Team
Simon Bromwell
Founding Partner - Go-to-Market
Simon leads the firm’s Go-to-Market practice, overseeing executive searches across Marketing, Growth, Sales, Business Development, and Customer Success functions. With 25 years in executive search, he has built leadership teams for hundreds of high-growth startups and global enterprises, often at pivotal moments of market expansion and rapid scale. His work includes companies such as Calm, Weights & Biases, Speak, Galileo, Luma AI, and Loop, and maintains long-standing relationships with leading venture capital and growth equity firms including Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and FTV Capital.
Prior to co-founding Forward Search, Simon spent 18 years in senior leadership roles at a leading international recruitment firm. He spent nine years in Tokyo before relocating to San Francisco in 2012 to launch the firm’s first West Coast operation and later lead its North American business. Originally from just outside Liverpool, UK, he now resides in San Francisco.
Frédéric Téhard
Founding Partner - Finance & Operations
Frederic leads the firm’s Finance and Operations practice. Over the past 16 years, including 11 in the U.S., he has executed hundreds of Finance and Operations leadership searches for high-growth, venture-backed companies. His work spans CFO, VP Finance, Controller, and Operations mandates across businesses scaling through rapid inflection points. He partners closely with investors including IVP, Khosla Ventures, Accel, and Index Ventures, and has helped build leadership teams at Baseten, Waabi, Perplexity, Sword Health, Zum, and Rula. He is known for his competitive intensity, expansive network, and disciplined execution.
Before founding Forward Search, Frederic spent a decade at a leading global recruitment firm, where he ranked among the top performers worldwide. He began in Paris leading the Finance division before relocating to San Francisco to build the Finance and Operations practice and later launch the Southern California business. He started his career in corporate finance at Danone and Microsoft in France.
Andrew Skyta
Director
Andrew Skyta is a Director at Forward Search, leading executive and senior leadership searches for venture-backed technology companies across Go-to-Market and Finance and Operations functions. He has executed searches across major U.S. technology hubs including the Bay Area and New York, helping scaling companies build out critical leadership teams at inflection points.
Prior to Forward Search, Andrew was a top performer at a leading global recruitment firm, specializing in executive search within the technology sector. Earlier in his career, he completed Hillstone Restaurant Group’s leadership training program and became one of the company’s youngest General Managers. That operating experience shapes his perspective on performance, accountability, and team leadership. Andrew previously lived in San Francisco and now resides in New York City.
Amanda Gordon
Director
Amanda Gordon is a Director at Forward Search, advising high-growth companies on executive and senior leadership hires across Go-to-Market and Finance and Operations practice areas. She partners closely with founders, operators, and investors to design retained search processes and evaluate leadership profiles during periods of rapid growth.
Before joining Forward Search, Amanda focused on Marketing and Product searches at a boutique firm, working with venture capital and private equity-backed businesses and supporting broader talent strategy initiatives. She is known for her structured approach, thoughtful candidate engagement, and disciplined search execution.
Originally from Los Angeles, Amanda holds a BA in Communications from UCLA. She previously lived in San Francisco and is now based in Salt Lake City.
Mary McKinley
Director
Mary leads the firm’s Design and Product Practice, focusing on executive and senior leadership hires for venture-backed startups. She works closely with founders to build high-impact design and product organizations during early formation and periods of rapid scale.
Before joining Forward Search, Mary spent three years at AI Fund, a venture studio supporting Founders-in-Residence in building AI startups from the ground up. She led searches for Founders-in-Residence who went on to become CEOs of portfolio companies and, following pre-seed funding, partnered with them to assemble founding teams through end-to-end searches for early hires.
Earlier in her career, Mary spent a decade at a leading international recruitment firm, working in Dublin, Ireland and New York before relocating to San Francisco in 2017. There, she led a search team specializing in design and product management recruitment for Series A to Series D venture-backed startups.
Vivian Lo
Principal
Vivian is a Principal at Forward Search, supporting the firm’s Finance and Operations and Design and Product Practices. She partners with high-growth companies on executive and senior leadership searches across finance, accounting, operations, product, and design functions.
Prior to joining Forward Search, Vivian was a top performer on the product management team at a leading global recruitment firm in San Francisco. She led senior-level searches for venture-backed startups across the United States and APAC and was the only member of her cohort promoted to Principal.
She then moved into a talent role at a venture capital firm, gaining direct exposure to portfolio talent strategy, before joining a boutique New York-based firm specializing in financial and investment searches. Born and raised in San Francisco, she now resides in New York City.
Sadami Hake
Research
Sadami leads research at Forward Search, supporting executive searches across Finance, Accounting, Operations, Go-to-Market, Product, and Design functions. She brings rigor, market insight, and precision to searches at critical stages of growth.
Before joining Forward Search, Sadami spent more than a decade in executive search and global recruiting. She worked at two leading global recruitment firms in Tokyo, partnering with local startups and international businesses as they built their leadership teams. After relocating to the United States, she continued her search career at a boutique firm, managing retained executive search engagements for People and Talent leaders across venture-backed startups and public companies.
Originally from Tokyo, Japan, Sadami began her career in corporate sales with Fujitsu.
