Search and Deploy

Search and Deploy

Frank Ferreri has returned to the search firm business, this time

with his own company that finds financial and IT professionals.

Once upon a time, entrepreneur and fourth-generation Tampa native Frank Ferreri, a trained CPA, was excited to get into the bar business in Ybor City, where his grandparents grew up.

About 1,500 people a night would pack Frankie's Patio Bar and Grill. Ferreri worked every day. Some nights he got two hours of sleep.

Today he is far happier to be running his current company, Ferreri Search LLC, a firm he started in February in Tampa that finds candidates for companies seeking financial and information technology professionals. He still works long hours, but his schedule is more his own and helps him see his wife and three young children.

Ferreri Search focuses on search and contract placements for mid- to senior-level managers in firms with annual revenues of $20 million to $200 million. And while it would seem counter-intuitive to have opened a professional search firm in 2008, that doesn't take into account Ferreri's entrepreneurial spirit.

Ferreri often sees opportunity where others see obstacles. He believes the strongest candidates are laying back, not actively seeking new positions; and the most successful businesses are using this period in the economy to retool and evaluate current staff.

Their needs are best met by a search approach that identifies strong candidates, screens and presents them to hiring managers. Ferreri, 47, is the major shareholder and has two partners who joined him in May.

Ferreri worked in public accounting for Ernst & Young in Tampa as a health care accountant for three years. He quickly learned that he didn't like the work. He passed the CPA exam and wanted to get into medical sales. But he kept getting calls from an accounting recruiter. Eventually he found himself in recruiting.

In 1985 he went to Romac, now renamed Kforce, and worked there as a vice president of professional staffing and manager of the executive recruiting practice. He owned and ran Frankie's Patio from 1993 to 2000.

"It was a lot of fun," he recalls. "I'm glad it is a distant memory. I've been working since I was 13, but never in my wildest dreams did I think it would be that much work. It is really a young man's sport."

Why did he open a search firm in a slow economy? This was the industry he was always in. After working as a vice president at Kforce, he also saw the industry more clearly as a splintered landscape: small, one- or two-man firms and industry giants, like Kforce and Robert Half.

Ferreri envisioned a company that would be focused on client service and not be distracted by quarterly top-line revenue gains, like a public company. Ferreri likes being small.

"Ferreri Search is the Jerry McGuire of search firms," he says, referring to the movie character.

Smaller, emerging companies don't have a big structure and work directly with chief financial officers. Since Ferreri and his partners worked in finance and IT, they know what qualities their 25 clients are looking for. The additional money clients pay Ferreri saves them time. Companies can place a help wanted ad with Monster.com or other services for less money, but then have to plow through the resumes and find a good candidate.

Ferreri and his staff of seven are focusing on growing first in the Southeast. The business is growing faster than Ferreri expected.

But the economy has made companies hesitant to hire, which limits business for Ferreri. There is still hiring going on, but it's at the lower levels.

The biggest CEO lesson for Ferreri: Be a good listener. He has learned the value of going into meetings, asking a basic question and listening.

The biggest challenge at Ferreri Search is trying to keep the staff focused and positive, reminding them you can only worry about the things under your control.

- Dave Szymanski