Jay Gaines

Jay Gaines is President and CEO of Jay Gaines & Company. He founded the firm in 1982 and is widely respected as one of the top professionals in executive search. He is recognized for performing demanding, mission critical, high level searches.

His search work includes recruiting CEOs, Presidents, CFOs, CIOs, and other executive management team members spanning financial services, the information industry, software services and technology, and manufacturing.

He has had considerable impact shaping senior leadership teams and enjoying close partnerships that often span decades.

The signature characteristic shared by Jay and the firm is an engaged and thoughtful approach that often challenges the assumptions of clients and candidates. His insight, passion and integrity in the partnering process have become well-recognized trademarks of his work.

A core belief is that the work of executive search, candidate assessment and selection are based on overly subjective, often serendipitous processes that produce inconsistent results. To this end, he has led the firm to strive for more predictable outcomes by continuously developing and refining the search, assessment, and client engagement processes.

At different times, he has initiated dialogues with the Organizational Psychology department within the Teachers College at Columbia University and others to combine behavioral observations and tactical insights from the search process with more formal organizational psychology principles.

Jay recently served two terms on the Board of Directors and Americas Council of the Association for Executive Search Consultants. He frequently speaks at client events and industry sponsored initiatives, and is often cited in the press.

Jay was recognized and cited in every major study of leading professionals in executive search. He has been listed in Who's Who in America and cited in The Global 2000 Executive Recruiters. In all three editions of John Sibbald's The Career Makers, a key source book on executive search, Jay is ranked as the top information technology recruitment professional, among the top five professionals in the securities and commercial banking industries, as well as within several functional disciplines.

In 2008, Jay was recognized and profiled in the top 50 of BusinessWeek's "World's Most Influential Headhunters."

Jay received a B.A. in Psychology from George Washington University and a M.S. in Industrial Psychology from Columbia University. He began his career in executive search in 1972, having served with two small search firms prior to launching Jay Gaines & Company in 1982.