The National CIO Review: Issue IV.I - Joe Gross, President of CIO Partners? and Talentric?

Q&A: Joe Gross, President of CIO Partners and Talentric on Leading a Full Ecosystem of Talent Acquisition Services

By: H. Michael Burgett

Since 2014, Joe Gross has served as President for CIO Partners?, a nationally recognized retained search firm with a niche practice in hiring top technology talent for their clients. Recently he also assumed the role of President of Talentric?, a talent acquisition partner that works with businesses to implement customized hiring solutions across their enterprise.

In this issue, Joe walked us through his career path, from starting off as a technical recruiter, to moving into the RPO world, and then to his current role. He shared his team’s success in delivering legendary customer service for both clients and candidates during the hiring process. Joe also shared some tips on building a team as a hiring manager and advice for attracting top level talent into a high performing organization.

Tell us about your current role for CIO Partners and Talentric. What do you do for your organization?

I currently serve in a dual role as president of CIO Partners and Talentric. CIO Partners has been in business for nineteen years and Talentric is entering its third year in business. These brands complement each other well and offer a variety of solutions in the talent industry.

As president, I lead the business development and practice development areas in both companies. I also lead the delivery organization where we have created a Recruiting Center of Excellence in our Atlanta office. The alignment of those two functions are crucial in supporting our relationships with clients and candidates.

Explain the rationale behind your career moves, how did you progress to lead your current organization?

After college, I entered the job market into a role as a technical recruiter with a company called Paragon, which was a partner for AT&T in New Jersey. My father had a relationship with the company and worked with their consultants regularly. Working with Paragon blended what I had learned from a technology standpoint in college with the enjoyment that I have in working with people. As they expanded down the East Coast, I transferred to Orlando, then to Jacksonville, and finally to Atlanta.

From there, I progressed into a branch management role with an industry competitor. I then moved into the Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) sector with a company that supported multi-billion dollar organizations in their large hiring initiatives. In 2009, I decided to leave the industry and was recruited by a former client of mine to Recall, an organization that focused on document management, data protection, digital transformation and secure destruction. I led sales in the southeastern region for five years until there was a shakeup in the industry and I began considering other options.

Interestingly at that time, I was contacted by Mike Burgett, a recognized figure in the Atlanta entrepreneurial community. I had developed a great relationship with Mike over the years and we had kept in touch. He was looking for someone to lead the day-to-day operations of CIO Partners. It was an interesting opportunity as I did not have a great deal of experience in retained search, but I was willing to take on the challenge and learn. In 2015, I began a partnership with Mike, and here we are in 2020, where I continue to lead CIO Partners and have been recently entrusted to grow another one of our companies, Talentric.

Describe the difference in business models between CIO Partners and Talentric. 

CIO Partners is a traditional executive retained search firm. A key differentiator is that CIO Partners focuses solely on IT leadership, assisting clients with recruiting efforts and placements for the top IT roles in their respective organizations. This may include chief information officers, chief technology officers or senior vice presidents of IT. We go further by partnering with top IT leaders to build out their leadership teams at the VP and director levels. CIO Partners will also assist clients with interim CIOs on project-based work or where they may have gaps in leadership.

Our sister organization, Talentric was really born out of a similar process as CIO Partners. Talentric performs retained searches for functions outside of information technology such as supply chain and logistics, finance, human resources to name a few. Talentric also offers unique solutions such as Search Augmentation? that focuses on middle management and individual contributor roles within and outside of IT. With both companies, we have truly developed a full ecosystem of talent support for our client partners.

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The author, H. Michael Burgett has more than 25 years of experience in the technology sector. He is the founder of CIO Partners, a nationally recognized executive search firm with a niche in the technology sector specializing in top-level leadership engagements. He can be reached at [email protected].

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