I only work in markets I understand.

Finance & Accounting

From growth-stage companies building their finance function for the first time to PE-backed platforms that need to upgrade a Controller or bring in a CFO who can manage a board — this is the core of what Fletcher Search does.

I understand financial modeling, FP&A, and the operational accounting work that supports a fast-moving business. I screen candidates on technical depth, communication clarity, and the ability to do more with less — which is what mid-market finance roles actually require.

Typical search profiles include: CFO, VP Finance, Corporate Controller, Director of FP&A, FP&A Manager, Senior Financial Analyst, Senior Accountant, and Accounting Manager.

Financial Services & Banking

SBA lending, private credit, community banking, and specialty finance. I work across the full production and credit stack — from BDOs who self-source $50M+ in annual 7(a) volume to Chief Lending Officers building a lending team from scratch.

The SBA market in particular is a niche most recruiters don't understand well. I do. I know the difference between a BDO who relies on referrals and one who can build a COI network cold. I know what a strong 7(a) producer looks like and what questions to ask to find out.

Typical search profiles include: SBA Business Development Officer, Chief Lending Officer, Private Credit Analyst, SBA Underwriter, Loan Closer, Credit Officer, and VP of Commercial Lending.

Trading & Energy

I spent 10 years in sales and client-facing leadership at a sell-side FX brokerage before moving into recruiting. I have also managed capital across multiple asset classes and worked with international prop trading firms and professional services clients in the ETRM space. This vertical is not marketing copy — it is actual background.

That means I can evaluate a prop trader's risk management approach, understand what ETRM implementation experience actually looks like on a resume, and have credible conversations with trading operations professionals about what they actually do.

Typical search profiles include: Prop Traders, Trading Operations, ETRM/CTRM Specialists, Energy Trading Analysts, Quant Researchers, and Risk Analysts.

The Quiet Realignment in SBA Lending Most Banks Are Missing

The most important conversations in SBA lending this year are not happening in the trade press. They are happening between bank CEOs and the producers thinking about where they want to build next. From the recruiter's seat, you see this shift before anyone publishes it, and it is significant.

The top SBA producers in the country have unusual options right now. Some are at firms going through transitions. Many are at firms that have outgrown the structure they started with. Almost all are asking the same question: what would I build if I had a clean charter and a balance sheet behind me? The conversations I am in now sound different than they did twelve months ago. Less about comp, more about what they would commit to a five-year build for.

The opportunity is not subtle, but most of the banks best positioned to act on it have not noticed yet. Mid-size regional banks with PLP status, balance sheet capacity, and a CEO open to running a national SBA platform as a semi-autonomous division have a once-in-a-cycle window. The model is proven. The producers exist. The talent that can lead a build is a small group, maybe a few dozen people in the country with the production history, broker network, credit instincts, and operational discipline to make it work.

They are in conversations right now. The banks that engage early get to pick from multiple credible leaders. Wait twelve months and you are choosing from whoever is left.

Two things worth knowing if you are a CEO considering this. First, it is not a BDO hire. It is a structural decision that lives in your office, not the head of SBA's. Second, the economics will look unfamiliar. Producers capable of building a national platform have leverage, and the package has to reflect what they bring and what they could earn going independent.

If your institution has PLP status and an underdeveloped program, the right conversation in 2026 is not about a BDO hire. It is about what a dedicated platform could look like under your charter, and who is actually capable of building it.

The Finance Hire That Changes When Your CFO Starts Using AI

A CFO at a mid-size manufacturer hired someone to take their financial reporting to the next level. The candidate oversold their technical skills. A gap in management coverage exposed the problem before it could be corrected. The CFO needed answers and ran out of patience waiting for them.

He opened an AI assistant himself. First time using it. He was not expecting much. What he got back stopped him. The analysis was immediate, structured, and correct. He ran it again on a different problem. Same result. He went home that Friday thinking differently about what his finance function actually needed.

The hiring spec changed the same week. He is no longer looking for someone who can build the output. He wants someone who can tell him whether what the model produced is right. Someone with enough command of how all three financial statements tie together to catch what the machine gets wrong. The job became: be the adult in the room when the machine runs.

That is a fundamentally different hire. It requires more judgment, not less. More accounting foundation, not a lighter one. And it requires something the model does not have: accountability. The CFO still has to sign the financials. Someone still has to own the answer.

This is the conversation that belongs in your office right now. Not whether AI is coming for finance jobs, but what the finance function looks like when the CFO is already using these tools and needs a human who can verify them. That question produces a different job description than the one most companies are writing today.

In a Bank Merger, the Spreadsheets Survive Diligence. The People Don't.

Texas has multiple bank integrations running right now. I am watching them from the search desk, and I can tell you what happens next, because it happens every time.

The financial models survive diligence. The people often do not. The strongest performer inside the target is the first one my phone reaches the day the deal hits the wire, not after close. Most acquirers discover their flight risk after the fact, when the controller who held the close process together has already resigned. By then the retention decision is not a decision. It is damage control, and it costs multiples of what it would have cost to see it coming.

Here is the part most integration plans miss. The finance function does not run on one clock. It runs on two. The first clock is fast. Financial reporting and accounting seats have to be staffed now, because two balance sheets are becoming one and you cannot close the books late. The second clock is slow. Audit, credit, and risk leadership have to be right, not fast, because a wrong hire in those seats compounds quietly for years. Most acquirers run both searches at the same speed. They get the first one late and the second one wrong.

Underneath both clocks sits the thing nobody benchmarked. Flight risk. The best people on the target's team have options the moment the deal is announced. Some are already in conversations. You are making keep-or-replace calls blind, on the seats that matter most, at the exact moment the market is most aggressively calling your people.

You already pay to avoid this on the financial side. A quality of earnings report tells you what you are buying. Nobody hands you the people equivalent. So the most expensive risk in the deal, the one that walks out the door on its own two feet, is the one you carry into close with no map.

It does not have to be that way. The same read I run on candidates every day is the read that matters here. Seat by seat, before close: who is a genuine flight risk, what the market actually pays them, who to keep, who to redeploy, who to replace, and what to staff in the first ninety days versus what to staff deliberately. Not survey data. Live search data, because I am running these searches in this market right now.