Corporate & Investment Finance Search
C-Level Operating Company Search
We quickly understand the candidate profile our clients need
Our highly efficient search process has been fine-tuned over decades
Our agility means we execute searches quicker than our competitors
Our placements have earned investors billions.
Many of our placements have remained with their employers for over 20 years
Whether you are an investor seeking great investment returns, a capital provider looking to grow earnings and/or enter new markets, or an operating company looking to improve performance, your better future starts the day you engage with us.
We’ve made hundreds of placements into capital providers and investors
We’ve completed over 100 C-level operating company searches
Our placements have helped create over 40 liquidity events
All told, our placements have earned investors billions
Our Experience
We’ve made our investor clients billions. How’s that for hyperbole? Except that it’s true. Our investment professional and portfolio company C-level placements have achieved billions of dollars in investment returns. We have substantive experience with private equity, institutional investors, real estate, hedge funds, family offices and money managers. In our investing market we have filled roles, from Managing Director all the way down to Analyst.
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We have helped corporate banks, specialty lenders and investment banks grow earnings and market share and expand into new markets and geographies. We have helped institutional investors with both debt and equity investing roles. Here again, we have filled roles from Managing Director down to Analyst.
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Our operating company placements have led rapid growth, buy and build, carve out, restructuring and post-bankruptcy successes. We’ve assisted family-owned, owner-manager, private equity, distressed investor and public companies.
We have executed corporate searches in a multitude of industries, including manufacturing, distribution, chemicals, fabrication, oil and gas, oilfield services, midstream energy, power, industrial services, commercial services, agriculture, technology, transportation & logistics, consumer products, restaurant, retail, health care services and financial services.
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Some of the clients we have assisted over the years
Our Approach
Every company has a unique and dynamic culture. With over forty years of search experience, we can quickly understand all relevant search variables, identify the candidate markets to target and evaluate candidates who match the needs of our clients.
We have been building a broad and deep relationship pool for four decades. When tapped for a search, this relationship network is invaluable to finding candidates and backchanneling references.
How good would you be at your job if you’d done it for decades? Over decades of executing searches provides us with a highly productive search process. Experience has taught us how to strategically cast our nets for candidates as well as understand how to evaluate them relative to our client needs.
As a boutique search firm, we are much more agile than our larger competitors. We execute projects with a laser focus. Our search projects are very often completed much faster than the industry average.
About Us
As the eldest of six children, Doug Leyendecker started “overseeing” his siblings at a very early age. Both of Doug’s parents worked to pay for six kids, so he was drafted early into an “HR” and “chore recruiter” role in the family.
Doug carried his people evaluation, recruitment and job assignment responsibilities through grade school, where he was a player and team manager for several city championship sports teams, and then into high school, where he was elected president of the National Honor Society.
An accounting degree from the University of Texas and a short stint at public accounting firm Arthur Andersen were a brief distraction on Doug’s natural path to executive search.
Leyendecker launched in 1981 serving the CPA market. A few years later, Doug and team were fortunate to stumble upon the nascent world of private equity, then called leveraged buyouts. Our effort would eventually evolve into a primary focus on the corporate and investment finance markets. In time, this positioned us to complete C-level searches for operating companies.
Everything we do at Leyendecker is rooted in the values of honesty, integrity, thoughtfulness and elevated service to everyone, both clients and candidates. This is the ethos that the entire Leyendecker team strives to meet and maintain.
At Leyendecker, your better future is at the core of what we work to achieve. We want our clients to experience improved investment and operating results. We want our placements to stick around for decades. And we want to provide highly productive career, market and job counsel to every candidate that connects with us.
While our primary service is to help create better futures for our clients and candidates, we also seek ongoing opportunities to serve the community that has served us so well. We routinely donate to the Houston Food Bank and Star of Hope Mission in Houston. For many years, we’ve been committed supporters of the Association for Corporate Growth and the Young Professionals in Finance of Houston. As an avid fly fisherman, Doug is a Life Member of Trout Unlimited. Our community service also includes pro bono C-level charity search work as well as a forthcoming project to raise money for a rural community.
Our Team
Doug has completed numerous searches for C-level corporate executives and senior corporate and finance professionals. He has significant experience finding executives for the portfolio companies of private investors. In addition, Doug has completed multiple searches for Investment Bankers, Investment Managers, Corporate Bankers and Alternative Investors. After obtaining a BBA in Accounting from the University of Texas at Austin, Doug began his professional career in the assurance department of Arthur Andersen & Co.
Jim Ford has been on the Leyendecker team for over twenty years. Jim has executed a multitude of searches for private equity portfolio companies, owner managed companies and public companies. In addition, Jim has significant experience serving the buy-side and sell-side investment markets. Jim holds a BBA in Accounting from the University of Texas at Austin and began his professional career in the accounting field at a global energy firm.
David has been on the Leyendecker team for over fifteen years. David focuses on the developing professional market in investment banking, corporate banking, private equity and public company markets. Prior to entering the search profession, David spent nine years with Continental Airlines in finance roles. He began his career in the assurance practice of Ernst & Young. David, a licensed CPA, obtained his MBA from the Jones Graduate School of Management at Rice University and his BBA from the University of St. Thomas. A native Houstonian of Cuban descent, David is fluent in Spanish.
Kelly has been on the Leyendecker team for over ten years. Kelly leads our branding, marketing and communications outreach effort, which includes our weekly newsletter and occasional thought pieces from our founder. Kelly holds a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business.
Our Knowledge
With over forty years of providing search services, particularly to private equity investors and their portfolio companies, we’ve learned a lot about leadership and operating company management. We publish monthly articles on subjects such as The Best CEO Attributes, Picking Great CFOs, Leadership Resilience, Leadership Due Diligence, Juicing EBITDA, Developing a Brain Trust and much more.
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