“I don’t like confrontation,” admits David Barrett, a prominent figure in executive recruitment and the founder of David Barrett Partners. This might seem surprising for someone who built a successful career on, in part, delivering less-than-favorable news to job applicants. “I’m passive-aggressive — but when it goes, I explode.”
This candid self-assessment comes from the genial leader of David Barrett Partners, a firm renowned for its influence in placing top-tier executives within the world of institutional investing. Barrett recounts a past incident with lingering frustration, illustrating a rare, albeit memorable, lapse in his professional composure.
“I actually blew up a great ten-year relationship with Bank of America in, probably, 2006,” he recalls. “These HR bureaucrats keep making us compete, making us compete, and frankly, it was immature. I had done, like, 15 searches for this group. The person doing the screening didn’t know anything about the market, but he wanted me to drop names. I could’ve dropped names until the cows came home, but I refused to do it. So they didn’t give us the search because another firm, they said, ‘gave much better market perspective.’ So I just lost it on the hiring manager and the internal recruiter. I just lost it. Blew up a ten-year relationship.”
The outburst, documented in writing via email, was a “total loss of control,” Barrett acknowledges. Reflecting on the incident, he concedes, “You learn something every day. No matter how long you’ve been in the business, the client is always right. That was an expensive lesson.”
Yet, Barrett admits that the eruption also provided a sense of catharsis. “I’d kissed their ass for ten years. There was no feeling of partnership or respect. You’re just a vendor.”
For David Barrett – the executive recruiter institutions like Harvard turn to when seeking an endowment CEO – being perceived as merely a vendor strikes a deep nerve. Top institutions invest significantly in David Barrett Partners, valuing their bespoke client service and exclusive access to a select pool of candidates. The firm’s discerning eye for talent has undeniably shaped the landscape of institutional investing.
However, the question lingers: can David Barrett Partners maintain its dominant position in the ever-evolving world of executive search?
The Ascent to Dominance in Executive Recruiting
Dominance, particularly in the competitive field of executive recruiting, as with financial fortunes, can erode gradually and then suddenly. Since 2011, David Barrett Partners has consistently demonstrated its prowess, placing leaders at the helms of endowments for prestigious institutions including Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, and Emory, among numerous other prominent universities. Even luminaries like Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan entrusted David Barrett Partners to identify their inaugural chief investment officer, as did the Catholic Church for its newly established $3 billion health foundation. Barrett’s clientele extends beyond academia and philanthropy, encompassing weapons contractors, Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, and even children’s hospitals.
One investor, recently placed by David Barrett Partners, notes, “Two or three years ago, David just started getting every big endowment and foundation search. And once you get a bunch of big accounts, it kind of snowballs. Investment committees are all about covering their bases. If all your peers used David Barrett Partners, you won’t get in trouble for hiring them too.” This observation underscores the powerful interplay of momentum and brand recognition, particularly within specialized niches like institutional investing where executive hires are infrequent but critical.
However, this success is not without inherent constraints. Clients expect exclusivity; they do not want their retained recruiter poaching talent they have already secured or conducting searches that directly compete with their own interests. Reputable headhunting firms understand these nuances, often necessitating them to forgo potentially lucrative business opportunities and promising candidates to uphold client confidentiality and trust. For instance, when David Barrett Partners was engaged in the search for Emory’s new investment chief, a similar position opened at the University of Virginia. To maintain ethical standards and client exclusivity, David Barrett Partners had to decline consideration for the University of Virginia contract. Furthermore, any candidate placed by a recruiter becomes, in effect, off-limits for future recruitment by that firm.
“You can only be hired once by David Barrett,” the aforementioned investor points out. While this individual expresses no immediate desire to leave their current role, they recognize the potential long-term implications. What if an investor’s “one shot” placement was early in their career, perhaps as a senior analyst? David Barrett Partners was established in 2005, meaning that initial placements are now potentially re-entering the market, some seeking their second major career move. This creates a growing pool of experienced investors that David Barrett Partners, bound by industry ethics, cannot directly approach.
Established recruiters generally adhere to a set of unwritten rules: no overlapping searches within the same niche, no poaching from existing clients, and a single placement per candidate’s career within their network. The less diversified a firm’s client base and candidate pool, the more these self-imposed limitations can restrict growth. David Barrett is acutely aware that the continued expansion of David Barrett Partners depends on diversifying its institutional clientele. Pension funds represent a logical avenue for expansion. However, within certain endowment circles, associations with pension funds are sometimes perceived as less prestigious. Consequently, David Barrett Partners is strategically focusing on global expansion to tap into new markets and client segments.
Navigating Diversity and Evolving Industry Perceptions
Another crucial aspect of diversification lies in candidate selection. The upper echelons of asset management have historically been dominated by a demographic profile that is overwhelmingly white, privileged, and male. In an era of heightened social awareness and scrutiny, many recruiting firms, including David Barrett Partners, are publicly emphasizing diversity as a core priority – or at least articulating that commitment. In the context of movements like #MeToo and growing concerns about income inequality, relying on homogenous networks for talent acquisition, such as recruiting primarily from elite alumni circles, presents a problematic image.
James Houston of Prince Houston, a competing executive search firm, observes, “It’s no longer a little cottage industry. There was a time when doing work for endowments and foundations was like a musical chairs game. You would take a person from endowment A and put them at endowment B, and then you replaced [that person] with somebody from C. Now there is a much greater need for creativity, and we think there are broader sources of candidates.”
Critics of David Barrett Partners suggest that the firm still operates within a somewhat insular ecosystem, potentially overlooking exceptional investors who lack the “right” pedigree. “He’s a snob,” one consultant bluntly states. “If you don’t already work at Princeton, he won’t give you the time of day.”
Indeed, when David Barrett Partners conducts searches for prestigious institutions, successful candidates often originate from similarly elite organizations. Furthermore, the data reveals a significant gender disparity in placements. Out of 34 chief investment officer and CEO placements reported by David Barrett Partners, 30 were men. Across all institutional searches conducted by the firm, nine women were placed compared to 58 men. Notably, a single client, Bowdoin College, accounted for four of the female placements, none of whom reached the C-suite level.
“We’re very proud of our diversity recruiting,” counters Barrett, referencing internal statistics from David Barrett Partners. According to these figures, 32 percent of all placements since the firm’s inception have been women and/or people of color. “I think our major strength relative to other search firms is that we’re credible and trusted by the candidate pools. We’re not the classic mercenary headhunter who will return your call just when we have a search. We literally are the only firm that has that type of credibility. David Barrett Partners looks far and wide for creative talent.”
Barrett’s confidence in what some might consider “traditional” candidates might stem from his own career trajectory. Over three decades ago, he was himself a sought-after prospect.
“He was tall, good-looking, captain of the squash team at Yale,” recalls Russell S. Reynolds Jr., a pioneering figure in Wall Street recruiting and the founder of Russell Reynolds Associates. Reynolds first encountered a young David Barrett in the 1980s when Barrett joined his firm. Russell Reynolds Associates served as a formative training ground for many of today’s leading investment headhunters, including James Houston and his partner Marylin Prince. “Russell Reynolds Associates is where we both learned the craft of executive recruiting, and it was a really great training ground,” Prince explains. “What David Swensen did at Yale, Russ did for the search business.” The model was to identify promising talent, provide rigorous training, instill core values, and then release them into the industry.
Reynolds established his eponymous firm in 1969 with a modest $10,000 investment. At that time, recruiting was not yet recognized as a formal profession, and the term “executive recruiting” was not in common usage. “There were some very unflattering terms, like ‘body snatcher,’” recalls Hank Higdon, an industry veteran and now vice chairman of RSR Partners, a firm founded by Reynolds after he sold Russell Reynolds Associates. “‘Headhunter’ was certainly a pejorative term.”
In the nascent days of the industry during the 1960s, “it was unprofessional,” Higdon states. “Anybody could do it because it was an easy business to enter. No capital requirements, no certification, no graduate degrees, no licensing, no regulation. With a nickel and a phone booth, you could get into the business, and that’s how some people did.”
Russell Reynolds sought to elevate the profession, establishing stringent principles that became industry benchmarks. As outlined in his book Heads: Business Lessons from a Search Pioneer, these principles included: abstaining from poaching clients from previous employers, avoiding direct solicitation of business, refraining from advertising, and operating exclusively on a retainer basis. Among reputable recruiters, aggressively pursuing new business is still considered unseemly. At Prince Houston, for instance, approximately 96 percent of their search engagements originate from existing clients or referrals.
Reynolds also championed the recruitment of bright, ambitious individuals from diverse professional backgrounds. His own career began in Wall Street banking. “Then I became somewhat restless, because I was a redhead,” he jokes, before establishing his search firm. Presenting a polished image was, and arguably remains, important in the industry. “Quality attracts quality,” Reynolds writes. “I felt appearances were an important part of this.” The Russell Reynolds Associates’ early Park Avenue offices famously featured a Steinway piano in the reception area. “I tended to hire recruiting professionals who were fit and had a strong handshake,” Reynolds notes. While substance has gained prominence, Reynolds, now 87, observes, “There are an awful lot of people now who are more nerdish — they don’t see the big picture. We like people who come from good schools with a B or B+ average, rather than an A+ average from Carnegie Mellon or MIT.”
David Barrett possesses two Ivy League degrees, yet the 6’3″ former athlete defies any “nerdish” stereotype.
“I was the first ne’er-do-well who did not go into the family investment business,” Barrett quips. As the eldest of three siblings, he initially anticipated taking over Barrett Asset Management, following in his father’s footsteps. A Yale graduate in 1981, Barrett spent two years as an analyst at Brown Brothers Harriman, followed by an MBA from Columbia Business School. He then relocated to Los Angeles, beginning his career as an electric utilities analyst at TCW Group.
Barrett’s tenure at TCW was brief. Finding the subject matter uninspiring, he accepted a job offer in 1986 that led him into a different direction. “My father was like, ‘Wait, didn’t I just pay for a college and business school, and now you’re what? A headhunter? What the hell is that?’” John Barrett II, now 83, eventually reconciled with his son’s career choice. A seasoned portfolio manager himself, he likely recognized that his charismatic and athletic son was not ideally suited for the intricacies of utilities analysis.
Hank Higdon claims to have been instrumental in bringing Barrett into the executive search industry. Barrett considers Higdon his closest mentor. The younger recruiter spent nine years honing his skills at Russell Reynolds Associates before joining Heidrick & Struggles, another prominent corporate search firm, in 1995. “I don’t think David was happy [there],” Higdon suggests, echoing Russell Reynolds Jr.’s sentiment. “I don’t think the people were as top-quality as they were at Russell Reynolds Associates.” Higdon contends that the firm’s culture shifted towards prioritizing placement volume over client service quality. In 2003, Barrett resigned.
Higdon, then operating his own boutique firm, brought Barrett on as a full partner, renaming the firm Higdon Barrett. The firm’s short two-year lifespan suggests that the partnership was not ultimately successful. Barrett, known for maintaining professional relationships (Bank of America notwithstanding), handled the dissolution with characteristic diplomacy. He invited Higdon to lunch at the Yale Club and conveyed his decision to depart. The two men retain mutual respect.
“When David Barrett resigned, he did it honorably and aboveboard, and it was graceful,” Higdon recalls. “He told me he wanted to run his own firm, and 100 percent of it. I just said, ‘Thank you and good luck.’ I was disappointed, because I had hopes and there were arrangements made. But his father is an entrepreneur — it runs in the family.” For a profession centered on orchestrating seamless transitions for executives, recruiters themselves often encounter less graceful departures. Disagreements and accusations are not uncommon. For example, some prominent figures in asset management search have faced allegations of attempted client poaching. “Some other people who have left didn’t leave as honorably as David did,” Higdon pointedly remarks.
Barrett did not attempt to solicit Higdon Barrett’s clients, but he subsequently began to win them over through the strength of his own firm, David Barrett Partners. When Stanford University sought a CEO for its investment office in 2005, Higdon Barrett conducted the search. A decade later, when that CEO departed, Stanford turned to David Barrett Partners.
The Unique Culture of David Barrett Partners
Those who have visited David Barrett Partners’ Manhattan offices are struck by its distinctive atmosphere. Like many executive search firms, David Barrett Partners is discreetly located near Grand Central Station. However, stepping inside reveals a veritable shrine to the New York Yankees. Vintage Yankee Stadium seats adorn the lobby, and baseball memorabilia – bats, balls, photographs – fill nearly every corner of Barrett’s office. Remarkably, the Manhattan office houses only a fraction of Barrett’s extensive collection, which is primarily housed in a dedicated building – affectionately nicknamed “the Shrine” – on his property in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Less conspicuously displayed, on a shelf above an office desk, are David Barrett’s other “trophies”: a neat row of collegiate baseball caps, each representing a successful endowment or foundation search completed by David Barrett Partners.
However, Harvard’s endowment CEO turnover rate is not sufficient to solely sustain David Barrett Partners’ payroll. Investment firms and banks also contribute significantly to the firm’s revenue, even if these placements do not carry the same brand-building prestige as the high-profile institutional searches. “Sophisticated users of search know how to manage search firms,” Barrett explains. “It started with Goldman. The big asset managers — especially on the third-party side — had realized they have the power. There are eight gazillion folks who call themselves headhunters. Even at the high end, where we work, there are seven or eight firms. These big firms do almost anything” for asset manager search business, according to Barrett. In fee negotiations, “they’ll cave immediately” and accept a cap or flat fee, he asserts, “but they won’t lead with it. We do. Because nine out of ten times, it’ll get negotiated.”
For the coveted institutional searches, fees are secondary to a recruiter’s reputation and track record. A foundation or ultra-high-net-worth family, engaging in executive search infrequently, relies heavily on brand reputation and compelling presentations. The infrequent nature of these engagements complicates price comparisons. However, industry insiders suggest that top-tier firms – David Barrett Partners, Russell Reynolds Associates, Prince Houston, Spencer Stuart, Korn/Ferry – tend to operate within a similar fee range. Barrett and his peers are reticent to disclose specific figures. “We know how much it costs to do a search, and we know what’s reasonable in the market,” Barrett states.
Increased competition, both human and technological, has compelled recruiters to elevate their service offerings. However, at the highest echelons of executive search, there is little apprehension about technological disruption. While platforms like LinkedIn have democratized aspects of recruitment, they pose minimal threat at the level where David Barrett Partners operates. When a sovereign wealth fund needs a CEO to manage $100 billion, the cost of securing the right individual – or ensuring due diligence – far outweighs a $200,000 search fee. At this level, the stakes are simply too high for algorithms to replace human judgment and nuanced assessment. If David Barrett Partners loses an elite search mandate, it is to a competitor firm, not a technological algorithm. And David Barrett Partners has experienced very few losses in recent times.
For example, on a brisk Friday in January, Barrett returned to New York on a red-eye flight from London, radiating triumph despite the overnight travel.
Shortly before Christmas, David Barrett Partners had pitched for and won the prestigious contract to recruit the next chief investment officer for the University of Cambridge. Barrett returned to London in mid-January to collaborate with his London-based team and engage directly with the new client, immersing himself in the intricacies of the search.
The preceding fall, Cambridge’s previous CIO, Nick Cavalla, had resigned along with a significant portion of the investment staff – a challenging situation for the university, but potentially advantageous for David Barrett Partners, reducing internal stakeholders and potentially creating further recruitment opportunities. While Barrett does not always personally oversee every international search – that is the purpose of having offices in London and Hong Kong – the Cambridge search holds particular significance. It represents a major victory in David Barrett Partners’ strategic initiative to expand its global brand presence.
David Barrett Partners remains a relatively unknown entity to the general public – even within Wall Street circles, and especially internationally. Yet, the firm will play a pivotal role in determining the candidate pool for Cambridge University’s top investment position. This entire process unfolds discreetly, involving only Barrett, his London team, the university’s selection committee, and a team of executive assistants. The individual ultimately appointed as CIO will gain oversight of Cambridge’s £3.3 billion ($4.3 billion) endowment, instantly becoming one of the most influential investors in the UK.
The Exclusive World of Elite Recruitment
Winning a search conducted by David Barrett Partners translates to significant wealth and professional prominence for the selected candidate. Despite the emphasis on candidate respect and acknowledging job market challenges, the reality is that firms like David Barrett Partners operate within a highly exclusive ecosystem. Their primary responsibility is to serve their clients, not to provide broad-based career counseling.
“I could have unemployed friends and family, one-degree-of-separation folks, in my office every half-hour, ten hours a day, including weekends,” Barrett acknowledges, highlighting the constant demand for career advice directed at individuals in his profession. Marylin Prince of Prince Houston admits that she often avoids disclosing her profession at social gatherings to circumvent a deluge of unsolicited resumes. The core function of these elite firms is to serve the needs of their clients – institutions seeking top-tier talent – not to function as a general employment agency.
The most effective strategy for securing a role through David Barrett Partners? Already be employed in a prestigious position, ideally at an institution like Princeton.
