Who We Are

Everyone on our candidate facing team has spent their entire career exclusively in executive search.

Ted has been in the business of finding the best people in the world for more than a decade. Prior to founding Opal, Ted was an Operating Partner at Khosla Ventures focused on executive talent for over three years. At KV, he focused on the firm’s most critical and highly sensitive executive placements across a highly technical industry and multi-stage portfolio. Functionally, he focused on Product, Engineering, Marketing, and President - CEO positions. Over a three-year period he helped staff 200+ executive searches with external search firms, served as an advisor to over 50 companies, and built a custom application software platform to scale the talent teams executive network to the portfolio.

Before Khosla Ventures, Ted was a founding member of the in-house executive search function at Uber, partnering very closely with the executive product organization. In the process, he built a vast network of hundreds of consumer and enterprise product leaders. Some roles he placed included: VP of Core Infrastructure, Head of Uber Pool, Head of Marketing Analytics, and the VP of Driver product.

Prior to Uber he began his career in search at Egon Zehnder, a global retained executive search firm, where he developed talent mappings, detailed candidate assessments, organized events, and conducted industry analysis for Fortune 100 companies out of the firms technology practice group.

Ted lives in San Francisco and New York City. In his free time he enjoys being engaged in the world with friends and family, typically in the form of kite-boarding, skiing, surfing, and travel. He is an avid reader and a technology optimist.

Ryan is the Head of Product at Opal, joining the firm in 2023. He develops systems that enhance the executive search process through streamlined optimization, automation, and advanced analytics. Ryan has chartered the growth of our Opal Loupe product, specifically, which is an Executive Search mapping tool that creates advanced search functionality and candidate analytics using data from LinkedIn, Crunchbase, and other data sources to create robust and comprehensive candidate market mappings.

Prior to Opal, Ryan was a Product Director at SeatGeek, where he concentrated on improving client data systems. He spent 4 years at Spotify, where as a Group Product Manager he led the full overhaul of the technical stack for music royalties payments. He has over seven years of experience in analytics and data visualization, with a prior focus on financial crimes investigations for various Fortune 500 companies.

Ryan studied Economics and Information Science. He is currently based in New York City.

Ryan Dewar, Head of Product

Maeve McCarthy, Associate

Maeve joined Opal in 2023 from Twilio where she was a member of the company’s first in-house executive search function and the first Executive Talent Researcher. She focused on Go to Market and Operations functions for VP+ roles across NAMER, EMEA and APJ. She drove research, sourcing, candidate assessment and succession planning efforts on 40+ searches during her tenure. Key searches included: Chief Marketing Officer, VP Marketing EMEA, VP Marketing APJ, SVP Government & Regulatory Affairs, VP Engineering & Poland Site lead, and VP Investor Relations.

Prior to Twilio, Maeve started her career at SPMB Executive Search, a highly respected retained executive search firm focused geographically across silicon valley, supporting their Innovation and Sustainability practice. This included Go to Market, GM and President search work for venture backed AI/ML, IoT, Smart Transportation and Clean Energy clients. A significant portion of her time at SPMB was exclusively dedicated to building out a world class executive team at C3.ai - a leader in Enterprise AI.

Maeve holds a BA from Georgetown University and currently lives in San Francisco.

Cole joined Opal in 2024 as an Associate, where he plays a key role in search execution. His responsibilities include candidate market mapping, candidate development, client status calls and meetings, and business development.

Prior to Opal, Cole worked at TPG, assisting their Human Capital team with searches for their portfolio companies and enhancing their data and knowledge management function. He participated in 60+ searches across TPG’s private equity funds, partnering with deal teams, portfolio company executives, and search firms to place Board Directors, CEOs, CFOs, CROs and product leadership roles within technology and energy/climate investments. Additionally, he advised deal teams on 5 investments by helping them assess and structure their executive teams to fulfill their investment thesis.

Cole previously worked at SPMB Executive Search, a highly respected retained search firm based in Silicon Valley. As a member of the enterprise software and fintech team, he worked on a diverse range of functions, including Board, CEO, go-to-market, and human resources leadership roles.

Cole holds a BA from UC Berkeley and resides in San Francisco.

Cole Tanner, Associate

Kelly Riggs, Chief of Staff

Kelly joined Opal in 2023 as the firm’s Chief of Staff. She oversees both internal and external company initiatives including business development, firm operations, marketing, and administrative support to the team.

Kelly brings a wealth of administrative and operational experience to Opal after previously supporting top-tier executives and high-net worth individuals across a variety of industries. Most recently, she was the executive assistant to a retired NFL player who ran multiple businesses. Prior to that, she supported the CEO of a LA-based restaurant discovery app. Before that position, she handled day-to-day operations of running a brand and social media business for a high-profile digital creator.

Kelly holds a BS in Biology, Applied Physiology, and Health Management from Southern Methodist University and currently lives in New York City.

Rohit joined Opal Partners in 2023. His last role was with Standard Chartered Bank, a British multinational, where he was responsible for sourcing and hiring executive technology leadership across APAC regions including India, Malaysia, Philippines, Hong Kong, & Singapore. He began his career with Egon Zehnder where he was a market researcher. In this role, he was responsible for managing talent research and market mapping projects to identify technical executive talent for fortune 100 clients across the EU and North America. He then went to work for an Indian boutique executive search firm focusing on CXO level hirings for e-commerce, fin-tech and various digital clients.

Key Searches include: Chief Information Officer; Director of Machine Learning; Vice President of Cyber Security; Vice President of Product Management, Vice President of UX; Vice President - Devops Engineering, Director - IT Risk and Resilience

Rohit holds a MA in Human Capital Leadership from Singapore Management University and is currently based in Singapore and Bangalore.

Rohit Bhatia, Research Associate

Vohn Sigua, Research Associate

Vohn joined Opal Partners in 2024 as a Research Associate. He most recently worked as an Executive Recruiter at Genesis Search Group, a boutique search firm based in Philadelphia.

Vohn started his career as a Sourcing Specialist at iQor, a leading outsourcing firm in the Philippines, where he supported hiring initiatives in Houston and North Carolina, collaborating with managers to fill entry- to mid-level sales and technical positions. He then worked as an executive recruiter at Hikinex, where he assisted a wide variety of clients. He delivered niche engineering talent for over 40 projects across the U.S for Worley Parsons, an energy solutions company in New South Wales.

Key searches include: Senior Process Engineer, Senior Biochemical Engineer, Subsea Engineering Manager, Vice President of Sales, and Senior Director of Global Products.

Vohn holds a BS in Psychology and is a licensed psychometrician. He currently resides in the Philippines.

Miguel Rocha Gómez, Research and HR Associate

Miguel joined Opal in 2024 as a Research Associate and HR Operations specialist, bringing expertise in executive search and HR operations across Latin America and the U.S. Before joining Opal, he built a strong foundation in executive recruitment with industry leaders such as Korn Ferry, Michael Page, Twilio, and LHH.

At Korn Ferry, Miguel worked in the Executive Search division, conducting market research, candidate profiling, and talent acquisition across diverse industries to help clients secure senior leadership for Fortune 500 companies. He collaborated closely with clients to develop customized hiring strategies, performed rigorous candidate assessments, and supported long-term talent development goals. Most recently, Miguel led HR initiatives at Pearson and served as a Talent Researcher at Twilio, specializing in identifying high-impact technical talent for the U.S. market.

He holds a Master’s in Human Resources Management and Development from NYU and is based in Bogotá, Colombia.