Leyendecker & Associates

Many of our placements have remained with their employers for over 20 years Whether you are an investor seeking great investment returns, a capital provider looking to grow earnings and/or enter new markets, or an operating company looking to improve performance, your better future starts the day you engage with us

We’ve made hundreds of placements into capital providers and investors We’ve completed over 100 C-level operating company searches Our placements have helped create over 40 liquidity events All told, our placements have earned investors billions

The depth and breadth of our experience enables us to understand the big picture as well as the nuanced aspects of each search engagement

We’ve made our investor clients billions How’s that for hyperbole? Except that it’s true Our investment professional and portfolio company C-level placements have achieved billions of dollars in investment returns We have substantive experience with private equity, institutional investors, real estate, hedge funds, family offices and money managers In our investing market we have filled roles, from Managing Director all the way down to Analyst

Our Search Capabilities Have Proved Successful Across the United States

Some of the clients we have assisted over the years

Our Decades of Search Experience Mean You Get Better and Faster Hiring Results

A Thoughtful Search Process

Every company has a unique and dynamic culture With over forty years of search experience, we can quickly understand all relevant search variables, identify the candidate markets to target and evaluate candidates who match the needs of our clients

Benefiting From an Enormous Relationship Network

We have been building a broad and deep relationship pool for four decades When tapped for a search, this relationship network is invaluable to finding candidates and backchanneling references

Backed by Decades of Process Refinement

How good would you be at your job if you’d done it for decades? Over decades of executing searches provides us with a highly productive search process Experience has taught us how to strategically cast our nets for candidates as well as understand how to evaluate them relative to our client needs

Structured for Faster Search Completions

As a boutique search firm, we are much more agile than our larger competitors We execute projects with a laser focus Our search projects are very often completed much faster than the industry average

As the eldest of six children, Doug Leyendecker started “overseeing” his siblings at a very early age Both of Doug’s parents worked to pay for six kids, so he was drafted early into an “HR” and “chore recruiter” role in the family

Doug carried his people evaluation, recruitment and job assignment responsibilities through grade school, where he was a player and team manager for several city championship sports teams, and then into high school, where he was elected president of the National Honor Society

An accounting degree from the University of Texas and a short stint at public accounting firm Arthur Andersen were a brief distraction on Doug’s natural path to executive search

Leyendecker launched in 1981 serving the CPA market A few years later, Doug and team were fortunate to stumble upon the nascent world of private equity, then called leveraged buyouts Our effort would eventually evolve into a primary focus on the corporate and investment finance markets In time, this positioned us to complete C-level searches for operating companies

Everything we do at Leyendecker is rooted in the values of honesty, integrity, thoughtfulness and elevated service to everyone, both clients and candidates This is the ethos that the entire Leyendecker team strives to meet and maintain

At Leyendecker, your better future is at the core of what we work to achieve We want our clients to experience improved investment and operating results We want our placements to stick around for decades And we want to provide highly productive career, market and job counsel to every candidate that connects with us

Giving Back to Our Community

While our primary service is to help create better futures for our clients and candidates, we also seek ongoing opportunities to serve the community that has served us so well We routinely donate to the Houston Food Bank and Star of Hope Mission in Houston For many years, we’ve been committed supporters of the Association for Corporate Growth and the Young Professionals in Finance of Houston As an avid fly fisherman, Doug is a Life Member of Trout Unlimited Our community service also includes pro bono C-level charity search work as well as a forthcoming project to raise money for a rural community

Doug has completed numerous searches for C-level corporate executives and senior corporate and finance professionals He has significant experience finding executives for the portfolio companies of private investors In addition, Doug has completed multiple searches for Investment Bankers, Investment Managers, Corporate Bankers and Alternative Investors After obtaining a BBA in Accounting from the University of Texas at Austin, Doug began his professional career in the assurance department of Arthur Andersen & Co

Jim Ford has been on the Leyendecker team for over twenty years Jim has executed a multitude of searches for private equity portfolio companies, owner managed companies and public companies In addition, Jim has significant experience serving the buy-side and sell-side investment markets Jim holds a BBA in Accounting from the University of Texas at Austin and began his professional career in the accounting field at a global energy firm