William M. Byrnes

Bill Byrnes is a consultant at Grahall and the firm’s Client Success Manager in the eastern Great Lakes region. For each assignment of these regional clients, he is the ‘integrator’ of Grahall’s discipline experts. For each client assignment, he assembles a project-specific team choosing from these extensive resources with the exact skill sets necessary to achieve success.

On a national basis, Bill also leads teams of retained executive search professionals. That team of recruiters & researchers, based in numerous locations across the US (with affiliates outside the US), is comprised of business executives with line and staff experience in major corporations who now are specialists in, and dedicated to, executive recruiting. Grahall’s executive search practice is focused across many industry sectors including Consumer Packaged Goods, Financial Services, Transportation, Manufacturing, Real Estate, Engineering, Hospitality/Leisure, Technology, etc. Apart from industry sectors, we also are experienced in most key management functions such as Finance, Investment Management, Human Resources, Legal/Audit/Compliance, Technology, Sales, Operations, etc.

Bill’s corporate experience is broad and deep in both ‘line’ and ‘staff’ roles. His Financial Services ‘line’ experience was gained in domestic and global firms as COO at ICMA Retirement Corporation, a $50 bil. investment management & retirement services firm; New York Life Investment Management as VP – Sales & Consultant Relations; Boston Financial as SVP & GM; Putnam Investments as SVP and Fidelity Investments as VP & Partner.

In his transitional assignment to Financial Services from corporate Human Resources, he served as president of Fidelity’s in-house executive search company. He also nurtured a Fidelity ‘temp works’ recruiting division which ultimately ‘spun off’ and became one of the largest temporary recruiting companies on the east coast. He has extensive ‘staff’ experience in corporate human resources, primarily with Xerox, where he designed and installed the company’s first 401(k) plan. Additional HR positions were held at other Fortune 500 firms such as Avon, Westvaco and Emery Worldwide. Each one of these assignments included significant recruiting, employee development, compensation, change management and organizational design & development responsibilities.

He has been a speaker at various industry conferences in the US and Europe. He has been active in industry associations such as NICSA, ICI, SPARK and SHRM. Byrnes’ educational background includes a BS in History from SUNY – Geneseo and an MS in Personnel Administration from SUNY – Albany.