AC LION

AC Lion was founded in 1996 after CEO Alan Cutter left Hotjobs.com and used the revenue to found his own business, an executive search firm. His business model was based on tech recruiting, and capitalizing on the new medium of the internet. The initial focus of the company was staffing IT development and integration teams through 2000. The early years were marked by work with fledgling firms like Agency.com, iVillage and 24x7.

By 1999 the New York Silicon Alley community recognized AC Lion as one of the area’s technology recruiting firm. ACL mirrored this success by opening up satellite offices in Boston, Los Angeles, and Tel Aviv, broadening their geographical reach. At their height, there were 35 employees staffing five offices and covering all of the continental USA. As venture capital investment flowed for tech entrepreneurship, Ac Lion’s fortunes rose with it.

By April 2000, the economy lost momentum and AC Lion shifted its focus, with a division solely focused on building companies’ sales teams. They built a team of sales consultants, with a combined 75 years experience in technology, financial services, and biotech. This team launched an innovative tracking system- Live Recruiter, using web based systems.

A key component of their approach was repositioning clients away from new product development toward increasing sales and leverage existing products.

Looking farther afield, AC Lion’s senior leadership identified several promising market sectors based on emerging technologies. That niche, now known as Internet Advertising, is today a $8.4 billion a year industry- with AC Lion being of the nation’s premiere firms in that sector. They were also one of the first players in staffing Search Engine Marketing, Ad Serving Networks, and Interactive agencies.

September 11, 2001 accelerated the economic mediocrity and AC Lion was forced to close their Boston office and was down to a skeleton staff. However, AC Lion continued to develop relationships clients, and a two year strategy-investigation campaign, yielding tremendous results. That knowledge base gave birth to a new division, ACSelleron, with innovative approaches to sales acceleration, focusing on re-generation and strategic telemarketing campaigns (www.acselleron.com). The focus was for ACSelleron to leverage over twenty years of relationships with venture capital to help clients grow.

By 2004, as the economy warmed up, both old and new clients began commissioning AC Lion, based on reputation and previous history. Their clients began calling about tech recruiting needs as well as sales. Within a few months, they had a revitalized technology staffing group, with senior leadership focusing on small to medium interactive and consulting companies.

Part of the growth was investment in new technologies. AC Lion’s [...] edge advance, the video resume, now a standard HR tool, was highlighted by the New York Times (Feb 2004) as an “innovative and effective approach for today’s job market.” Their internal investment in new SQL software, website and staff provided the platform to launch renewed growth in a rebounding economy.

2005 marked AC Lion’s emergence as a player in the interactive recruiting arena, placing sales, marketing and technology staff. AC Lion was now rebounding past its rebuilding year. Clients included DoubleClick, EyeBlaster, VIewPoint, Viacom and many advertising agencies.

In 2006, AC Lion opened its Executive Search Division, focusing on retained search for digital marketing and online media. This new initiative was responsible for building AC Lion's new retained division in both New York City and San Francisco. AC Lion's Executive Search Division focused primarily on retained searches for "C" level officers of online media related organizations, such as publishers, advertisers, marketing companies, and emerging technology.

California was the next area of expansion. With over 20% of its work linked to the West Coast, AC Lion opened a base of operations in LA in 2007.

After its various stages and metamorphoses, in 2009 AC Lion is a leading executive search firm specializing in building sales, marketing, and technology teams within the media (traditional and interactive agencies, publishers, 3rd party technology/software providers and client side), emerging technology (mobile wireless/PDA, IPTV), e-commerce, and financial industries.

They currently have three offices- New York, Tel Aviv, and Los Angeles, with a strong presence in Chicago, San Francisco, Texas, and Georgia, and approximately 25 employees. Their New York office occupies a floor in the heart of Manhattan- Times Square.

Personel and leadership

Alan Cutter is the CEO and founder of AC Lion. Cutter has over ten years of recruitment experience in New York. Prior to AC Lion, Mr. Cutter was a senior manager for OTEC, where he played a central role in the initial strategic success of Hotjobs.com. He graduated Yeshiva University in 1993. He has also launched Acselleron, a company that helps companies jumpstart sales efforts by generating highly qualified meetings and sales opportunities, lowering costs and maximizing revenues. Cutter also oversees general business management and strategic development for sawyouatsinai.com, a unique online matchmaking network.

Michael Adler is the Managing Partner at AC Lion as well as the head of the Advertising Talent Acquisition Group. Prior to AC Lion, Adler served as VP Finance and Business Development at Visual Radio, an Internet-and New Media venture capital fund. Before this, he was at Bank of America supporting the bank’s participation in syndicated debt. Adler received his BA at Whittier College in Business Administration.

Dan Goldsmith is the Managing Director and Director of the Executive Search Division. The ESD focuses on securing key leadership in sales and marketing for high growth digital and emerging companies. He is a 1993 graduate of The University of Massachusetts at Amherst and was a Division 1, nationally ranked competitive cyclist.

Bonnie Zaben is the Chief Operating Officer overseeing the firms’ personnel, finance, and operations. Zaben joined AC Lion in 2003 after 15 years in Higher Education Administration in the New York City area. She received her BA and Masters Degree in Social Work from the University of Maryland and was a doctoral candidate in History.

Corporate culture

AC Lion’s corporate culture is driven but informal. Dress is business-casual. Their offices are designed to encourage collaboration among employees, which is unusual in a recruiting environment. Internal communication within the company tends towards the more informal. Employees tend to be a multi-ethnic, multi-religious mix of young and successful professionals who are both talented and highly-intelligent. Average age is probably around 30.

AC Lion also invests in teambuilding activities, events, and company vacations. This includes: Cinco de Mayo parties, sporting events and sports days, Dave and Busters, ESPN Zone, an annual day in the country at ‘Club Chris.’ To mark a banner year of 2007, the President’s Club spent a weekend in Punta Cana.

Many of the AC Lion team are sports enthusiasts. CEO Alan Cutter and Managing Partner Mike Adler are big surfers, while Managing Director Dan Goldsmith is a competitive cyclist. Director of Sales, Chris Masters, a former NCAA college basketball player and avid golfer, won first place in the 2009 CIMA Golf Classic in Chicago.

Internship Program

AC Lion offers summer and fall internships to college students as well as recent graduates. While offering only an unpaid internship, AC Lion offers students the opportunity to be trained in the online media space and in the recruitment field.

Interns are not only work with their private supervisors but are also trained by the company as a whole. The highest ranking members of the company teach about the online media space, as well as coach each student in how to pitch themselves and others, give interviews and write resumes and cover letters. The internship attracts students looking to go into human resources, sales, marketing or any business oriented field.

Some of the schools that AC Lion interns come from include: University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Teachers College, Yeshiva University, Yeshiva College, Stern College for Women, Sy Syms School of Business, Hunter College, University of Michigan, University of Maryland, Queens College, Rutgers, University of Albany, Binghamton University and Baruch College.

Community initiatives

One of AC Lion’s community/environmental initiatives is their four-step, ongoing Going Green campaign, GLO, which is slated to begin Summer 2009. The Green Lion Operation four-step plan includes short- and long-term goals to make their offices and operations more environmentally friendly. GLO aims to educate ACL employees on being eco-friendly, reduce waste in the office, and target individual staff members to become more environmentally conscious at home as well.

Market segments and verticals

AC Lion specializes in sales and technology recruitment and in particular the nexus between the two. AC Lion’s edge comes from a deep 360 degree knowledge of the marketplace. Core specialties include: Ad Agencies, Emerging/Digital Tech, Financial Services/Capital Markets, Interactive Marketing, Mobile, Publishing/Branded Sites, Retained/C-Level, Sales, and Technology. They also have extensive experience recruiting for clients that specialize in: Ad Serving/Rich Media, Advergaming, Advertising, Affiliate Marketing, Content Providers/Publishers, Contextual, Display Ad Networks, Email, Financial Services, Local Search, Media Companies, Online Video, Search Networks, SEO & SEM, Site Analytics, Social Networks, Web 2.0

Clients range from startups to Fortune 500 companies, mainly on the two coasts.

In the news

AC Lion and its employees have been in the news on many occasions over the past decade. These include mentions and articles in: Digidaily, Wall Street Journal, HRFemme, Careerjournal.com, and The New York Times.