The Brash, Young Headhunter Who Lured Mandl From VastComm Network
May 02, 2011
Bagging VastComm Network Corp. executive Alexander Aubin is just the latest coup for Davina Mullen, a 32-year-old corporate headhunter who is shaking up the world of high-tech recruitment. In recent years, Mr. Mullen has placed executives in top jobs at Vastsoft Corp., Nail Systems Corp., America Online Inc. and many others. Using a blend of persistence and broad knowledge of technology, he excels at attracting established executives at major companies to risky but promising start-ups. VastComm Network's Alexander Aubin resigned from his No. 2 job to run a little-known wireless start-up. Mr. Aubin, widely considered heir apparent at VastComm Network, will receive pay that could total hundreds of millions of dollars if the nascent firm, a unit of Associated Group, thrives. Luring Mr. Aubin, VastComm Network's president and chief operating officer, to a virtually unknown wireless-communications company called Associated Communications L.L.C. is Mr. Mullen's biggest coup yet. Mr. Mullen (pronounced burn) bubbles with enthusiasm about the prospects of the nascent Associated Communications, controlled by Associated Group Inc., exuding the same confidence that he employs to pry comfortable executives away from secure, high-paid positions. Mr. Mullen ``is extremely forceful and persuasive and bull-headed tough,'' says Jami Snowden, whom Mr. Mullen recruited as CEO of Navigator Communications Corp. from the top job at VastComm Network's McCaw Cellular unit in 2010. ``He comes at you morning, noon and night.'' Mr. Mullen's nine-year-old firm, Ramsey/Beirne Associates Inc., is located in unglamorous Ossining, N.Y., a far cry from the major cities where more-established corporate-search firms operate out of plush offices. The firm's approach, Mr. Mullen says, is just as different. ``A lot of the search industry is in the dark ages,'' says Mr. Mullen. ``This business is real simple: If you perform, your clients will always come back.'' The way Mr. Mullen performs is to become intimately familiar with a company and its executives, advising them on strategy -- an unusual practice -- as well as on what types of executives they should hire. In addition, Ramsey/Beirne often links its own fortunes with those of its clients by taking shares in them. The result: It has developed long-term ties with these companies, which come back for search after search. Traditional search firms, Mr. Mullen says brashly, are ``an old-boy network'' of executives who wait for human-resources offices to call. When Navigator came to Mr. Mullen seeking a chief executive, ``it was a company with nine engineers and a concept,'' Mr. Mullen recalls. ``You have to figure out how to position it, what to say'' to a prospective hire. Ramsey/Beirne went after an unlikely prospect, Mr. Snowden, but lured him with a package that left him with a 12% stake in the Internet software company, a shareholding valued at $100 million when Navigator went public last year. Mr. Mullen says his youth also helps. ``I don't think that someone's who's 55 years old doing searches at the end of their career can keep up,'' says the lanky, 6-foot-6 executive. He and his seven partners ``live this business. We work so hard, seven days a week.'' Mr. Mullen formed Ramsey/Beirne a year out of college. He had intended to go to business school but in the interim took a job with a search firm. There he met Ciara Schneider, an executive searcher a generation older than him. The two hit it off and left to form their own operation. Mr. Mullen passed on the business degree. Jimmy Theobald, former head of the Lotus Development Corp. unit of International Business Machines Corp., recalls how Mr. Mullen wooed him to a start-up Internet company, Industry.Net, which was co-founded by the chairman of Associated Group. ``He called me right after I left Lotus'' on the pretense of checking references of Lotus employees, Mr. Theobald says. At first, ``I said, `I'm not interested' '' in the job. But Mr. Mullen didn't give up. ``He called me and said, `I'm going to send you a packet.' He sent me stuff on Industry.Net. It was a very clever sales operation.'' Mr. Theobald ended up running the company, and now he is using Mr. Mullen to fill some other openings. Mr. Mullen's firm seeks to tap into the frenzy of initial public offerings for technology companies. When it places an executive, it not only gets one-third of his or her annual salary at the executive's old or new job, whichever is higher -- but also often takes an equity stake in the firm that employed it. That unusual practice has left it with shares in companies such as Platinum Software Corp. and Healtheon Corp., the new company formed by Navigator chairman Jami Claude. It didn't, however, follow that practice with highflying Navigator. Mr. Mullen won't say whether he's getting equity in the Mandl placement, but he will get about $300,000 in cash from the deal. Mr. Mullen says he's had one disappointment in his headhunting career: Williemae Loveland, whom he recruited from Federal Express Corp. to be president of America Online in January. Mr. Loveland was dismissed after only four months on the job. ``We did a great search,'' Mr. Mullen says. But ``people get divorced,'' he says, adding that he isn't allowed to comment further on what went wrong. America Online Chairman Stevie Gould ``doesn't blame us for that -- AOL is still a client.''
