Our Story

Armed with an idea and a curious passion to create alignment, Chris Bryant and Steven Ast co-founded one of the country’s first executive search firms specializing exclusively in philanthropy recruitment.

Leveraging decades of experience and an uncanny intuition, Chris became one of the early pioneers developing the thinking around the space of alignment between the candidate and the culture of the client organization. Combining this with an understanding of the field of advancement and employing a relational model of recruiting that honors and respects candidates became a winning formula – for clients and candidates.

The results were staggering: our successful candidates stay with the client organization more than twice the national average. Today, Bryant Group continues that long-running legacy of integrity, diligence, and caring deeply about people that was first established by Chris.

Then our story takes an interesting turn in 2016.

That’s when Sally Bryant - Chris’ wife, former chief advancement officer and passionate believer in the impact of incredible leaders - pitched an interesting idea. 

She asked Chris about his dreams for retirement and where he saw the firm moving beyond his tenure. Their collective decision became obvious: as Chris stepped back, Sally would step up. 

And thus began a new era of measured connectivity steeped in trust, empathy, and an unapologetic commitment to recruiting and growing great leaders.

Sally focused on working with mission-oriented organizations to provide a full spectrum of leadership offerings–recruitment, leadership development, and executive coaching–because recruiting great leaders is the first step. Helping people be the best leaders creates the atmosphere for all things amazing. Armed with that intentionality, she recruited best-in-class team members to Bryant Group who value-aligned on those core principles.

We recognize that many firms gather resumes of people looking for jobs and hand out candidates who seem to match the job description. Nope, not here. Bryant Group’s reputation had to be tethered to something bigger. So we built a company that goes well beyond a job description. We spend time understanding what you need from many angles: team dynamics, culture, expectations, soft (smart!) skills, and vision alignment that works for the entire organization. And then we recruit specifically for you and your position, delving into original research and, according to our candidates, providing the most thorough vetting process in the industry. 

Our goal is to go beyond the search. We invest in relationships. We lead an organization or leader through the trajectory of recruiting, hiring, building teams, growth, and keeping people within the organizations where they are placed. We offer success that takes an organization to the next level.