Headhunter for Uber and Zalando appoints new CEO and increases focus on international expansion

Ethan Partners, a London based specialised Executive Search company that finds and attracts top talent for C-, VP-, and Director-level positions in international startups and corporate ventures, has appointed Lars Sodergaard as CEO. He has been with the company since 2017 as COO & Partner.

With the appointment Ethan Partners embarks on the next step of an impressive growth journey, during which the company has supported +150 companies in 50 countries and set up offices in four countries, with more in the pipeline.

“Since Lars joined the company, he has strengthened the operations, by successfully optimizing the company’s processes and services. Further, our approach has become even more data-driven, which has been instrumental to our success with much quicker delivery and a significant increase in the suitability of our candidates, fulfilling the client’s needs,” says founding partner Ann-Christine Roope, who will remain active in the company with an increased focus on business development, client and public relations, as well as board work.

Lars holds 2 masters degrees in Finance and Auditing from Copenhagen Business School, and has extensive private equity and corporate experience. He has held positions at A.P. Møller – Mærsk, at a PE fund as one of Denmark’s youngest associates, at Accenture Strategy and at TDC Group. He also has experience from startups, having worked as COO for a leading Nordic e-commerce site that was sold to a large international player listed on AIM London Stock Exchange.

Ann-Christine adds: “The services we can provide as a trusted advisor with solid experience in supporting and scaling hundreds of startups are truly unique. We are experiencing a particularly high demand throughout Europe, confirming that our services continue to fulfill a need amongst startups and scaleups.”

“We have helped some very exciting startups like Uber, Zalando, HelloFresh, HighQ and Deliveroo,  but I also see a need for our services from corporates, both in terms of an increased focus on specialised talent to drive digitalisation throughout the organisations, as well as when we advise and hire for corporate ventures.”, says Lars Sodergaard and continues: “It has been a challenge for European corporations to attract international talent and since that is one of our unique value propositions, I hope we can be part of the solution.”

Ethan Partners was founded by Ann-Christine Roope in 2013, when she saw the need for a global and digital approach to executive recruitment. Previously she was Director of International
Recruiting at Rocket Internet where she was responsible for Founder and Senior Executive recruitment for +75 portfolio companies in +45 countries, taking Rocket Internet from a few 1000
people European company to a +25,000 person global organization in 2 years. Before this Ann-Christine was Director of International Recruiting at Groupon as they entered +50 countries
globally