Paul F Villella

biography

Paul Villella -

Founder, President and CEO

Paul Villella is one of the country's most skilled and successful recruitment executives. His understanding of recruitment and staffing business models coupled with his experience in technology companies has helped him launch and build a number of successful companies. Now, he is guiding his own company, HireStrategy, through a period of high growth and market visibility.

Before founding HireStrategy in January 2000, Mr. Villella worked with a regional venture capital firm engaged in funding and mergers & acquisitions; he also held interim executive positions with two technology start-ups. He has spent most of his career in recruitment and was Managing Director for Kforce (formerly Source Services), a national staffing and placement company. As its leader, Mr. Villella grew his operation from three employees and $1 million in annual revenue to more than 450 employees and $80 million in annual revenue in less than five years. Under his leadership, Source Services became the number one recruiting firm in the mid-Atlantic region three straight years (1996-1998).

During his tenure, Mr. Villella helped take his company public and later led the merger of his firm's technology division with that of another company, creating a new company with more than 100 offices and $550 million in annual revenue.

Also during his tenure, Paul led his team in successfully deploying some of the largest staffing and consulting initiatives ever, including placing the current CIO, six vice presidents, 22 directors, 75 managers and more than 500 other technology staff at Verizon over a two-year period. He led similar projects for Nextel, General Motors and dozens of other companies, in many cases working with these companies early in their development.

Mr. Villella's successes have been featured in several national publications, including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, ComputerWorld, Fortune and Entrepreneur magazines, and Information Week. He has been profiled in Info World, Washington Business Forward, and Potomac Tech Journal, has appeared on CNN, Fox Television News, NBC News, and is a regular contributor to the Washington Business Journal, Potomac Tech Wire and Business Radio. He is an expert in mergers and acquisitions, with particular strengths in the areas of e-commerce, leadership, technology, collaborative business development, integration and innovation. Mr. Villella serves on the boards of NVTC, First Tuesday and several technology companies.

Mr. Villella spent his early career as a manager with Booz-Allen & Hamilton, and in technology with DuPont. He holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Virginia