Sara Thomas

Founder

Sara founded Aspen in 1987, leading the company to its position as one of the primary global Executive Search, Board and Investor Advisory, and Leadership Development firms operating within Enterprise SaaS, AI, Analytics, Big Data, CyberSecurity; Fintech, Insurtech; Omni-Channel eCommerce, Online Platforms and Marketplaces; Blockchain and Web3.

Aspen partners with Founders, CEOs and investors as they scale up from pre-Unicorn through IPO and beyond, plus established Nasdaq / NYSE-listed and PE-backed $Multi-Bn market leaders. These client partnerships are long-term, 360° relationships that enable clients to think through and optimize their leadership, and build organizations that deliver competitive advantage, high growth, and consistent performance aligned with their business mission, strategy and goals.

Aspen supports CEOs and Founders to build cohesive, high-performing Executive Teams and scale global organizations, as well as supporting CEOs and leading VC and PE investors to build Boards that add concrete value, insight and experience for the journey ahead. The Aspen network extends across the US, Europe, Israel, and APAC.

Aspen supports rapid global scale-up via a dynamic and closeknit team of likeminded people who are passionate and equipped to provide an expert, agile service globally. We have deep expertise across the entire C-Suite, spanning CEO, COO, Chief Product Officer, CTO/Engineering, CMO, CFO, CLO/General Counsel, Chief People Officer, and go-to-market including CRO, CCO/CS leadership and all supporting GTM functions.

As a trusted thinking partner, advisor and coach, Sara partners with Founders, CEOs and investors across the globe to optimize leadership performance and growth, aligning people strategy with each company’s specific growth goals and the dynamics of the markets they serve. The focus is to maximize competitive advantage, secure milestones, and build high performing global teams as they scale to become market leaders.

With 37 years’ experience supporting market creators, disruptors, Nasdaq leaders, and niche innovators, Sara has been deeply involved in building leadership teams for some of the most rapid growth businesses across the globe.  She leverages this experience to support CEOs on a wide range of topics: CEO and leadership development, global scale-up, organizational design aligned to growth strategy, penetration of North American and global markets, building to culture, achieving cross-cultural cohesion, optimizing the Board dynamic, and developing highly capable and cohesive Leadership Teams. Example clients over the years include Salesforce, Oracle, Siebel, Qlik, CyberArk, Shift Technology, ThetaRay and Celonis, alongside multiple European, Israeli, and American unicorns, decacorns and public companies.

Sara is also an advisor to leading VCs and PE firms, and an investor in multiple tech startups. Her career focus has been to enable high-performing CEOs to reach their full potential and that of their companies.

Our relationship with Aspen has added value to many aspects of our global scale-up journey, a 360-degree partnership spanning Coaching and Advisory work, leadership programs that maximized Executive Team cohesion and alignment on vision and strategy, Executive Search, and more. Their impact goes far beyond building cohesive global leadership teams, or developing individual leaders; it’s about building success together.

BASTIAN NOMINACHER, Co-CEO and Co-Founder, Celonis