Three verticals.
Twenty-eight years.
No shortcuts.

The race to build custom silicon for AI inference, training, and physical intelligence is the defining technology opportunity of this decade. We've been recruiting for chip companies since before "AI accelerator" was a standard job title — placing executives at hyperscaler internal chip efforts and VC-backed startups competing with established players.

We understand what separates a VP of ASIC Engineering who can architect from scratch from one who can only optimize existing designs — and we know which one a Series B startup actually needs. We've placed engineering, product, and commercial leaders across the full stack: NPU architecture, SRAM interfaces, HBM integration, physical design, DFT, and silicon validation — as well as silicon photonics, custom compute, and advanced packaging.

Physical Intelligence — embodied AI systems that sense, reason, and act in the physical world — is redefining the boundary between software and hardware. We recruit for companies building autonomous systems, medical devices, and AI-enabled diagnostic and surgical tools, where leaders must navigate hardware-software co-design, regulatory pathways, clinical validation, and the commercial dynamics of selling into health systems and enterprise customers at once.

We also understand the frontier of Fully Homomorphic Encryption — the ability to compute on encrypted data without decrypting it — well enough to evaluate leaders from cryptography, ASIC engineering, cloud security, data center infrastructure, and enterprise software backgrounds, and to assess which combination of skills a specific company actually needs.

Representative engagements include Niobium Microsystems, Applied Brain Research, Xenter, and additional stealth-stage companies working on inference accelerators, edge AI silicon, Physical Intelligence platforms, and next-generation infrastructure for AI — backed by top-tier venture capital.

Since the late 1990s, we've built leadership teams for some of the most important companies in the semiconductor capital equipment ecosystem — from the global giants who define the roadmap to the challengers developing the next generation of tools.

We cover the full equipment stack: deposition (CVD, PVD, ALD), Etch, DUV/EUV/nanoimprint lithography, Advanced Packaging, Wafer Test & Burn-in, Wafer Inspection, and In-line Metrology. We understand process physics, customer yield economics, tool reliability engineering, and how to navigate the sales cycles and relationship dynamics at the world's most demanding fabs.

That same depth extends to advanced materials and compound semiconductors. The transition to advanced nodes, wide-bandgap devices, and novel substrates is creating a new generation of materials companies at the intersection of physics, chemistry, and device engineering. We recruit for companies developing GaN, SiC, InP, and next-generation substrate technologies, as well as advanced materials for packaging, thermal management, and photonics.

This is science-forward executive search. The leaders who succeed here need deep technical credibility alongside the business judgment to commercialize fundamental research — and we know how to assess the difference between genuine depth and surface familiarity.

Representative clients include public companies such as ASM International, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Nanometrics, alongside materials and compound-semiconductor leaders like Kepler, Boston Materials, Applied Silver, and HZO, plus dozens of growth-stage private companies tackling advanced-node challenges.

Not every company we serve is a chip company — but every company we serve is a technology company. Over nearly three decades, we've built leadership teams for enterprise software, networking, communications, digital platforms, and technology-enabled services businesses where the caliber of executive talent is the difference between capturing a market and losing it.

These engagements typically come through long-standing relationships with founders, boards, and investors who trust us with critical hires outside our core semiconductor domain. We've placed CEOs, CMOs, CFOs, and functional VPs at companies ranging from venture-backed startups to publicly traded enterprises — including Cradlepoint (acquired by Ericsson), Juniper Networks, VAST Data, Good Technology (acquired by BlackBerry), Twitter, Hayneedle (acquired by Walmart), and Apple.

We bring the same rigor to these searches that we apply in semiconductor: understanding the business deeply, building a real candidate profile rather than a job description, and reaching executives who aren't actively looking. The difference is that here, our value is relationship capital and process discipline — not domain-specific technical fluency.

Representative clients include Cradlepoint, Juniper Networks, VAST Data, View, weBoost, Ten-X, Amobee, Twitter, GigCapital, Good Technology, Hayneedle, and ProQure.