Newman Sykes was founded in 1999 as the quality alternative for the placement of junior professionals in private equity and venture capital. We recruit pre-MBA candidates from the world’s leading investment banks, consulting firms and private equity firms and place the best and brightest in entry-level positions with our client firms. We have placed candidates with nearly 20 firms across the United States, as well as in Asia and Europe. Representative clients include: AIG Capital Partners; Bruckmann, Rosser, Sherrill & Co. Inc.; The Carlyle Group; Hampshire Equity Partners; Madison Dearborn Partners; Polaris Venture Partners; Ripplewood Holdings; Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe; and Weston Presidio Capital.
As principals of Newman Sykes, we source candidates through contacts developed during our collective 30 years of experience on Wall Street. Both principals carefully screen each candidate in interviews and conduct rigorous, documented reference checks. We rely on processes that we developed and successfully implemented for the Corporate Analyst program at Lehman Brothers where we interviewed thousands of junior professionals and placed hundreds of successful candidates as junior bankers. Many of the individuals whom we developed relationships with over the years are today partners at prominent private equity firms and the heads of departments at leading Wall Street investment banks.
We work on a retainer basis in order to develop a close working relationship with our clients. After an engagement letter is signed, we visit our client’s offices to interview all of the firm’s investment professionals to gain a better understanding of the firm’s needs and hiring objectives. This ensures that we will produce candidates with excellent skills and experiences that “fit” into the unique culture and personality of each client firm. We are extremely selective about the candidates that we introduce to clients and take pride in the fact that several of our clients have hired the first candidate that we introduced to them.
We guarantee our product. If a client hires a candidate whom we have presented who simply does not “make it,” we will stand behind our guarantee and will place another candidate with the client, free of charge.
We are the only firm focused solely on recruiting junior professionals for private equity and venture capital whose principals have long and successful careers on Wall Street and in private equity firms. We understand what it takes to be successful in the challenging and demanding private equity environment. We also understand the strategic importance of the decision to outsource the recruitment of junior professionals. We have been faced with the same decision as principals of private equity firms. The success of the client franchise is as important to us as our own and we treat it as such.
Priscilla A. Newman is a Partner of Newman Sykes. Prior to founding Newman Sykes, Ms. Newman was a General Partner of Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe and its Chief Administrative Officer. Before joining Welsh Carson, Ms. Newman was Vice President at AEA Investors in charge of Administration. Prior to her move to the private equity industry, Ms. Newman was a Senior Vice President at Lehman Brothers where she spent six years in the Investment Banking Division, two of which were spent managing the firm’s 250-member Corporate Analyst program. Ms. Newman also spent three years at American Express in the Office of the Chairman, where she served as Executive Assistant to Chairman James D. Robinson; two years at Brown Brothers Harriman as Executive Assistant to Partner Robert V. Roosa; and five years as a Professional Staff Associate for the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill.
Ms. Newman received a MPPM from the Yale School of Management and a BA, magna cum laude, from Michigan State University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves as a member of its Finance and Budget Committee. Ms. Newman lives in Bronxville, New York with her husband and daughter.
Mary B. Sykes is a Partner of Newman Sykes. Prior to founding Newman Sykes, Ms. Sykes was affiliated with Rosetta Partners, a merchant bank formed by the former heads of Investment Banking and Merchant Banking at Lehman Brothers, where she helped to build the firm by sourcing and recruiting several junior professionals. Prior to Rosetta, Ms. Sykes spent her entire career at Lehman Brothers, initially joining the firm as a member of its first Corporate Analyst class. Ms. Sykes returned to the firm after completing business school to further develop and manage the Corporate Analyst program. Ms. Sykes then moved to the International Division to assume responsibility for recruiting, training and staffing on a worldwide basis, where she established relationships with all of the major universities in Europe and Asia. Her last five years with the firm were spent in London, where she served as the Chief Administrative Officer of the firm’s European operations.
Ms. Sykes received her MBA from Harvard University and her AB, cum laude, from Princeton University. She resides in New York City.
Melissa A. Tozar is the Recruiting Coordinator of Newman Sykes. Previously, she was Administrative Assistant to the head of the Highland Search Group (now a subsidiary of TMP.Worldwide), a prominent search firm active in the placement of senior professionals into private equity and other sectors of the financial services industry.
Ms. Tozar is a magna cum laude graduate of Stonehill College in North Easton, Massachusetts and currently resides in New York City.
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