Rick Gray, CEO, TalentRISE
Rick Gray brings an unique blend of recruitment industry experience and insight, professional services branding expertise, and operational acumen to our firm."
Chicago, IL (PRWEB) February 18, 2015
Retained executive search, on-demand recruiting and management consulting firm TalentRISE today announced that Rick Gray has joined as chief executive officer to execute on the company’s business plan and lead the development and implementation of its longer-term growth strategy.
“Rick brings a unique blend of recruitment industry experience and insight, professional services branding expertise, and operational management acumen to our firm,” said Carl Kutsmode, TalentRISE managing partner. “I am very excited that he is taking the lead for our next phase of growth, freeing me to spend more concentrated time in the field with clients as we strategically expand our footprint locally and nationally, and further differentiate our offerings.”
Gray, 58, previously managed the operations of Gray Talent Group, a leading Chicago-based talent agency representing professional actors performing locally, and in New York and Los Angeles. His responsibilities there included operations management and infrastructure, human resources and professional development, marketing support and long-range planning. Prior to that, from 2003-2012, he served as chief marketing officer of Hudson, a specialized recruitment and talent management firm serving clients and candidates in nearly 20 countries. As a member of the firm’s global leadership team, he built the Hudson brand globally, recognized the vast market opportunity in recruitment process outsourcing, and effectively leveraged the web for business lead generation.
Earlier in his career, Gray led the Midwest Professional Services practice at Ogilvy PR Worldwide, primarily serving global accounting firm client Deloitte. In addition, he was chief marketing officer of Lante, a leading web development and consulting firm during the dot-com market frenzy; managed public relations globally for management consultants A.T.Kearney; and headed the Midwest Advanced Technology practice at Hill and Knowlton. Gray received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and Sociology from Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, in 1978, and serves on the Board of TimeLine Theatre Company in Chicago.
“There is a tremendous market opportunity at TalentRISE to help further build the growth and industry distinction of this high-performance team and its enviable client base,” said Gray.
ABOUT TalentRISE LLC
TalentRISE is a Chicago-based management consultancy and recruiting services firm focused on helping companies transform their business through talent. As talent management consultants, the firm partners with clients to help them assess, align, optimize, outsource and/or transform their talent acquisition strategies, systems and processes to best meet and support changing business needs. As recruiters, TalentRISE provides cost-effective, project-based contract recruiting and retained executive search support and scalability to clients’ internal recruitment capabilities for both planned and unexpected hiring spikes related to M&A, organic growth, strategic business expansion, or other corporate change initiatives.
