Spotlight: TJ Deal reflects on his path from associate recruiter to chief growth officer

In January, the Charles Aris leadership team announced that TJ Deal will be stepping into a new role as the company’s first chief growth officer (CGO) and will be tasked with leading organic and inorganic growth strategy for the firm.

Deal began his Charles Aris career as an associate recruiter and worked his way to practice leader, vice president, managing director and now CGO.

Deal cut his teeth in recruiting but found his niche in business development and practice structuring while building the firm’s corporate development recruiting practice, merging this practice with the finance and accounting recruiting teams and helping to scale and launch numerous other practices across the firm.

As CGO, Deal plans to continue growing existing practices but also build new ones via acquisitions, investments and de novos.

History and beginnings at Charles Aris

TJ grew up in North Carolina, attending UNC Chapel Hill as a political science major. After graduating college in 2014, he worked for his family’s military distribution business until joining Charles Aris in 2015.

He admits the learning curve was steep to become a successful recruiter, but he ultimately found success by fully embracing the firm’s 14-Step Priority Search Process and developing his own niche in corporate development recruiting.

After earning his promotion to practice leader and then to vice president, he established a more formal corporate development vertical where he broke the firm’s record for personal net billings in the course of one calendar year.

TJ scaled the corporate development recruiting team to become the largest such practice in the industry. He then went on to merge that practice with the accounting and finance recruiting teams, ultimately rebranding as the Finance & Corporate Development Practice.

Today, this practice completes over 100 searches a year for private equity portfolio companies, finding CFOs, corporate development executives, FP&A leaders, controllers, etc.

Expansion outside of finance and corporate development

TJ helped build a best-in-class finance and corporate development recruiting practice that laid the foundation for current associate recruiters to join him as future organizational leaders.

Recognizing these accomplishments, CEO Chad Oakley and President/COO Allen Oakley asked then managing director TJ Deal to assist in revamping the firm’s legacy Engineering & Operations Practice.

TJ helped restructure the practice’s strategy, hire a new practice leader and find new opportunities for business development in this space, setting the team on an upward trajectory.

He continues to lead on this front and is excited to keep supporting the practice group, which serves as one of the most consistent recruiting areas under the Charles Aris functional umbrella.

He also built the business plan for Aris Amplify, a new division at Charles Aris focused on middle- and senior-level contingency recruiting.

Promotion to CGO, plans for the future of the firm

In early 2025, firm leaders agreed that TJ’s history and vision for the firm merited his formal promotion to CGO, where he would continue to assist existing practices with business development and uncover new growth opportunities inside and outside of Charles Aris.

TJ says acquisitions are on the table, and they would likely entail purchasing small, specialized firms and integrating them with existing Charles Aris practices. He’s also interested in expanding Charles Aris service lines.

Charles Aris now operates two businesses in addition to executive search: Aris Amplify, the contingency search division, and Charles Aris Transaction Services, which focuses on sourcing founder-led business acquisitions for private equity investors.

Both businesses were long-time goals of the firm and having them up and running has opened the door to discussing even more new business opportunities.

Looking even further into the future, TJ is confident that Charles Aris will become an even larger business. He helped establish a second headquarters in Washington, DC in 2021 and wants to add more offices throughout the United States as the team expands.

With ambitious growth plans on the horizon, Deal is appreciative of everyone who’s supported his path, including the Oakleys and the finance and corporate development leadership team, who stepped in to help guide the practice to success as he pivoted to focus on strategic planning for the firm.

Overall, he says his transition to CGO has been an organic evolution, and he is excited to help Charles Aris grow and develop far into the future.

To learn more about Charles Aris Executive Search, contact TJ Deal at tj.deal@charlesaris.com.