Principal Bio

Alissa N. Varnon, CPC, CERS

…began her career in 1988 in Human Resources and has since served as a corporate human resources executive, an executive search consultant/strategic talent partner, and executive coach.

As a corporate human resources executive, Alissa led the human resources division of a national organization in addition to serving as the lead HR advisor on the corporate Mergers/Acquisition team.  Alissa built the human resources infrastructure, recruited and trained a team of 40 HR professionals, and helped build a start up company with $26m in venture capital funding “from the ground up.” Through exponential growth of revenue and employee population within an aggressive M&A environment, the company grew to a $6b entity within five years.

Alissa spent the last 10 years of her career as an entrepreneur.  In 2003, she founded The Search Firm, a boutique, executive retained search firm focused on delivering exceptional talent to exceptional companies.  In addition to creating and providing her clients with a comprehensive candidate acquisition and selection process, Alissa co-authored the 2008 NAPS Employee Retention Certification Curriculum.

In January, 2009, Alissa founded Executive Impact, an executive coaching and leadership development firm.  Having had extensive experience in human resources, executive recruiting, and coaching, Alissa has been responsible for facilitating employee acquisition, selection, development, retention and on-going management at all levels within an organization. Bringing these talents to the consulting industry, Alissa is continuing her track record of developing people and strengthening companies.