Success Stories

Independence Mission Schools provides a transformative Catholic Education for 4,000 students in 14 schools for grades K-8 in inner city Philadelphia. Seven years after our founding, we engaged Bob Vitalo to provide an organizational assessment of our current operations - our talents and capabilities and our opportunities for improvement particularly as it related to CEO succession. Bob was terrific in this effort. He met with directors, staff, school leaders, and friends of Independence Mission Schools. Every participant was impressed with the professionalism, thoughtfulness, and wisdom that Bob brought to this effort. His report helped us clarify what was essential that we maintain and what important work needs to be done in the future. Moreover, this work helped us understand the leadership needs for our continuing success. There was unanimous agreement at the board and senior staff level that this was extremely helpful engagement.

I am the chair of the board of Montini Catholic High School, Lombard, IL. We just completed a search for our new president and I just want to tell you how helpful, how important, and what a good friend Barbara Daush has been to me, the search committee, and to our community.

I've had the chance to work on several previous searches in my professional life and I have to say Barbara and CS&A are among the best. I know her work with us is not done as she will be helping us with a transition process but I wanted to take this time, at the end of the week when we named our new president, to let you know how important she has been to our successful process.

Safe Passage/Camino Seguro, a PK-Grade 9 school in Guatemala City, recently had the opportunity to partner with Art Charles, John Chandler, and Theodora Konetsovska of Carney, Sandoe & Associates as we launched a search for a new executive director. Given the timing (a bit late in the season), the specific demands of the job (education combined with international social service), the geography (Guatemala), and our need for a bilingual English-Spanish speaker, we knew that our search would present challenges. Despite them all, however, Art, John, and Theodora delivered a strong and highly experienced candidate pool and expertly supported us through the entire search process. Their candidate dossiers were incredibly detailed and thoughtful, allowing our search committee to hone quickly in on those candidates of particular interest. Their invaluable support through the reference-checking process, supported again by incredibly insightful and well-prepared reports, was also a key factor in our success. The calm professionalism each of these talented consultants evinced during check-in calls always reassured us that we would achieve our goals.

Having now signed an outstanding next executive director for our organization, we are deeply grateful to Art, John, and Theodora, whose depth and range of experiences and knowledge provided us with the expertise and support we needed to move confidently through our process. Having partnered with Carney, Sandoe & Associates for countless faculty searches over the past 35 years, I can say that their retained search service is outstanding and that Art, John, and Theodora, on the international side, are experienced, thoughtful, talented, diligent, caring, and responsive professionals who go above and beyond to ensure a successful outcome for their clients.

Sara and Greg were visionary in their approach to our search process. They brought us top candidates with a range of backgrounds and strengths, and ultimately helped us secure our first choice for the position in a timely manner. They were attentive to our needs, quickly learned and understood the context of our school and team, and were consistently available to offer insights, answer questions, and give guidance. It was a seamless and successful process, and I’m excited to work with the Carney Sandoe team on our next search.

In the five years engaging with Carney, Sandoe & Associates, we can truly say that they are outstanding search consultants, both in depth and breadth. We were well supported and advised every step of the way in our search for an interim head of school and later on a permanent head.

At the outset, they spent a considerable amount of time meeting with various stakeholders to understand UWC ISAK's vision, mission, and ethos. The process left us with little doubt that they could accurately portray our school to potential candidates, both in the position description and during preliminary screening interviews. Their network of potential candidates is very broad. With short notice, our urgent search for an interim head yielded quality candidates in a space of two weeks! The permanent head search conducted later started with more than 5,000 potential candidates that were then shortlisted to a curated pool.

The candidate dossiers that were presented to the search committee were testament of their in-depth understanding of what we were looking for. Fully cognizant that board members tasked to conduct head of school searches may be doing it for the first time, Carney Sandoe provided ample training and resources at appropriate junctures. We also appreciated the healthy push backs they gave, a function of the underlying trust.

The dedication of Ben Bolté and Deb Welch was evident when meetings were sometimes conducted over several time zones, in the wee hours of dawn and even weekends. It was a partnership, and not just a “consultant/client relationship”. They wanted to see our school succeed in the long term with the right head as much as we wanted it for UWC ISAK.

We worked with Greg Britton and Sara Shulman on the daunting task of finding the right successor for a monumentally effective (22-year) CFOO. From the start, they paired reassuring confidence with incisive questions that helped us hone our aspirations and focus our recruiting strategy. They presented a dozen varied candidates and supported me and our team as we narrowed the pool to three talented finalists. In addition to the obvious advantages of time saved and nets more broadly thrown, I appreciated Greg and Sara's candor about the ways that candidate personalities might or might not fit the culture of our team and community. They are perceptive conversationalists and honest brokers. Their reference checking was particularly helpful. This is our second leadership search with CS&A. Both processes were smooth, enlightening, successful...and even fun. We are grateful.

Thank you so much for the guidance and wisdom you gave Harding Academy these past few months. Carney Sandoe's reputation is excellent, and you exceeded the high expectations we had for you in this partnership. Your gentle nudges, your words of encouragement, and your thoughtful questions reflect your integrity, professionalism and experience. I am excited for the path Harding Academy will climb with its new leader, and we would not be here without you. Countless children in the years to come will benefit because of where you have moved us.

I am a member of the Board of Trustees at the American College of Sofia in Bulgaria and led the head of school search committee in the spring of 2021 to replace our seven-year incumbent. We interviewed three search firms and hired Art Charles and John Chandler of Carney Sandoe to help us lead the search. They educated our first-time search committee members on process, commitments, and best practices. Our situation was unique being an American school in the Balkans, but Art and John offered tailored advice to our situation. They not only fielded applications from candidates who learned of our position, but proactively reached out to their network of leaders who hadn’t heard about our search. Our ultimate hire was one of those people. Carney Sandoe helped us conduct an efficient and effective Zoom-only search process during COVID, without compromising the integrity of the process or the search’s outcome. When it came to negotiating with our finalists, Carney Sandoe were thought partners on every aspect of the proposal, including compensation package vs. cost of living, market competition, impact of accreditation findings, contract review, community outreach, and internal and external communication. Generally, their response time was two hours or less, regardless of the time difference. They were extremely kind, patient, and thorough and encouraged us to evaluate fit throughout the process. In the end we couldn’t be happier with our head of school.

A sincere thank you for all of your support helping us with our Head of School and Principal search. Your steady hand and sage guidance were so appreciated and I want you to know that we are in a great place with our new leadership.

The team of Art Charles, John Chandler, and Deb Welch were simply outstanding in support of our searches. As we sought to hire two principals, the CS&A team were always available, responsive, and thoughtful in their approaches, work, and recommendations. COVID required new approaches and creative thinking, and I appreciated the team's leadership and flexibility to personalize the search for our school. I was also grateful for their patience and dedication in ensuring a complete process, fully considering the candidates' needs and our school's needs. Hiring a school leader can have a real impact on a school, and the CS&A team will not hesitate to make the extra effort to support schools with the hiring process.