Laurence Karsh, CFA

(213) 618-6650 direct
laurence.karsh@grahall.com

Laurence Karsh is a Consultant at Grahall, LLC. He is a creative and effective business problem solver with extensive line management and consulting expertise. He has an unusual combination of financial expertise as a Chartered Financial Analyst and human resource management and consulting. Today he consults to CEO’s, Boards of Directors and top HR pros. His expertise is in executive compensation design, ownership succession, ESOP compensation design, and executive assessment for selection and succession planning. He has helped select and coached a number of CEO candidates preparing for the critical top management role. He has 25 years of experience working in and consulting to organizations in the construction, service, technology, manufacturing, education, real estate health care, and not-for-profit industries.

Leadership experience: Most recently he led two business turnarounds for firms in the psychometric executive assessment business including President of the Americas Region for London-based SHL Group and Interim President for IPAT in Chicago. Before these engagements, he spent 14 years with the Hay Group rising through the ranks from Consultant to Managing Director for seven offices and two national practices with combined revenue of $60 million. Before joining Hay, Laurence was Director of Succession Planning and Corporate Human Resources for the Genstar Corporation in San Francisco. He was accountable for the human resource function for Genstar’s corporate offices in the United States, Canada, and Europe and for company-wide management development and succession planning. Genstar had revenue of $2.2 billion before its acquisition by IMASCO Corp. Before joining Genstar, he worked as a securities analyst in a leading investment-banking firm in Toronto.

Laurence has served on a number of Boards of Directors in the for-profit and not-for-profit community. He currently is a Corporate Director and Chairs the Audit Committee for ACCO Engineered Systems based in Glendale, California. ACCO is an industry leading, for-profit Company with more than one half billion in revenue.

Laurence is a Chartered Financial Analyst, “CFA.” and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business and Finance from Carleton University. He has presented to a number of professional associations on a wide range of topics including most recently on effective ways to assess organization talent for leadership potential.