15 most subjective of all would we want to work for that person or that
17:20 organization and that’s when Molly you’ve stepped in and said I don’t want
17:24 to work I would never want to work for this person and then we walk away
17:29 sometimes we’ve done that yes yes because you don’t want you know people
17:33 to to to pay for search work that uh if you’re going to have a revolving door
17:38 things need to need to change at the top really leadership starts at the top and
17:42 they need to um if they don’t value your people you know you’re going to keep
17:46 placing and placing and placing and placing it’s going to be a revolving
17:49 door so I think that’s something that’s worked really well um and I think the
17:53 majority it’s it’s not very often we say no we’re not going to take a client but
17:58 and they have to be ready for the change too is another piece of it so uh so uh
18:04 yeah well most importantly we want to kind of tie all this up with you know
18:09 what does “Hiring for Good” mean to you Suzanne wow I think it’s all of the
18:15 above again you look at what we do the impact the change the elevation of of
18:26 people and I’m really proud of what we have done just in the last couple of
18:32 years that almost 70% of our placement have been of women and of people of
18:37 color and to give them opportunities and again it it affects the organization it
18:44 affects the individual but it really affects our community yes yes and I
18:50 wouldn’t change anything yeah those again those concentric circles of of
18:54 influence and and the way one one one leader one great leader can really
18:58 change the face of an organization and it just ripples out from there and it’s
19:02 really exciting to see it yeah it is you know and and helping the most vulnerable
19:07 in in in the community it’s been exciting to see a lot of those
19:09 initiatives it’s been exciting to see a lot of those that are supporting uh you
19:13 know sustainability and um you know other initiatives that are you know just
19:18 good for our community and good for our planet good for good for Oregon and
19:23 hiring for good and hiring for good and hiring for good yes yes yes um and how
19:28 can people get in touch with you if they you know want to reach out maybe they
19:32 know what they want maybe they aren’t quite sure you know what they want they
19:37 know they need some level of leadership but they’re not you know quite sure what
19:40 that looks like how can they reach out to you or how can they connect with you
19:44 yeah being you know a small boutique we’re we value that personal touch and
19:49 that high touch and that high value and I would say just shoot me an email I
19:54 mean it’s Suzanne@acumenexecutivesearch.com
19:59 and if I can’t help it’s always who who can help yeah yeah absolutely yeah
20:06 generally can put you in touch with whoever the experts that you need and uh
20:11 most often they’re us but not always so not always so thank you Molly this was
20:17 so much fun yeah this was fun this was fun you needed to be highlighted and
20:20 celebrated because 17 years a lot of search firms don’t don’t stick around
20:24 that long so we’re very you know very very grateful for the what put together
20:29 with this organization you say I put together it’s a team it’s been team it’s
20:34 been team I tell you I’ve I’m so proud of all of us and grateful to all of you
20:40 so thank you we’re grateful to to do this work with you on a day-to-day basis
20:44 it’s it’s a real honor thanks for joining us today at hiring for good if
20:48 you were inspired by our conversation don’t forget to like follow and
20:52 subscribe wherever you get your podcast and if you want to learn more about our
20:56 Executive Search Services check us out at www.hiringforgood.net or our
21:02 company website Acumen executive Search thanks so much and don’t forget to join
21:07 us next time for another in-depth conversation about transformational
21:11 leadership until then have fun