Financial focus: How Ryan Morgan serves his consumer clients' hiring needs

Honesty, integrity and open communication serve as the mold for any good financial professional. After all, clients place their monetary well-being in the hands of these experts.

In addition to effective communication skills, financial leaders must possess an acute attention to the finest of details, with a particular expertise on their area of focus. Each stone must be individually turned and the know-how to address even the most irregular road blocks must be attained.

This is senior associate practice leader Ryan Morgan and the mold in which he has created the Consumer Goods & Durables focus within the Finance & Accounting functional practice at Charles Aris Executive Search.

A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Ryan joined the Greensboro community as a venture-backed tax services associate in 2006. There, he handled duties ranging from tax preparation to litigation and resolution with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and state tax authorities. He later embarked on his own journey as co-founder and director of operations and finance at a similar organization.

Ryan joined the Charles Aris team in the summer of 2011 as an associate recruiter. With seasoning in the world of executive search, he began to develop rapport with Charles Aris senior vice president Jim Etling, leader of the Private Equity Portfolio and Finance & Accounting functional practices at the firm.

The opportunity to engage in director and C-suite level financial searches proved invaluable, as Ryan became a mainstay in the firm’s Finance & Accounting recruiting efforts. Over time, Ryan elevated to senior associate practice leader, which came with additional responsibilities to build a recruiting practice of his own.

The Charles Aris Finance & Accounting team: Ryan Krumroy, Jim Etling and Ryan Morgan

“From the start I knew I wanted to stay in the finance and accounting side of our firm,” Ryan said. “Working on both the financial and accounting side of an organization presents two very different processes. One function looks to the future, the other focuses on the past. Both arenas require very particular skill sets and the location of clients looking to build their financial and accounting teams was critical in the practice’s early development.”

“The biggest hurdle early on was figuring out the best markets to enter. What is the appropriate sized client to engage with? Do I target specific industries or the financial operation of companies across various functions? Who will best value the level of talent we can identify? Those were all important questions I had to answer early on.”

To best serve the array of finance and accounting needs of the firm’s client base, Ryan strategically aligned his business development efforts with Jim Etling’s. A senior vice president at Charles Aris and former private equity chief financial officer, Jim primarily focuses on placing top talent in CFO roles for PE backed portfolio companies. Together, Ryan’s practice focuses on the level below the CFO, primarily placing talented FP&A and Controller level professionals.

“Jim and I work incredibly well together and our goal is for Charles Aris to become a one-stop shop for all of our client’s finance and accounting hiring needs,” Ryan said.

Now a thriving operation, Ryan’s practice has successfully placed a variety of leaders across the Consumer Goods & Durables industry. “Building a base of A-level professionals throughout a financial department is critical for my client’s long-term success in the goods and durables space, and my primary goal is to help elevate those companies by attracting and placing the world’s best talent in those roles.”

“I know the function, I speak it and I have lived it. I am paid to be an expert in the art and science of search and locating great financial and accounting leader.” As one of the best in the executive recruiting world for identifying A-level financial talent, Ryan Morgan is ready to provide your organization with the industry’s best.

To learn more about his recruiting efforts across Finance & Accounting in the Consumer Goods & Durables industry, call Ryan Morgan at 336-378-1818, extension 9105, or email him at ryan.morgan@charlesaris.com.