THE

TALENT
STUDIOS

Kelli Telling
2/12/21
THE The Talent Studios’ core belief is that
the key to transforming businesses
TALENT is talent as the ability to acquire and
STUDIOS mobilize unparalleled talent creates
MISSION a new competitive advantage in the
marketplace
REDEFINING THE
CONVENTIONAL
TALENT SEARCH
SPECIALTIES
• Turn-around planning & execution
• Hybrid leadership roles
• Doing more with less –
The Force Multiplier effect
of exceptional talent
As the HR Chief & Chief Talent Officer of
Apple, Inc. and Co-Founder of The Talent
Studios, Dan Walker proved the
extensibility of human capital-driven
businesses by transforming a near-
bankrupt Apple thru a revolutionary
executive People strategy. Beginning in
1999 and continuing over the next six
years, Dan’s work and the resulting talent
flow thrust Apple from the brink to the
most coveted brand and organization in
the world. The lessons and talent search
methodology from Apple serve as
examples of our approach, as well as the
core DNA of our company.
 CASE STUDY –
HONOR
Andreessen Horowitz engaged
The Talent Studios to conduct the
COO search for its app-based
consumer service technology
investment, Honor. Honor
provides on-demand care for
senior citizens, deploying aides to
homes in real time. We then
conducted Honor’s its Head of
Service Supply search.

Investors include Jessica Alba,

Ron Johnson, and Mark
Andreessen, Max Levchin.
 CASE STUDY –
SOYLENT
Andreessen Horowitz and Google
Ventures engaged The Talent Studios as
an executive search provider to its
consumer investment, Soylent.

The digital direct-to-consumer meal

replacement supplement has become
one of the top 5 grocery items on Amazon
and has already gone $0-100M in sales
in several years. We completed searches
for CEO, Chief Financial Officer, Chief
Product Officer search and its Chief
Marketing Officer search. Soylent has its
best quarter ever in Q4 2020.
CASE STUDY –
SPANX CASE STUDY
CASE STUDY–FACEBOOK
The Talent Studios is
working closely with
Spanx Founder Sara
Blakely and is the
company’s primary
executive search partner.

We are presently
conducting a VP-IT search
and recently placed a Vice
President of Talent
Acquisition.
CASE
PHILZ STUDY
CASE STUDY–
COFFEE
Summit Partners and TPG Capital
retained The Talent Studios as the
exclusive executive search provider to
Philz Coffee. San Francisco-based Philz
is one of the country’s fastest growing
coffee brands and retail chains and has
location inside Facebook and Twiiter
Headquarters.

We have thus far placed its Chief People

& Customer Experience Officer and Chief
Digital Officer as well as their VP-Growth
Strategy and VP-Retail, VP-Finance.
 CASE STUDY –
WHATIFI
Andreessen Horowitz engaged The Talent
Studios to conduct the search for a Chief
Content Officer for its mobile content
platform investment, WhatIfI.

WhatIfI is a social streaming content

studio and tech platform in which friends
can simultaneously watch TV and Feature
film content on their mobile devices and
decide which direction the story heads.
Its “story hacking” or Choose Your Own
Adventure for the 21st Century. WhatIfI
will be a mobile-first short-form content
platform competing with. Board is led by
Netflix CFO David Wells.
 CASE STUDY –
CUYANA
H.I.G. Growth/H.I.G Capital has engaged
The Talent Studios as the sole executive
search provider to its $30M clicks to
bricks digitally native vertical fashion
brand, Cuyana.
Based in San Francisco with 4-wall
flagship stores on both coasts, Cuyana
produces premium handbags,
accessories and apparel. We recently
completed the search for Cuyana’s Head
of Finance.
CASE STUDY –
EVERLANE
L Catterton, the largest pure consumer
PE firm globally, engaged The Talent
Studios to conduct the search for VP-GM
of Direct Digital Commerce at Everlane.
Founded in 2010, Everlane has grown
rapidly to become one of the largest
digitally-native apparel brands in the
world. Everlane is built on an ethos of
sustainability and of radical
transparency. The brand commands
deep brand loyalty across all customers.
Everlane has grown to a team of ~250
employees with revenues over $200M.
 CASE STUDY –
STEELSERIES
L Catterton engaged The Talent Studios
as sole executive search provider to its
Chicago-based gaming peripherals
(headsets, mice, keyboards) investment
Steelseries. We conducted CFO and SVP-
Sales and Chief Digital Marketing Officer
searches.

Steelseries ranks #163 on the Internet

Retailer 500. L Catterton successfully
sold Steelseries to PE firm Axcel partner.
Our SVP-Sales hire is approaching year 5
of her tenure and has stayed on with new
owner.
 CASE STUDY
CASE STUDY – PURE
BARRE
L Catterton) engaged The Talent Studios to
conduct the Chief Marketing Officer search
for its fitness portfolio company, Pure Barre
Fitness.

Pure Barre has 427 studios across North

America, and as a robust experiential lifestyle
brand also has lines of accompany apparel,
accessories and digital content. The lead
marketer will be manage omni-channel
consumer engagement and enabling Pure
Barre’s passionate community.
CASE STUDY –
FISKER
Global PE firm Apollo
Management just engaged The Car Designer Henrik Fisker Lost His First Race With Elon Musk.
Talent Studios on a nine-search He Wants to Go Again.

deployment to build senior

leadership team of Electric
carmaker Fisker Automotive with
car launching Q4 2022. Apollo
facilitated a $1B investment in
Fisker via SPAC.

We have thus far placed a Head

of Operations (Amazon), Head of
Digital Product (Microsoft) and
Head of People (Hulu).
 CASE STUDY –
CASE STUDY
BOXYCHARM
Private equity firm Karp Reilly chose
The Talent Studios as the sole provider
to its pure digital direct-to-consumer
subscription beauty box business,
Boxycharm, (Inc 5000 #176)

We’ve placed the Chief Operating

Officer and Chief Marketing Officer and
in the last 36 months the business has
grown from $20M to $250M in
revenue, and is one of the top 75
fastest growing vertically native digital
retailers according to Internet Retailer.
Boxycharm was successfully acquired
by IPSY last month for $500M.
 Eric Kau Kathy Mayor
Career History Career History
BOXYCHARM BOXYCHARM
Chief Operating Officer 2018 – Present Chief Marketing Officer 2019 – Present

MSH Talent Solutions

Chairman, Advisory Board 2020 – Carnival Cruise Line
Consultant to Chief Information Officer 2018 – 2019
Chewy
Senior Vice President & Chief Digital Officer 2018 – 2018
Vice President - Merchandising Operations 2016 – 2018
Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer 2016 – 2018
Director of Merchandising 2014 – 2016

Las Vegas Sands Corp.

Amazon
Global Senior Vice President of Strategy, CRM & eCommerce 2015 – 2016
Senior Vendor Manager 2012 – 2014
Global Vice President of CRM and Loyalty Marketing 2011 – 2015

Consilium Capital Group Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives 2008 – 2011

Founder and Managing Partner 2010 – 2012

Caesars Entertainment Corporation

Best Buy Director & Operations Associate to the CEO 2007 – 2008

Manager, Biz Dev & Strategic Alliances 2011 – 2012 Director & Executive Associate to the SVP of Development 2005 – 2007

Target McKinsey & Company

Business Partnerships & Negotiation Leader 2010 – 2011 Business Analyst 2000 – 2002

Negotiation Expert 2009 – 2010

Procter & Gamble
Senior Business Analyst 2007 – 2009
Assistant Brand Manager 1998 - 2000
Senior Import Coordinator 2006 – 2007

Education Education
University of Minnesota - Carlson School of Management, Masters, MBA – Strategy 2011 Harvard Business School, Masters, MBA 2004
University of Wisconsin - La Crosse, Bachelors Degree, Marketing & Management 2005 Ateneo de Manila University, Bachelors Degree, Management Engineering 1998
BOXYCHARM – 2018 Inc 5000 #176
 Jun 1, 2020,09:57am EDT

From $375 To The Newest Unicorn In Beauty: How Joe Martin Built Boxycharm.com

Joe Martin started his first business in 2004 with $375 when he
was an international student at a community college in Florida.
He built this business to more than $10 million in annual sales by
2012. He used $500,000 in profits from this business to start
Boxycharm.com in 2013. Martin now controls and leads a beauty
company with sales of approximately $250 million in 2019, is on
track to hit $500 million in annual sales in 2020, and is
considered to be the largest full-size beauty-box business in the
world. This is how he did it.
 CASE STUDY –
WHIPLASH
PE firm Endeavor Capital engaged
The Talent Studios to conduct the
CEO search for its software
investment, Whiplash.

Whiplash provides a backend

supply chain technology platform
for the most successful native
digital DTC brands in the world
(Goop, FIGS, Net-a-Porter,
Betabrand)
CASE STUDY –
CASE STUDY
SMARTYPANTS
VITAMINS
In the course of several years, Stance has
gone from $0-$100M in revenue and is both
PE firm North Castle Partners enlisted The
the official on field sock of MLB and the
Talent Studios as the sole executive search
NBA. The companies influencers includes
partner to SmartyPants Vitamins, the native
cadre of cultural icons coined “The Punks
digital then click to bricks, fastest growing
and Poets,", including Jay-Z, Rihanna,
vitamin assortment across all channels.
Dwayne Wade, Louif Paradis. Chris Cole,
SmartyPants was recently #294 on the Inc
Chris Grenier, etc.
5000.

The Talent Studios is working with Stance

Over 3 years, we placed SmartyPants’ Chief
and its lead investor, Kleiner Perkins in
Financial Officer, COO, VP-Marketing, VP-
building
, VPout
DTCitsCommerce
Direct-to-Consumer executive
Sales and are now
team.
working on Chief Product Officer.
Smartypants was successfully acquired by
Uniliever last month.
CASE STUDY
CASE STUDY – LULUS
Institutional Venture Partners (IVP)
engaged The Talent Studios is the sole
executive search provider to vertical
digitally-native fashion brand, Lulus. The
brand will turn $250M in annual revenue
this year and has been ranked amongst
the top 75 performing pure digital
brands within the Internet Retailer 500.

We recently conducted functional

leadership searches for Operations, Data
Science, Growth/Performance Marketing
and Finance.
 CASE STUDY –
HITRECORD
VC firm Canaan Partner has
engaged The Talent Studios to
conduct a Chief Revenue
Officer search by for Emmy
Award-Winning film and TV
actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s
digital content company,
HITRECORD. HITRECORD acts
as a digital community creative
collaboration platform.

Ubisoft recently partnered with

HITRECORD to crowsource
music for both Watch Dogs:
Legion and Beyond Good & Evil
2.
 CASE STUDY –
CUYANA
PE firm H.I.G. Growth/H.I.G Capital has
engaged The Talent Studios as the sole
executive search provider to its $30M
clicks to bricks digitally native vertical
fashion brand, Cuyana.

Based in San Francisco with 4-wall

flagship stores on both coasts, Cuyana
produces premium handbags,
accessories and apparel. We recently
completed the search for Cuyana’s CFO
and Head of Operations.
 CASE STUDY –
STANCE SOCKS
The Talent Studios is working with Kleiner
Perkins and Stance Socks ($175M) in building
out its Executive team, including a merchant-
centric VP-Ecommerce.

In the course of several years, Stance has gone

from $0-$100M in revenue and is both the
official on field sock of MLB and the NBA. The
companies influencers includes cadre of
cultural icons coined “The Punks and Poets,",
including Jay-Z, Rihanna, Dwayne Wade.
 CASE STUDY –
WATTPAD
Wattpad (90M MAU) is the
Toronto-based mobile app and
digital content community
platform for global storytellers
and authors to create and share
enigmatic written user generated
content.

Receiving over $117M in funding

from investors including Tencent
Holdings, Wattpad-sourced
content has been made in film’s
and TV series, including Netlix’s
The Kissing Booth.

We are currently conducting

Wattpad’s search for a Chief
Content Officer.
CASE STUDY –
CUSTOM INK
VC firm Revolution Growth
engaged The Talent Studios to
conduct a marketing leadership
search for its investment,
Custom Ink. The native digital
DTC brand is #116 on the
Internet Retailer 500 and the
pure direct-to-consumer digital
business is a 6-time Inc 5000
honoree.

The Talent Studios placed the

VP-Marketing, who came from
Dell’s Direct Digital Business.
THE TALENT STUDIOS

HOW WE OUTPERFORM
METRIC-DRIVEN
SEARCH VS.
“The Network”
MoneyBall for Executive Search

Long-term outcomes over

traditional search measured and
validated
TARGETING COMPANIES BASED ON ESTABLISHED KPI’S OF DIGITAL MARKETING EFFICACY
 IAB Digitally Native Top 250 Brands

The 2019 IAB 250 Direct Brands to Watch combines data from sources including Dunn & Bradstreet, Rival IQ, and CB Insights to
capture the relative position of the direct-to-consumer businesses within the specified domain. This presentation lists KPIs (site
traffic, social media footprint, media mentions) included in the ranking algorithm and identifies the seven primary characteristics of
direct brands.
 VALIDATING SEARCH OUTCOMES
Examining The Talent Studios’ Performance by
Understanding the Significance of Velocity-to-Fill

Number of days into the search that consultant engaged the candidate who went on to win the role

120 140 160 120 140 160 120 140 160

100 180 100 180 100 180
80 80 80
200 200 200
60 60 60
220 220 220
40 40 40
240 240 240
20 20 20
9 DAYS 260 12 DAYS 260 4 DAYS 260
0 0 0

CFO CFO CFO

Soylent Steelseries SmartyPants Vitamins
CULTURE AS
A FILTER FOR
SELECTION
Utilizing Organizational
Psychology Principals as a
Search Modality

Schein’s Levels of Culture

Edgar Schein
SAMPLE CANDIDATE REPORTING
 BACKGROUND OF PROPOSED SEARCH TEAM
Jeremy Cohen
MA – Columbia University (Org. Psych)
BA – University of Pittsburgh
- Former youngest Principal at DHR
International (Big 5 Search)
-Talent contributor to Inc. Magazine,
Mashable and FastCompany
Kelli Telling
MBA - University of Southern California
BA - University of California (Berkeley)
-Co-Founded The Talent Studios in 2011
-Former Fortune 500 and Big 4 Public
Accounting Operator
-Talent contributor to Transworld Business

-Kelli Telling, Top-20 MBA, Graduated from the Management Program at General Electric, operator experience in Sales,
Finance/Accounting, Operations Analysis and Supply Chain. Former Deloitte Business Risk & Assurance consultant to
CEO/CFO’s, both Fortune 500 and privately held industry leaders
-Jeremy Cohen, career-long executive search professional, expert in organizational behavior and integrating top-
pedigreed executive talent into unique and dynamic company cultures – approach has produced lasting results at
enigmatic consumer brands
-The Talent Studios works solely across the consumer spectrum, within digitally-enabled consumer service
businesses, omni-channel retail, pure e-commerce, fashion & apparel, food & beverage, fast-moving CPG, beauty
and entertainment/content. Common threads amongst our clients are the need to address and engage consumers
across channel, convert them thru the purchase funnel to customers and to engender loyalty and advocacy over
time.
 THE
TALENT
STUDIOS

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