Dave Carvajal — CEO

Every founder has a vision. The real question is whether they can find and keep the leaders who will turn that vision into enterprise value. For more than 20 years, I've partnered with PE and VC investors, founders, and CEOs to solve their hardest leadership problem: building executive teams that scale companies, disrupt industries, and deliver outsized returns. I've lived this from the inside. At HotJobs, we achieved two exits: an IPO reaching $1.2B market cap and a sale to Yahoo. At Ladders, we scaled into a category-defining success. The lesson was always the same: products, markets, and capital matter, but world-class leadership is the only enduring driver of performance. That's why I built Dave Partners, to help growth-stage companies and their investors secure the leadership that changes trajectories. We don't just fill positions. We architect executive teams. Our approach: Core Fit Selection™: We match executives to company stage, velocity, and operating constraints, not just skills and pedigree. Level 3 Recruiting™: We extract elite talent who aren't looking, from companies where they're already succeeding. No job posts. No applicant pools. Precision extraction. Team Integration & Coaching: We align executives into high-performing teams through leadership coaching and offsites using Hogan, HBDI, and StrengthsFinder. Functional Scaling: We build entire teams around your executives - engineering, sales, finance to compound their impact. This integrated approach is why our placements achieve 94%+ retention after two years. Executives stay because they're aligned with mission, integrated with peers, and supported with world-class teams. Over 20 years, I've placed 400+ executives at companies backed by Sequoia, General Catalyst, and Insight Partners. Beyond business, I'm a husband and dad, author of Hire Smart from the Start (Harper Collins), and 7× Ironman All World Athlete. In 2022, I competed at the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii, finishing among the top 1,400 athletes worldwide. Excellence and discipline aren't just business principles, they're life principles. Let's recruit better. Achieve more. Make leadership our legacy.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a seasoned executive search expert specializing in B2B SaaS and leadership development.

Location: New York City

Experience: 30 yrs 6 mos