ERIC GUSTAFSON
Founder/President & Consultant
Eric founded the firm in 2010 and has over twenty five years experience in senior executive recruitment for private and public multinational organizations, nonprofits, USA subsidiaries of Asian and European companies, and the operating holdings of private equity firms. The firm has been named a Forbes America's Best Executive Search Firm based on Forbes' survey of clients and executives.
MULTIPLE INDUSTRIES | MULTIPLE FUNCTIONS
Eric recruits in technology, industrial, consumer markets, and adjacent others. Clients are advantaged by his multiple function and industry expertise for recruiting superior talent from leading competitors and/or those portable from relevant industries. He recruits CEOs, Presidents and General Managers, their direct reporting C-level functional heads, and key subordinates at Director and Senior Director levels.
Eric's clients often engage him for newly created positions which require a multi-functional and omni-channels understanding of the future-state business objectives in order to successfully identify, attract and assess talent that is capable of thriving within critical, yet less well defined circumstances.
EXECUTIVE SEARCH & INDUSTRY CAREER
Prior to founding Access Point Partners, Eric was EVP of a senior search and M&A advisory firm and a pre and post-IPO Senior Partner/Practice Leader in the New York City office of Korn/Ferry International. At K/F, he was a Consumer and Industrial Practice member and the NA Technology Electronics & Systems Sector Practice Leader. He was K/F certified in Management Assessment consulting and executed searches as a hands-on search consultant without delegating strategy and execution to the firm's junior recruiters. Eric's career began in energy firm Ashland Inc. and he was President of a small private PC and IT solutions firm.
COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES
Eric has been a member of the Japanese-American Chamber of Commerce & Industry of New York, the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce, and serves on the Advisory Board of B.R.A.V.E. a Gold Star Parent-founded nonprofit that advises military veterans on career goals and entrepreneurial ventures. He and his family have been supporters and volunteer officers in A Better Chance, the non profit educating disadvantaged city youth, and other charities.
PERSONAL
Born on a USAF base in France, Eric has lived and worked in the northeast, southeast, and mid-west regions of the United States. He is a graduate of Lafayette College where he played Division 1 basketball. He and his wife reside in the greater Washington, DC area and have two young adult daughters.
BA, Economics w/concentrations in finance & sociology, Lafayette College
SHARE A MEMORABLE SEARCH CONVERSATION?
I'd flown to England to meet the billionaire inventor/founder of a consumer tech company. Having completed a tour, our conversation in his office began with him saying, "In order for me to decide whether I want to have you recruit for us, I have a question of you. If you were a dog breed, Eric, which one and what does that say about you?"
I replied, "Well, we have two Airedale Terriers, which you'd recognize as a British breed used in WWI and as police dogs. If you look up their personality, it's described like this: Airedales have a big heart, courage, and while they don't start fights, they will finish one. Yes, that's me."
Laughing loudly, the CEO replied, "Well, then, let's get started working together."