About Us

Our Promise

For over a two decades, Briant Associates has been dedicated to assisting our clients hire only high-impact leaders who succeed in their roles and contribute to the long-term growth of their company. Since 1992, we have assisted clients in the food processing, OEM, and industrial sectors recruiting senior and upper-mid-level executives to join their organizations. We strive to recruit the highest caliber professionals, top-grading our client’s leadership teams and driving their competitive advantage. By leveraging our industry expertise and delivering comprehensive and personalized service we our proud to say that our clients keep coming back.

Consultants With Industry Expertise

As industry specialists, we bring relevant leadership assessments and industry knowledge to help clients compete in select business segments – Food Processing Equipment, Packaging and Robotics Equipment, Foodservice Equipment and Food Processing. Our firm possesses 50 years of collective experience in these industries. With this insider’s knowledge, we know and understand the industries and businesses we serve.

We have completed successfully well-over 500 search assignments in these industries. Combining insightful and comprehensive recruiting practices, we reliably deliver the most talented and uniquely qualified candidates to our clients.

Comprehensive and Personalized Service

Briant Associates was founded with a complete focus on putting our clients’ needs and priorities first. Our methodology is comprehensive and customized yet executed with expediency. We strive to provide our clients with unparalleled hands-on service. Our Principal directly leads the active recruiting, screening and candidate interviews for each search we conduct. As a result, we consistently bring into the interviewing process highly-qualified candidates that are unlikely to engage and pursue the opportunity through other recruiters or sources.

Our Difference

Our practice today remains committed to our original mission -- to help our clients build highly successful leadership teams. We accomplish this by leveraging our industry expertise, recruiting the highly qualified and accomplished professionals, and providing comprehensive, hands-on service. Our long-term client relationships are a testament to these principles.

Our Difference:

Our consultants are fully engaged in all aspects of the search process.
Our consultants conduct an average of only five searches concurrently.
Our consultants prepare insightful and extensive profiles about each recommended candidate.
We have completed over 500 searches for clients in food processing, packaging and food processing equipment industries.
80% of our searches are conducted for clients with whom we have worked in the past.

Our consultants are fully engaged in all aspects of the search process, achieving the highest levels of quality control throughout the entire search. As a result, our clients:

Are presented with only highly qualified slates of candidates.
Remain fully informed about the progress of their search.
Receive personalized and focused attention.
Gain unmatched levels of communication and accessibility.

Our consultants and research team conduct an average of only five searches concurrently, focusing their full interest and resources on attracting the best candidates to our clients’ team. Therefore:

A broader and more comprehensive candidate universe is identified, recruited and assessed.
A Principal is conducting the recruiting activities.
Searches are completed in an efficient and timely manner.
Off-limits restrictions are nominal.

Our consultants prepare insightful and extensive profiles, documenting each candidate’s career experiences, accomplishments, and leadership philosophies. Clients gain value because this:

Leverages our clients’ interviews, optimizing their time and enhancing their information gathering.
Supports and advances our client’s interview assessments and evaluations.
Ensures highest probability of candidates who fit the company’s culture and organizational requirements.

We have completed well-over 500 searches for clients in food processing, packaging equipment and food processing equipment industries, leveraging deep experience and industry-specific knowledge to attract the best talent to our client’s team. As a result:

Clients receive enlightening market intelligence and insight.
Consultants conduct interviews with probing and industry-wise questions and analysis
Our learning curve is minimal, thereby accelerating the search time-to-completion
Candidates exceed our client’s qualification parameters
Our network and industry reach is deep, and credible.

Some 80% of our searches are conducted for clients with whom we have worked in the past, validating that our expertise and operating philosophy continue to deliver the most qualified leaders for our clients. Our long-term clients benefit because we --

Serve as a trusted consultant and strategic adviser providing thoughtful recommendations and valuable market intelligence.
Understand their business and industry which reduces time-to-completion and ensures that the most highly qualified candidates are brought into the interviewing process.
Hold their performance and results as core to our continued success and viability.

Rick Bingham

Rick Bingham is Principal and founder of Briant Associates, Inc. Having established this boutique executive search firm in 1992, Rick has been a driving force in ensuring the firm serves its clients with a unique combination of industry-specialized skills, energy and strategic intelligence, as well as dedication to client relationships of the highest quality.

A 30 year plus veteran of the executive search industry, Rick is a food industry specialist. He has personally conducted over 500 successful search projects for many leading companies in food processing equipment manufacturing, packaging equipment manufacturing and various food processing segments including baking, snack food, meat & poultry processors, food ingredients, fresh produce, fruits nuts and seeds, dairy and frozen foods. He applies his industry expertise and consultative approach to conduct searches for CEO & President positions, as well as general management, sales and marketing, manufacturing, engineering, R&D, quality, logistics and finance executives and senior managers.

Prior to launching Briant Associates, Rick was a Senior Group Manager of the Food Division of a leading national executive search firm, where he spent nearly eight years conducting search assignments and managing other search consultants in the food industry. Before entering the executive search field, Rick was an Account Manager for Gorman Publishing, which was the leading publisher of trade magazines in the baking, snack food, meat & poultry, dairy, and prepared foods industries. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Marquette University.