Sage Executive Search LLC

overview

Increasing Company Value

Sage Executive Search is a retained executive search firm located in Southern California and was founded by Patricia Romboletti and Holly Hartman, PhD, JD. Our combined experience allows us to understand that companies of different sizes and at different points in their lifecycles have very different needs that must be fulfilled in order to create value and grow the business.

How value is defined depends on the company’s life-cycle stage and its future ambitions. For a start-up company, building value may require the right CEO to execute the vision of the entire company. For a billion-dollar company, building value may require the right COO to contain costs without stifling organic growth, producing high quality products, leveraging infrastructure and improving profit margins. We believe the key to increasing a company’s value is to hire the right person at the right time so that investors see improved performance that will lead to greater value for the company’s shareholders.


Business Experience

Patricia Romboletti. Patricia Romboletti, the co-founder of Sage Executive Search, has over 25 years of sales management experience in both entrepreneurial and corporate environments. Throughout her career, she has distinguished herself by her ability to build businesses and teams. She forges strong, long-term relationships with her clients and demonstrates her talent for understanding both the business and people issues facing them.

During her corporate career as Director of Pharmaceutical Services for Western Union, Patricia created and led a start-up division within this 150-year-old company that served the pharmaceutical industry. Under her leadership, revenues for the division increased seven-fold after only three years. Key ingredients to the success were Patricia’s ability to hire outstanding sales and marketing team, and create an innovative suite of services tailored to the industry. She developed a reputation as a trusted supplier who understood the customers’ industry in general, and their business in particular.

Patricia is also the creator of the Write Sales SystemTM, a sales force productivity model which has been successfully implemented in a wide range of businesses including HealthNet, Administaff, Federated Investors and Fidelity Investments. In addition, she is the co-author of 101 Tools to Create Better Sales using ACT.

Patricia has served as a speaker, board member, and seminar instructor for numerous professional and community associations including the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs, Direct Marketing Association, the National Association of Women's Business Owners, the Children's Hope Foundation, and the Women's Center of Dallas. She was nominated for the Orange County Business Journal’s Outstanding Woman of the Year in 2003

As an executive recruiter, Patricia’s management experience enables her to provide her clients with insight and advice that goes beyond simply filling a position. She brings her hands-on experience to every assignment, growing businesses and teams that make a significant impact on the value of the company. She has earned an excellent reputation as a recruiter and has forged strong partnerships with her clients by bringing business expertise and insight to each assignment.

Holly Hartman, PhD, JD. Dr. Hartman is a Managing Partner at, and co-founder of, Sage Executive Search. Prior to founding Sage, Dr. Hartman was a Senior Associate at Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin, a middle-market investment bank headquartered in Los Angeles. While at Houlihan Lokey, Dr. Hartman originated, facilitated and negotiated mergers, acquisitions and strategic alliances. She provided consulting services, valuations, fairness opinions and IPR&D projects for companies of all sizes.

Prior to joining Houlihan Lokey, Dr. Hartman worked for Cooley Godward in Palo Alto and Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison in their Southern California offices. At these law firms, Dr. Hartman focused on intellectual property, patent prosecution, patent litigation and corporate law. As part of a pro bono project, she helped incorporate an educational 501(C)(3) entity sponsored by five corporations to help bring life sciences studies to elementary school children. For her clients, she analyzed their legal needs and business strategies, worked on numerous patent litigation projects, analyzed and consulted on patent portfolio management strategies, facilitated IPO and debt offerings, and helped negotiate numerous strategic alliances.

Dr. Hartman is well-versed in market drivers, how these drivers function differently in small companies versus larger entities, how to build and create long-term value, strategic alliances and business development strategies, mergers & acquisitions, private financings and fundraising. As important, she understands the critical role that the board and senior management team plays in building value and creating sustained growth. Her combined legal and investment banking experiences provides her with a continuum of knowledge from negotiating an event to executing the final vision.

Dr. Hartman received her undergraduate degree in Biological Science with honors, received a Ph.D. in comparative pathology with an emphasis on immunology summa cum laude, as well as a JD from the University of California, Davis with distinctions. Dr. Hartman has been quoted numerous times in the prestigious Mergers & Acquisitions magazine and speaks frequently on industry trends highlighting the crossroads between science and business.