Christine Parsons

“Recruiting skills really do travel: sourcing, outreach, even closing work in any industry where relationships drive revenue.”

At Rimac Golf in West Palm Beach, Florida, Christine Parsons leads brand partnerships and content in an industry that was unfamiliar territory not long ago. The toolkit, though, is one Christine knows cold. Sourcing, outreach and closing, the core disciplines of executive search, turn out to work just as well when the goal is a partnership deal rather than a placed executive.

That versatility is the thread running through Christine's career. Alongside the Rimac Golf role, Christine continues to recruit managing directors and partners for the executive search firm ZRG Partners, filling senior seats in the US and the UK for whichever teams need hires. Running both at once is not a contradiction. In Christine's view, it is proof that the work of building relationships is one discipline, wherever it happens to be applied.

From Spreadsheets to Search

Christine graduated in 2009 with an economics degree, into one of the toughest job markets in decades. Finding work was never in question. The first step was an internship within the financial officers practice at Russell Reynolds Associates in New York City, working alongside two colleagues, Elizabeth and Chris, who helped guide the early learning. It lasted only a couple of months, but it left a mark.

The plan at the time pointed toward private equity, and the conventional route ran through M&A investment banking. Christine spent nearly three years in oil and gas investment banking at Aegis Energy Advisors, advising companies on buying and selling refineries and pipelines. The work clarified something Christine had already sensed: the people side of business was far more compelling than the spreadsheets.

The deciding moment came on the way out. Asked to find, hire and train a replacement, Christine discovered it was the most exciting part of the job. That settled it. Christine returned to Russell Reynolds Associates, this time on the industrial natural resources team, where the client base was effectively any company with a supply chain. The firm instilled a detailed, process-driven approach to search that Christine still values. Later roles at smaller search firms added something different: more ownership of the work from start to finish.

The Mentors Who Shaped the Method

Christine credits a long list of people, and each left a specific lesson. Garfield Miller, now President and CEO of Aegis Energy Advisors, was Christine's first boss and backed the leap from investment banking into executive search rather than standing in the way of it.

At Russell Reynolds, the firm assigned every newcomer a mentor. Christine's was Mariano Malvicino, now Director of Portfolio Talent at the private equity firm Stellex Capital Management, who went well beyond the assignment. His rigor and work ethic set a standard Christine admired, and so did his character. Raj Kapoor, who led the professional services practice at Kingsley Gate Partners and is now a Managing Director at ZRG, taught a lesson in timing: he brought Christine into client meetings and encouraged building relationships with consultants long before they decided it was time to move.

Justin Pinchback has been the most enduring influence. While Christine built out the recruiting function at the tech company Shift, Justin met every week as a mentor, and the two have worked together in some capacity ever since. The relationship runs both ways. Christine introduced Justin to the private equity firm that owns ZRG Partners, which led to his hiring as Chief Revenue Officer of ZRG. When Shift later closed its doors, Justin invited Christine onto the partner hiring team. The two are now exploring the possibility of building something of their own.

AI as an Accelerator

Christine is unequivocal on artificial intelligence: it has helped enormously. The fear that AI will eliminate jobs misses the point, in Christine's view. Those who learn the technology and adapt alongside it simply do their jobs better, working more efficiently and getting more done.

The contrast with the early years is stark. Christine once spent hours manually researching candidate profiles and is grateful for having learned that craft. Today, with clear parameters set, AI provides guardrails that point the search in the right direction from the start. Someone entering recruiting now could feed resumes against a job description and ask how well a candidate fits, a skill Christine once had to learn at the elbow of a manager or mentor. "Now it's all streamlined, and people can teach themselves," Christine says.

AI has also been central to the move into golf, helping Christine get up to speed quickly and perform well in a field that was entirely new. The takeaway is about commitment more than tools: take the time to learn new technology, and the payoff is real. Christine calls the moment very exciting.

Skills That Travel

Christine is reluctant to hand out advice, but one conviction comes through clearly. Recruiting skills travel. Sourcing, outreach and closing apply in any business where relationships drive revenue, and Christine is using every one of them in partnerships and content at Rimac Golf.

For talent leaders looking ahead, the message is to think expansively about what they already know. AI can help with that too, Christine suggests, by showing people how their skills might translate into a new role, a new industry or a different chapter of a career. It is advice Christine has already tested firsthand.