Diversified Search is a generalist retained executive search firm recruiting senior-level management with expertise in a wide range of industries. The firm employs 30 executive recruiters based in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston

Mission

Our mission is to provide the highest quality executive search services in the industry, as measured by the comprehensive nature of our search process, the caliber of the candidates we present, and the success of those candidates in our clients’ organizations.

To this end, Diversified Search is committed to the highest level of professionalism in every aspect of our business life: in the results we achieve, in the ethics of our practice, and in our ongoing relationships with clients, candidates, and colleagues alike.

Why Diversified Search?

• Recognized industry leader for over 30 years, delivering high quality consultative executive search services.
• Experienced industry-focused consultants who have detailed knowledge of their markets and strong relationships in the field.
• Track record for delivering senior-level executives who possess relevant skills and outstanding potential, with low attrition rates on our placed candidates (measured over a two-year period).
• Longstanding client relationships as evidenced by a 75 percent repeat business rate.
• Comprehensive references from relevant industry leaders with recent experience of Diversified Search services.
• Team approach and hands-on management of individual search assignments ensures effective search outcomes.
• Finely tuned process determined by industry experts, which ensures speed of delivery with target to present qualified candidates quickly.
• One-year performance guarantee, covering the placed candidate from the date of hire.
• Clear off-limits policy protects our long-term relationships with our clients.

Education Practice Overview

Strategic leadership skills have never been more important to mission-driven organizations than they are today, when tightened resources, intense competition, constant scrutiny, and increasing regulation offer significant challenges to the nation's educational and not-for-profit institutions. We undertake search assignments nationwide to find leaders for educational institutions, not-for-profit organizations, arts and cultural organizations, and mission-driven for-profit companies that serve this sector. Our client organizations include a wide array of private and public research universities, comprehensive and faith-based institutions, liberal arts colleges, independent schools, foundations, public sector organizations, private not-for-profits, academic medical centers, professional associations, cultural institutions, research organizations, and companies that serve K-12 and higher education.

Our assignments cover a full-range of executive functions - from president, chief executive officer, executive director, and head of school to provost, vice president, and senior director. Our experience includes placing successful candidates in academic, advancement, financial, administrative, information technology, communications, marketing, and student affairs functions.

As a specialty practice within a full-service company, we can move across sectors when our client organizations are interested in seeking talent beyond their immediate industry. We believe this flexibility adds value by producing broader pools that include both traditional and out-of-the-box candidates and gives our clients additional choices when they seek particular market skills to enhance their fulfillment of a mission.

Our consultants are individuals who have had long-standing prior careers in the sectors they serve. This enables us to provide a highly consultative service with insights and assessments that are drawn from years of experience in similar environments. We believe in partnering with our client organizations in a relationship where communication is paramount. We bring extensive experience in working with search committees and in helping our clients to construct equitable and inclusive search processes that appropriately involve the many constituencies that make up our clients' communities.

Practice Teams: Education, Not for Profit, Arts & Culture

Dr. Morrisson is a managing director for Diversified Search. She has developed a national practice that focuses on educational institutions and not-for-profit organizations, with clients that include research universities, liberal arts colleges, academic medical centers, not-for-profit associations, foundations, public agencies, and independent secondary schools. Dr. Morrisson has also consulted with colleges and universities on organizational structure, improvement of operations, and program development with particular focus on residential planning, integrating academic and non-academic services, and enhancing student service delivery. She has taught on the faculties of both the English department and the higher education division at the University of Pennsylvania.

Before joining Diversified Search, Dr. Morrisson served in key executive and administrative positions during more than 20 years in higher education at the University of Pennsylvania. She served as vice provost of the University of Pennsylvania, leading the Division of University Life for seven years and serving as vice provost and executive director of the 21st Century Project for the Undergraduate Experience. As vice provost for University Life, she directed strategic, fiscal, and human resource planning for 26 departments and more than 300 staff, led facilities planning for the university's residential system, and acted as university spokesperson on student issues. In earlier roles, she was responsible for managing advising services to undergraduates in the College of Arts and Sciences and for negotiating solutions to problems brought to the Ombudsman's office of the university.

Dr. Morrisson's clients have included Carnegie Mellon, Drexel, Duke, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Rice, Stanford, Washington, and United Arab Emirates Universities; the University of Illinois, the University of Michigan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Hamilton, Middlebury, and Swarthmore Colleges; the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Fletcher Allen Healthcare; Westtown, George, and Moorestown Friends Schools, Community Education Partners, and the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Dr. Morrisson graduated magna cum laude with honors in English from Smith College where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She earned her master's and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Morrisson and her husband live in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. She has one son, Robert, who lives and works in Boston.