Ed Zschau
Ed founded Nassau Search Partners in 2026 to run retained executive search the way it's meant to work: one consultant, directly engaged with the client and every candidate, from the first scoping call to the signed offer.
Ed brings over 25 years of retained executive search experience and 400+ completed searches to that work, including nearly nine years at Parker Remick, a premier retained product, engineering, and AI search firm, and 15 years running his own firm, Inductus Associates LLC. Ed works on a limited number of searches at a time, which allows for a high-touch, highly customized experience for each client.
Ed earned an A.B. in Politics from Princeton University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He and his wife, Christina, have two grown children, Isabelle and Grant, and live in Menlo Park, CA.
Old Nassau.
In Ed's own words — on 25 years in retained search, and why the new firm carries this name.
I started my first firm, Inductus Associates, in March 2001 — a strange time to start a recruiting business, when a lot of people were leaving the industry. I had no recruiting background and LinkedIn didn't exist yet. I completed four searches that first year, built a track record in the data storage industry, and slowly built a real practice.
After getting married and moving to Northern California in 2004, I wanted to learn the retained side of the business more deeply. I spent a couple of years gradually transitioning my practice to a more fully-retained search model, which I then applied for the next 12 years.
Across 25 years, I've placed nearly 400 executives — many of whom have gone on to become founders, CEOs, functional leaders, and venture investors. Helping someone change the direction of their career, and then watching the business and its customers benefit from that hire, is the most rewarding part of this work. I've always followed a consistent process, but stayed flexible enough to tailor it to what each client actually needed.
I've named the new firm after Nassau Hall, the historic centerpiece of my alma mater, Princeton — a building that changed hands three times between British and American troops during the Battle of Princeton, and briefly served as the seat of the Continental Congress in 1783, making Princeton the nation's capital for a few months. "Old Nassau" has always stood for a durable, enduring foundation. Everything I bring to clients at Nassau Search is built on what I learned across 25 years at Inductus Associates and Parker Remick.
Going forward, I'll run 6–8 retained searches a year, working on no more than two engagements at a time. My functional focus in recent years has been Product, Engineering, and technical/AI leadership roles, but I'll take on whatever a client needs most. As I did at Parker Remick, I'll serve clients across North America. The tools available to an individual recruiter today — sourcing platforms, ATS, AI — have closed much of the gap with larger boutique firms, and a limited client roster lets me move faster and offer a more attractive fee structure than I could as part of a bigger firm.