San Francisco, CA, February 29, 2024 – Riviera Partners, the leading global executive search firm specializing in executive leadership placements in technology, product, and design talent, has welcomed Sam Wilkins as its newest Partner, joining the firm’s Venture Capital-backed practice led by Managing Partner Eoin O’Toole.
Sam brings a wealth of experience from his decade-long tenure at Erevena, establishing the CTO practice in Europe before relocating to San Francisco five years ago and increasingly concentrated on Product and Deeptech. Throughout his tenure, he cultivated relationships in the US by working with a diverse array of Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Publicly backed technology companies. His collaborations spanned the portfolios of prominent firms such as Accel, NEA, Insight Partners, Redpoint, Battery, Stripes, A16Z, Gradient, Y-Combinator, Norwest, Sapphire Ventures, Advent, and Apollo Capital.
Said Sam: “Working with people building Frontier technology companies where scientific discovery powers the core product has always been where I get most energized. Riviera presents the perfect opportunity to deepen my involvement in this sector. I am thrilled at the prospect of placing executive operators and board advisors into the next wave of these pioneers, as well as supporting those who have already reached remarkable heights.”
“We are delighted to welcome Sam to the team,” said Eoin O’Toole, Managing Partner at Riviera Partners. “In addition to being an incredible search professional, Sam embodies the entrepreneurial DNA shared by the Founders with whom we work. His reputation has been built on incredible delivery, and forging lasting relationships through delivering outsized value.”
New Venture-Backed Practice Fully Focused on Serving the VC Community and Portfolio Companies of All Sizes
O’Toole leads the recently formed Venture Practice, which combines Riviera’s former Emerging and Growth practices. The fully VC-backed focus aims to expand and strengthen Riviera’s existing relationships by offering unparalleled service and continuity across the spectrum of company growth stages and better leverage the agility and innovative approaches of the Emerging practice along with the depth, experience, and expansive network of Growth.
“By uniting these practices under a single, venture-backed umbrella, we are enhancing our ability to deliver a seamless experience across stages,” said O’Toole. “Our clients, ranging from ambitious startups through rapid growth and expansion phases, will benefit from a broader range of expertise, deeper market insights, and a more robust candidate network, positioning us to meet the unique challenges and opportunities of this segment.”
Starting in Silicon Valley with a strong heritage of venture-backed partnerships, Riviera has worked with over 600+ Seed through Series B companies and more than 300 unicorns, representing companies disrupting industries by defining new categories of products, services, or entire markets. Riviera has placed pivotal talent at companies including Uber, One Kings Lane, Box, Dropbox, Warby Parker, Airbnb, Zappos, Zendesk, OpenTable and partnered with venture capitalists including Sequoia, Thrive, Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock, Benchmark, Accel and many more.
Riviera is a partner at all private and public company growth stages and has completed thousands of searches, partnering with world-class venture capital and private equity firms to provide top technology and product leadership to their portfolio companies across all major technology hubs and brands. The specialized recruiting firm is defining the modern era of executive search by combining deep recruiting expertise with innovative AI and machine learning technology to score, predict, and match the best candidate for a company’s specific needs and stage.
ABOUT RIVIERA PARTNERS
Riviera Partners is a global driver of innovation for today’s most influential companies – expertly placing executive talent in the crucial areas of IT, software engineering, product management, security, AI, and design. Riviera combines over two decades of recruiting expertise with a proprietary platform that uses machine learning to score and predict the best candidate for a company’s specific needs, driving successful outcomes. As a result, the company has become the go-to talent partner for leading private equity investors, venture capitalists, public companies, and technology innovators. Learn more about Riviera Partners at www.rivierapartners.com, and follow us on LinkedIn.