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The matchmaker of Bay Street is out to fix hiring in Corporate Canada
Adam Dean believes that the way Corporate Canada hires top talent is broken. After years working as a banking executive, he’s out to fix things.
Read our latest piece here to see how Adam Dean is changing the executive search process, switching out traditional methods of using large databases for a more hands-on approach. And Bay Street loves it.
The matchmaker of Bay Street is out to fix hiring in Corporate Canada
February 20, 2025 by Aimée Look
TORONTO — Adam Dean was fed up with how Corporate Canada hires executives. So much so that he quit his job as an investment banking executive and created his own headhunting firm.
“For people who are naturally interested in the question of how to build the perfect beast, there’s no more exciting profession than search,” Dean said.
Dean Executive Search, founded in October 2017, aims to be the antithesis to an industry mired in what Dean calls “unprofessional” behavior.
The company matches up candidates with the biggest players on Bay Street—clients at firms like Brookfield, Inovia, National Bank, Deloitte, BCI and Bank of Montreal. Dean knows the pitfalls of how Corporate Canada hires top talent. He previously worked as an investment banker and executive director at CIBC Capital Markets, chief of staff to the vice-chairman of CIBC and later a consultant at large search firm Egon Zehnder. As an executive, he was bombarded with phone calls from headhunters asking for details about internal conflicts and compensation.