An introduction to our private equity recruiting practice

In recent years, private equity funds and their portfolio companies have come to represent the majority of Charles Aris’ client base across a variety of functional practice areas. One of our largest functional practices is our strategy recruiting practice, where we have consistently placed current and former consultants into key strategic leadership roles in private equity, either at the fund level or within portfolio companies. From 2018 to 2022, our firm has partnered with 137 different private equity firms to complete 548 searches either at the fund or portfolio level.

Ashlee Wagner, a vice president and practice leader at Charles Aris, spent the last five years of her career launching and leading the firm’s financial services strategy recruiting vertical. Now, after handing the reins to Jacob Watkins, she’s pivoted her focus to expanding our capabilities for private equity firms’ internal recruiting needs. Joining Ashlee in the private equity fund-level recruiting vertical are senior associate practice leaders Jonathan Goffredi and Clifton Vaughan, who will lead the practice regionally on the West Coast and in the Northeast, respectively. Together, they are building the largest recruiting practice focused on placing current and former consultants into investing and portfolio operations roles at leading private equity firms.

Located in San Francisco, Jonathan Goffredi is focused on placing top strategy talent into fund-level roles at private equity, growth equity and venture capital firms. Jonathan originally joined Charles Aris in 2017. In his earlier tenure with the firm, he was a key member and instrumental player in accelerating the growth of the private equity strategy practice. He left Charles Aris after a few years to apply his recruiting toolkit in venture-backed startups, most notably at Patreon. Now, combining his experience operating at startups and a successful track record in private equity recruiting at Charles Aris, Jonathan rejoined the firm as a senior associate practice leader to grow its West Coast presence with private equity and venture capital firms.

Clifton Vaughan joined Charles Aris in 2020 and quickly gravitated to the world of strategy and private equity. In his time at the firm, his work has centered around partnering with private equity clients, having placed 40 candidates in portfolio operations and investing roles at the fund level. Clifton recently relocated to New York City to grow the firm’s presence in the Northeast. Clifton will be deepening our expertise placing current and former strategy consultants into fund-level investment and operational roles, primarily in New York and Boston.

If you’re interested in learning more about our private equity fund-level recruiting practice, contact Ashlee Wagner at (336) 217-9142 / ashlee.wagner@charlesaris.com, Clifton Vaughan at (336) 217-9133 / clifton.vaughan@charlesaris.com or Jonathan Goffredi at (336) 217-9158 / jonathan.goffredi@charlesaris.com.