Deborah Shaw
Search Director
My favorite core value is “gratefulness”
Deborah began her career in executive search in 2006 when Linkedin was still a start-up and cold-calling directly into potential candidates’ workplaces was the status-quo. Through this skin-thickening experience, she realized her ability to leverage her fiery determination and resilience to produce high-caliber talent for some very challenging searches. She also realized her fascination with what people do for a living and, more importantly, WHY they do it.
She joined Y Scouts as a Search Director in January of 2020 because the idea of connecting people and companies with work that matters resonated with her desire to marry work with purpose.
As a Search Director at Y Scouts, Deborah is focused on partnering with clients to create a purpose-based search strategy and executing that strategy to place the best qualified and values-aligned leaders in their companies. Her expertise lies in building trusted and long-lasting relationships with clients and candidates to provide a thoughtful, transparent, and enjoyable recruiting process with “white glove” service. With over 15 years in the search business,
Deborah has worked with clients in a variety of industries filling leadership roles in Manufacturing, eCommerce, Healthcare Technology, Cannabis, and Software. Although she considers herself a generalist, Deborah has recently found a niche in placing COOs and Heads of People to execute the vision of entrepreneurial CEOs and drive transformational culture change.
As an Arizona near-native, Deborah is thrilled to be part of the Valley’s only purpose-driven search firm. When she is not busy building relationships with great leaders, Deborah enjoys sharing life with her amazing husband and young-adult children or throwing on a pack and exploring a deep canyon or craggy mountain range.
A little more about me:
- Nothing makes me feel more alive than spending time hiking deep into a Canyon or summiting a craggy peak.
- One of the best parts of my job is listening to the often fascinating and inspiring stories of candidates and business leaders.
- Some of the best Saturday nights involve the smell of garlic and onions sizzling on the stove, a glass of red wine, and the jazz greats playing on the stereo.
- A fast sports car is fun, but I’d take an Airstream trailer over that, any day.
- Arizona mornings are pure magic.
- If I could spend time with any dead poet, I would take a long walk in the woods with Mary Oliver.
- My kids are pretty awesome, just sayin’…