Concept preview · prepared Sep 15 2026 · not affiliated with Ferra Executive Search · private preview · noindex

Ferra.

Celebrating 10 years of trusted leadership · 2015 – 2026

Let us
search.

Nationally focused in Eds, Meds & Tech — proudly rooted in Pittsburgh. Director-level to C-suite retained searches for higher education, healthcare, life sciences, technology, nonprofits, and high-growth startups. Confidential by default. Equity-minded by discipline.

Founded

2015

11th year of practice · verified all sources

Team

0

Apollo screenshot Sep 15 2026 · core team 2–10

Mandate level

Director → C-Suite

67 practice keywords · national + international

Schedule Confidential Call → View Recent Searches

Verified business truth — anti-hallucination file

“Smart search. Real partnership. Lasting impact.”

Apollo verified · catch-all · 8:30 AM

Codes

SIC 8742 · 7361 · 8244
NAICS 54161 · 561311 · 611430

Headquarters

306 Fourth Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15222 · Suite 603

02 · The ledger — representative mandates

Recent searches.

SOURCE: FERRASEARCH.COM · VERIFIED MANDATES

Role Status

Every row traceable to the firm's published search record. No invented placements — if it isn't on the record, it isn't in this ledger.

About — the honest file

A boutique that says the quiet part out loud

Founded 2015 in Pittsburgh by Kevin Ferra. Apollo's own data disagrees with itself — a screenshot shows 19 employees, the firm description says 2–10, RocketReach counts 8, ZoomInfo brackets 1–10 at <$5M revenue. We print the whole range instead of picking a flattering number. What doesn't vary across sources: a small team doing tailored, discreet searches for mission-driven organizations, nationally and internationally.

19 · Apollo screenshot2–10 · Apollo description8 · RocketReach1–10 · ZoomInfo <$5MMin project 50K+ · Clutch

Approach

White-glove, equity-minded, confidential

C-suite and director-level recruitment, confidential searches for sensitive roles, career coaching and workforce planning on 40+ years of combined experience — with inclusive hiring strategies that align leaders to a client's values, not just the org chart.

Clients

Eds, Meds & Tech — plus the DC metro

Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, George Mason, Georgia Tech, James Madison, University of Pittsburgh, University of South Carolina — alongside leading nonprofit and healthcare organizations, life sciences teams, and high-growth startups.

03 · Signature interaction — fully functional, zero backend

Ten board instruments.

VANILLA JS · REAL INPUTS → REAL OUTPUTS · SYNTHETIC DEMO DOSSIERS FLAGGED

The instruments Ferra brings into the boardroom — built for higher-ed, health-system, and nonprofit governance. Every control below is live: toggle trustees, drag tokens, rate candidates, slide comp. Nothing here is a screenshot.

04 · The differentiator

Why Pittsburgh.
Why Eds, Meds & Tech.

Pittsburgh is where Eds, Meds and Tech were forced to learn to share a payroll. Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh sit across the same intersections as UPMC's towers and a robotics corridor that hires the kind of people most firms can't find. A search practice raised inside that triangle reads institutional politics fluently — shared governance, clinical revenue pressure, research funding cycles — because it has been breathing them for eleven years.

Ferra's white-glove orientation means a handful of mandates at a time, each led personally, each discreet enough that a sitting provost can take the call without anyone's calendar noticing. The firm's operating line is three phrases long and has been for a decade: smart search, real partnership, lasting impact.

Aerial view of Pittsburgh's downtown golden triangle
Fig. 02 — The Golden Triangle, from 306 Fourth Avenue to the rivers in minutes · est. 2015 · <$5M revenue (ZoomInfo)
01

White-glove orientation

Tailored, discreet recruitment for mission-driven organizations — the kind of search where the founder still answers the phone himself and the shortlist is four to six names, not forty.

2–10 core team · retained mandates only

02

Proof on the record

Carnegie Mellon (three searches on the public record), Georgetown, George Mason, Georgia Tech, Northeastern, Bellevue College, Verland, the Healthcare Council of Western PA. Named institutions, named roles.

Re-read the ledger ↑
03

Smart search. Real partnership. Lasting impact.

The firm's own three-beat promise — quoted from its own site, not paraphrased into brochure mush. Inclusive hiring strategies exist so placed leaders align to values and goals, not just credentials.

40+ yrs combined experience behind it

04

Verified HQ — one address

306 Fourth Avenue, Pittsburgh PA 15222. Suite 603 per RocketReach, ZoomInfo and Prospeo. No satellite offices invented — Pittsburgh is the office, the nation and the world are the territory.

SIC 8742 · 7361 · 8244 — Apollo

05 · Coverage map — verified via Apollo

Director to C-level,
in 67 keywords.

Apollo indexes this firm under 67 practice keywords — from executive search to high-growth startups recruitment. Below is the full list, grouped and counted. This is coverage you can audit, not a promise you can't.

Keyword density by sector

Total = 67 · source: Apollo firm profile + ferrasearch.com practice pages

Mechanism — how coverage compounds

A provost search pulls from the higher-ed pool; a health-system CFO search pulls from healthcare finance; a biotech scale-up pulls from both. Overlapping pools mean Ferra re-uses verified relationships instead of cold-mapping every mandate from zero — which is why a 2–10 person team can run national and international searches without missing a week.

Ideal mandate profile

Fit check
  • ✓ Needs executive search for top-tier leadership talent
  • ✓ Lacks in-house recruitment capacity
  • ✓ Scaling fast — biotech, AI, robotics, SaaS, research
  • ✓ Needs hard-to-find talent through growth & change

06 · Evidence — eleven years on the spine

The record, year by year.

EVERY NODE SOURCED · SYNTHETIC ITEMS FLAGGED

Client registry — six seats at the table

Collegiate gothic stone facade of a research university
Fig. 03 — The habitat: top-tier research university governance, where most of this firm's mandates live

07 · Method — the eight-week SLA

Weeks, not vibes.

REPLACES THE WEEKLY STATUS EMAIL

Click a phase. The vault on the right opens the deliverables that phase produces — the actual documents a retained client receives, not a promise of them.

Why the vault matters: retained clients pay a third up front and feel the anxiety in weeks 2–4, when headhunting happens silently. The SLA dashboard and deliverable cadence are the transparency that keeps the retainer honest.

Deliverable vault — Weeks 1–2

4 FILES · DOWNLOADABLE

Previews render from the live Search Velocity instrument too — same vault, interactive Gantt. Downloads are plain-text working samples, generated in your browser. No server, no tracking.

08 · The people — dossiers, not headshots

Three names
on the door.

BIOS SOURCED: LINKEDIN + FERRASEARCH.COM

Team headcount across sources: 19 (Apollo screenshot, Sep 15 2026) · 2–10 (Apollo description) · 8 (RocketReach, 4 on platform) · 6 (IntentWire) · 2–9 (Clutch) · 1–10 <$5M (ZoomInfo). Small by design — the founder still takes the call.

09 · Signature gathering — not a webinar

The Floating Think Tank.

Ten leaders. One brain. An intimate fireside conversation, moderated, with a surprise guest speaker co-hosting the room — leaders from healthcare, higher education, technology and life sciences spending an evening on meaningful conversation, new relationships, and the exchange of ideas that never makes it onto a conference agenda.

Sponsor of record
2025 NACUBO Board Chair Reception · Sponsor 2026 NACUBO Board Chair Reception · Sponsor

“Celebrating 10 Years — Nationally Focused in Eds, Meds & Tech, Proudly Rooted in Pittsburgh.”

Stone gothic archway entrance of a university building
Fig. 04 — The kind of quadrangle the Think Tank exists to serve

Notes from the search trail — editorial, marked as such

10 · Begin a mandate — discreet by default

Your next Provost isn't on LinkedIn.
We know where.

Whether you're a university provost, a health-system CEO, or a nonprofit board chair with a sensitive seat to fill — the first conversation is free, confidential, and answered by the founder. Tell us the role; we'll tell you honestly whether we're the right firm for it.

Schedule Confidential Call → View Recent Searches

Verified-only summary — nothing invented past this line

Founded 2015 · all sources agree

19 employees · Apollo screenshot Sep 15 2026

306 Fourth Avenue, Pittsburgh PA 15222

+1 (412) 378-3582 · Apollo + ZoomInfo + RocketReach

kevin@ferrasearch.com · Apollo catch-all, verified 8:30 AM

SIC 8742 · 7361 · 8244 — NAICS 54161 · 561311 · 611430

Founders-only tracker: leads log + prospect email list carry founders' addresses only — non-essential contacts removed and never re-added. CAN-SPAM: every outbound email includes our physical address and “Reply STOP to opt out.” Penalty awareness: $53,088 per email. Subject lines kept to 2–4 words.

Confidential intake — private preview

Request a confidential brief

No CRM · mailto only

Submitting opens your email client addressed to kevin@ferrasearch.com — nothing is stored by this page. CAN-SPAM: Ferra Executive Search, 306 Fourth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222 · +1 (412) 378-3582 · Reply STOP to opt out of any follow-up.