Advantage Partners Inc. Adds Two Partners
Executive search firm reinforces strength in insurance, private equity, finance
CLEVELAND, February 21, 2008 -- Advantage Partners, Inc., the national retained executive search firm in Cleveland and Las Vegas that concentrates on senior management and executive suite searches, has added two new partners. The two, Donald A. McMurchy and Allen E. Griffin, both join API from Progressive Insurance, where they held senior management, sales and operating positions. Each has had long experience in management, turnaround efforts or in forging large-scale strategic business alliances.
Most recently responsible for Progressive's personal auto business in New York and Missouri, McMurchy has run both industrial and service companies and has spent nearly two decades consulting to insurance, manufacturing, high tech, mining and consumer products companies. He has also served as the interim senior executive to start-ups and companies in need of a turnaround. For example, McMurchy turned an $11.5 million loss at a consumer products company into a profit and successful sale of the company.
Allen E. Griffin has a 20-year career developing strategic alliances among the nation's largest property casualty insurance companies. Over those years, he has built invaluable long-term relationships with many of the industry's senior leaders. Many of these alliances have involved working with major marketplace competitors. During his successful career with Progressive, he contributed over $1 billion in premium growth. Griffin has also been a successful entrepreneur, co-launching a national call center insurance agency built on referrals from insurance company agents.
"Allen and Don both have the essential executive recruiting quality that we think is API's signature," said Nikki Bondi, Advantage Partners' Managing Partner. "They've lived the details of business day-to-day and long-term, in both the corporate and the entrepreneurial arenas, and they have done so with impressive success. Their joining API deepens our reach within our industries and disciplines."
McMurchy's career mirrors Advantage Partner's practices in private-equity-owned businesses and in insurance, Ms. Bondi said. "Similarly, Allen's success in forging alliances," she added, "has helped him build the kind of deep relationships and understanding of a company's critical challenges that we consider key in meeting our client's executive search requirements."
McMurchy holds an MBA (with Distinction) from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh and a Bachelor of Mathematics degree from the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario. He lives in Aurora, Ohio with his wife, Suzanne, and their three youngest children. Allen Griffin holds a B.S. in Business from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He, his wife, Cathy, and their three daughters live in Mentor, Ohio.
Founded in Cleveland in 1996, Advantage Partners is a national retained executive search firm that concentrates on senior management and executive suite searches, primarily in the insurance industry, for private equity-owned companies and mid-cap public and private industrial corporations. The firm is known for its understanding of its clients' businesses and for finding the perfect fit, often unconventional, between company, person and position. With headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio and an office in Las Vegas, Nevada, it serves clients nationwide.
