Bay Area/Northern California Executive Recruiting Year in Review 2022

ACCUR Recruiting Services works in San Francisco, the Bay Area and the Wine Region of California to deliver qualified executive talent in the following industries:

Wines and spirits
Luxury Goods
Tech
Hospitality and Tourism

Trends in Executive Recruiting in the Bay Area in 2022

Our experience in executive recruiting in the Bay Area and Wine Country in the past year has exposed us to a number of unique hiring challenges including:

Working with venture-backed companies to find growth-minded executives on a tight timetable
Helping traditional businesses in wines and spirits navigate making more digitally savvy hires
Seeing the impact of technical advances in all of our work

We are keeping an eye on all of these trends in hiring across the country.

How Tech Intersects with Wines and Spirits in the Bay Area

The Wines & Spirits industry is highly regulated but nonetheless is an interesting category for digital innovation. Consider the following players:

New market players like Drizly work with local shops to deliver spirits, beer and wine straight to the door of a consumer, serving as both a boon in COVID times and also an asset to small businesses looking for a new distribution channel.
Wine.com partners with retail locations like Walgreens and FedEx for wine pickup sites.
Winc is a “wine of the month” club that promises tasty selections in exchange for recurring revenue.

Whereas traditional alcohol distribution was highly reliant on relationships between key account managers, brand managers and their sales territories, in this post COVID age, new alcohol delivery startups will need to recruit professionals who have plenty of industry experiences as well as the wherewithal to adapt their work styles to a more digital friendly medium. We are often asked by our Bay Area clients to help them bridge that divide.

The Role of Private Equity & Venture Capital in the Bay Area

Many of our clients in the Bay Area are in private equity-backed companies are looking for rapid results from financially-minded candidates who can also quickly adapt the unique reporting structure of working with a venture-back firm.

They are looking for candidates who:

At a stable part of their career.
Capable of turning a company around or boosting revenue at a company at a key stage of growth.
Entrepreneurially-minded.
Experienced in similar companies.
Open to tying their compensation to the growth they are able to spearhead.

Further, in terms of the Wines & Spirits companies we work with, we are sometimes tasked with assisting in the scaling or evolution of a family-run business.

The Unique Executive Skillsets Needed for the Bay Area

Digital savvy: We see continued high demand for digital and e-commerce professionals in the Bay Area who have a high degree of expertise in “customer acquisition” and retention strategies.
Growth mindset: We can trace the roots of the Chief Revenue Officer in startup and tech culture thanks to growth-focused companies like Uber and Tesla. Startup culture has brought a number of ideas into the business mainstream, such as rapid iteration, minimum viable product and “growth hacking.” All of these innovations are focused on one thing: getting the maximum possible value out of an idea on a short timetable.
Regulation friendly: As in cannabis and tobacco, regulation is major part of the wine & spirits market, requiring executives who are adaptable and resourceful in the face of sometimes daunting legal restrictions. But for the most creative wine & spirits professionals, opportunity abounds.