35 Years of Intentional Decisions: The Strategies Behind BrainWorks’ Forbes Recognition

Key Insights

• BrainWorks built our client approach around listening and understanding.  

• Long-term partnerships have been central to the firm’s growth and reputation.  

• We deliberately grew our practice areas to meet more of clients’ leadership needs.  

• A strategic shift toward recruiting A-level talent became critical for growth.  

• Forbes recognition provides an opportunity to introduce more organizations to the quality, speed, and results BrainWorks has built over 35 years.  

For 35 years, BrainWorks has grown by making deliberate decisions about how an executive search firm should serve its clients, develop its people, and evolve with the market.  

Today, that approach has earned BrainWorks recognition from Forbes as a leading executive search firm. While the recognition is a meaningful milestone, the leadership team sees it less as a destination and more as a reflection of the decisions the firm has made over decades.  

From expanding our practice areas to investing in A-level talent, BrainWorks’ growth has been intentional. The firm’s partners—Andy Miller, Cathy Miller, Steve Levitt, and Jon Levitt—have helped shape a business built around a simple idea: exceptional executive search requires more than finding candidates; it requires understanding the business behind the search and becoming a true partner to the organizations being served. 

1. Start with Listening, Not Selling 

One of the most important decisions BrainWorks made was to build its approach around listening.  

Andy Miller points to the firm’s ability to listen carefully, ask intelligent questions, and understand what a client actually needs as a key differentiator. In executive search, that means going beyond the job description to understand the company’s culture, challenges, goals, and definition of success. 

The result is a search process focused on the right outcome—not simply the fastest placement. Quality, speed, and results all matter, but they become more valuable when they are grounded in a clear understanding of the client’s business.  

That philosophy has shaped how BrainWorks approaches executive recruiting today and has helped establish the level of service expected from a Forbes-recognized executive search firm.  

2. Treat Clients Like Partners 

Cathy Miller emphasizes another decision that remained central to BrainWorks: choosing relationships over transactions.  

Executive search can easily become transactional. A company has an open role, a search firm finds candidates, and the engagement ends when someone is hired.  

BrainWorks has taken a different approach.  

We focus on becoming an intimate business partner to our clients—understanding their organization, staying connected beyond individual searches, and building relationships that can support their evolving leadership needs.  

That relationship-first approach has influenced how BrainWorks thinks about service and success. The goal is not simply to fill a position; it’s to help clients make better leadership decisions and create long-term value.  

3. Expand the Business to Meet the Client 

Another major strategic decision was expanding BrainWorks’ practice areas.  

About 15 years ago, the firm operated with only two or three core practices. Over time, leadership recognized an opportunity to support clients across a much broader range of leadership needs.  

That led to the deliberate expansion of the firm’s capabilities, ultimately growing to 14 different areas of practice.  

The strategy was not growth for growth’s sake. It was about becoming more valuable to the clients BrainWorks already served. 

As organizations’ needs become more complex, BrainWorks wanted to be equipped to help across functions and industries rather than requiring clients to find another partner for their next leadership challenge.  

That evolution helped transform BrainWorks from a firm focused on a smaller number of search areas into a broader executive search partner capable of supporting organizations across a wide range of leadership functions.  

4. Invest in A-Level Talent 

Perhaps one of the most consequential decisions came approximately six years ago, when BrainWorks changed its model to place a greater emphasis on investing in A-level talent. 

Andy Miller describes the shift as a decision to invest in the people responsible for delivering the firm’s service, improving how BrainWorks attracts, recruits, onboards and supports top talent.  

The thinking was straightforward: if the firm wanted to deliver exceptional results for clients, it needed exceptional people doing the work.  

That investment became a significant growth engine. BrainWorks has since expanded across 14 practice areas and has experienced substantial revenue growth, demonstrating how investing in people can create a ripple effect throughout an organization.  

For an executive search firm, this decision is particularly significant. The quality of the service ultimately depends on the quality of the people providing it.  

5. Let the Market Know What You’ve Built 

For Steve Levitt, Forbes’ recognition represents something more than an accolade.  

When a firm consistently delivers strong service and outcomes for its clients, there is value in making prospective clients aware of what that partnership can provide.  

Steve believes it would be a disservice to clients and prospective clients not to communicate the benefits of working with BrainWorks. Forbes recognition creates another opportunity to do exactly that.  

The recognition does not define the firm’s quality. Instead, it provides an independent signal that can help introduce BrainWorks to organizations that may not have encountered the firm before.  

For a company that has spent 35 years building its reputation, that visibility matters. 

Recognition Is the Result, Not the Strategy 

For BrainWorks, becoming a Forbes-recognized executive search firm was never the strategy.  

The strategy was to make better decisions about how we serve clients, who we bring onto the team, where we invest, and how we evolve alongside the organizations we serve.  

Those decisions accumulated over 35 years.  

BrainWorks expanded our capabilities because clients needed more. We invested in A-level talent because exceptional service requires exceptional people. We prioritized listening and relationships because executive search is ultimately about understanding people and businesses, not just filling roles.  

And throughout that evolution, BrainWorks’ leadership has helped guide the firm with a long-term perspective.  

Forbes recognition is a meaningful acknowledgement of that work. But the more important story is what came before it: decades of intentional decisions designed to build a better executive search firm.  

This is what BrainWorks believes recognition should reflect—not a single achievement, but a sustained commitment to clients, talent, and results.  

After 35 years, the lesson is simple: exceptional businesses are not built by accident. They are built one intentional decision at a time.