Endorsements

“Better hiring can win you races, and help you win in your career.”
– William Koch, Founder and President, The Oxbow Group, and winner of the 1992 America’s Cup sailboat race.

“ Geoff Smart and Randy Street have done an amazing job distilling the best advice from some of the world’s most successful business leaders. ”
– Wayne Huizenga, Chairman, Huizenga Holdings, Inc., previously Founder & CEO of Waste Management, Blockbuster Video, and AutoNation.

“ A great read – it really is all about finding, keeping and motivating the team.”
– John Malone, Chairman, Liberty Media Corporation.

“ The Blackstone Group gives ghSMART straight A’s across the board. ”
– Stephen A. Schwarzman, Chairman, CEO, and Co-Founder, The Blackstone Group.

“ ghSMART has helped make talent a competitive advantage at Heinz. ”
– William Johnson, Chairman, President, and CEO, H.J. Heinz Corporation.

“ The best business book I’ve read in a very long time. ”
– Eric Cohen, Managing Partner, WHI Capital Partners.

“ Seventy percent of the game is finding the right people, putting them in the right position, listening to them, and alleviating what gets in their way. Who is a practical guide to making sure you get the right people to start with! Excellent advice and guide. ”
– Robert Gillette, President and CEO, Honeywell Aerospace.

“ No investment is more important than building our teams, and ghSMART helps us do it right. ”
– Ken Griffin, President & CEO, Citadel Investment Group.

“ The key point in this book is that those of us who run companies should include ‘who’ decisions near the top of the list of strategic priorities. ”
– John Varley, Group Chief Executive, Barclays.

“ In real estate, it’s location, location, location. In business, it’s management, management, management. Who tells us how to identify the right management. ghSMART is brilliant. ”
– John Howard, CEO, BSMB

“ We have incorporated ghSMART’s A method as a core element of our leadership development curriculum and talent management process. The marked improvement in key business results speaks for itself. ”
– John Zillmer, Chairman & CEO, Allied Waste Industries, Inc.

“ ghSMART gets it! Great businesses don’t run by themselves, great people get the job done. ghSMART has a proven approach for finding those A players! ”
– Matt Levin, Managing Director, Bain Capital.

“ Knowing what to do is not the major challenge faced by executives – finding who to do it is! Great advice for a talent hungry world! ”
– Marshall Goldsmith, New York Times best-selling author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, the Longman Award winner for best business book of 2007.

“ CEOs and middle managers can benefit from this book. ”
– Alec Gores, Founder and Chairman, The Gores Group.

“ I have used ghSMART to make better ‘who’ decisions for a decade, with excellent results. ”
– Paul Lattanzio, Senior Managing Director, Bear Growth Capital Partners.

“ ghSMART’s A Method For Hiring is one of the key processes we use religiously to build a valuable company. ”
– Michael J. Ahearn, CEO, First Solar, LLC.

“ ghSMART’s method works for hiring investors or CEOs. ”
– Mark Gallogly and Jeff Aronson, Co-founders and Managing Principals, Centerbridge Partners, L.P.

“ Who is the only book you need to read if you are serious about making smart hiring and promotion decisions. It is the most actionable book on middle and upper management hiring that I’ve read after 20 years in HR. ”
– Ed Evans, EVP and Chief Human Resources Officer, Allied Waste Industries.

“ We asked ghSMART to train our CEOs on the A Method for Hiring. For those who follow it, this method will turn their #1 problem into their greatest strength. ”
– Mark Stone, Senior Managing Director, The Gores Group.

“ I went from sales manager to CEO in under 5 years, thanks to the concepts in this book. ”
– Greg Alexander, CEO, Sales Benchmark Index, Inc.

“ I wish I had this book 30 years ago at the beginning of my career! ”
– Jay Jordan, CEO, The Jordan Company.

“ A terrific (and unusual) combination of practical experience and rigorous research. ”
– Steven N. Kaplan, Neubauer Family Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance, University of Chicago
Graduate School of Business

“ Those who have read Jim Collins are familiar with the idea of starting with the right who. Who provides a step-by-step framework to implement this powerful idea. Having participated in ghSMART’s Topgrading Interview, I can say that the results were incredibly valuable in helping me see what I needed to do to move from being an ‘A’ candidate to being an ‘A’ Head of School. ”
– Kolia O’Connor, Head of School, Sewickley Academy.

“ A must read for all those who want to build excellence in their organizations. ”
– Stacy Schusterman. Chairman & CEO, Samson Investment Company.

“ An exceptional read, uncovering the voodoo interviews and human capital gobbledygook to offer a simple and real solution to a high stakes problem–picking the right who. ”
– Kelvin Thompson, Managing Partner, Global Private Equity and Venture Capital Practice, Heidrick & Struggles

“ This book will save you and your company TIME and MONEY. In business, what else is there? ”
– Roger Marino, Co-founder of EMC Corporation.

“ A very practical solution to a problem that many managers find difficult to solve. ”
– Gabriel Echavarria, Chairman, Corona Group of Companies.

“ You’ll find yourself nodding ‘yes,’ ‘that’s right,’ and ‘oh, I’ve been there’ all the way through this grand slam of a book. When starting a company or running a part of a big one, the level of success you achieve is almost always a result of choosing the right people for the right jobs at the right time. It’s all about the ‘who’! ”
– Aaron Kennedy, Founder and Chairman, Noodles & Company.