Riviera Partners Closes 2018 with 50 Percent Growth

on 03 | 20 | 2019

SAN FRANCISCO — March 20, 2019 – Riviera Partners, the leading retained search firm specializing in VP and C-level engineering, product and design leader placements, today summarized its 2018 performance with 50 percent growth, aggressive expansion in New York, and the appointment of four seasoned recruiters as partners. Riviera Partners is sought after by companies whose success depends on transformative use of technology.  With its focus on technology leadership, Riviera is able to reduce risk and accelerate the time to hire for these organizations.

Unlike traditional executive placement firms, Riviera Partners leverages a state-of-the-art, proprietary software and artificial intelligence platform to recommend  the most relevant candidates for career opportunities. The platform uses machine learning algorithms, which are trained against decades of technology recruiting experience and data, to identify specialized, highly-qualified candidates and their key success indicators that fit an organization’s explicit and implicit needs.

In order to meet increasing market demands, the company also promoted four key directors to partner including Isa Guardalabene, Jason Hann, Sandy Ma, and Sophie Thomas. The move will support Riviera Partners aggressive growth and the company’s strong belief that organic team development equates to long term success.

  • Isa Guardalabene specializes in placing engineering executives at early and growth stage companies such as Getaround, Blend, Tonal, and Planet Labs.
  • Jason Hann focuses on placing senior level engineering leadership at public companies such as GitHub and Five9, as well as Venture backed companies like Caffeine, Course Hero, and SmithRX.
  • Sandy Ma has expertise in engineering and product leadership roles at the Director, Sr. Director, and VP (for succession planning) levels for high growth companies including DoorDash, Grubhub, Amplitude, and PagerDuty.
  • Sophie Thomas specializes in helping mid- to late-stage companies scale and has worked with clients such as Autogrid, Databricks, Glassdoor, Nuro, Thumbtack, NimbleRx, Shipt, Twilio, and RigUp.


“This group of technology veterans are on the front lines when it comes to market trends and emerging technologies that are shaping tomorrow’s most successful companies,” said Will Hunsinger, CEO, Riviera Partners. “Their expertise and relentless focus on excellent client services, combined with our proprietary recommendation engine, allows them to quickly identify, engage and place the most qualified candidates in critical roles.”