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ZRG’s Turnkey deal gives Len Perna added resources to build global recruiting practice

Len Perna’s Turnkey Search led major searches for the ACC as well as NFL, NBA and NASCAR properties in 2020.Marc Bryan-Brown

Len Perna spent the past 25 years building Turnkey Search into a preeminent search firm with deep connections across sports and entertainment. And he’s just getting started.

 

ZRG, a global powerhouse in executive search based in Rochelle Park, N.J., has acquired Haddonfield, N.J.-based Turnkey to fill one of its most pressing needs — expertise in the sports world.

Perna will stay on as chairman and CEO of the newly formed TurnkeyZRG, a wholly owned subsidiary of the parent company, and he’ll run the sports and entertainment practice with a focus on growing it into a major player on the global stage.

“The ultimate goal is the same as every other team,” Perna said. “We want to be the champion, the world champion, in executive recruiting for sports.”

In a record year in 2020, Turnkey ran searches for the ACC commissioner, Chip Ganassi Racing’s chief commercial officer, and several high-level NFL and NBA executive positions, impressing ZRG with its reach across sports and reputation for discreet practices.

Hartmann

That led to serious talks between Perna, Turnkey’s founder in 1996, and Larry Hartmann, ZRG’s CEO, and eventually ZRG’s decision to acquire Perna’s business.

Turnkey joins a rapidly growing midsized firm that anticipates doing $100 million in revenue this year with the goal of increasing that to $300 million over the next 10 years. Turnkey will merge its staff of 16 plus assets into ZRG. That includes Chad Chatlos and Katy Young Staudt, who both came with the December acquisition of Ventura Partners to elevate Turnkey’s college business.

Perna had been approached in the past about selling, but this time he was drawn to what he described as ZRG’s “Moneyball” approach, a reference to its innovative use of data to match candidates with jobs.

It is one of the primary ways in which ZRG has experienced 70% top-line revenue growth over 2018 and 2019, and raised its employee count from 200 to 250 in 2020 when many businesses were going the other direction. Hartmann said TurnkeyZRG will benefit from additional resources to compete in the highly competitive executive recruiting sector.

“This is a game-changer for us in our business,” Perna said. “We can use this for coaching searches, for athletic director searches, really anything in our business. It’ll make things go faster. It’ll help people make better hiring decisions. We’ll be able to provide much more information to a client in a way that’s user-friendly and easy to understand.”

Hartmann described the sports sector as “ripe for this kind of fresh thinking.”

“Our vision is clearly to build the biggest sports recruiting firm globally,” Hartmann said. “We see it as a crossover that complements other areas we’re in — human resources, general counsel.”

For Perna, this is the beginning of a new era. He established Turnkey Search 25 years ago at the same time he started Turnkey Intelligence, which was one of the first data and analytics businesses in sports. Coming from the team side as an executive with the Detroit Tigers, Detroit Red Wings and Dallas Stars, Perna had been on the other side of talent searches, doing the hiring.

“We started from scratch at a time when there really was just one search firm (TeamWork) doing anything in sports,” Perna said.

He quickly learned how to connect the dots in an industry where repeat business is critical. John Thomas, then the president of the Houston Rockets, needed a senior vice president of ticket sales. That became the first of some 1,400 searches at Turnkey.

Turnkey Deal Points


Rochelle Park, N.J.-headquartered ZRG has acquired Haddonfield, N.J.-based Turnkey Search:

■ Turnkey’s sports and entertainment practice will become TurnkeyZRG

■ Turnkey Chairman and CEO Len Perna will have the same titles at TurnkeyZRG

■ Turnkey’s 16 employees will move to TurnkeyZRG

■ ZRG is the 11th-largest search firm in the world, according to Hunt Scanlon’s 2020 ranking

■ Turnkey acquired the college practice from Ventura Partners (Chad Chatlos, Katy Young Staudt) in December

Later, when Thomas was president of the Sacramento Kings, he brought Perna back to search for an accounting position, which netted John Rinehart. More than 20 years later, Rinehart is now the Kings’ president of business operations.

“He’s still there,” Perna said proudly.

Perna eventually sold Turnkey Intelligence in 2018 but continued to grow the search business in 2019 and 2020 at record levels. Turnkey ran 56 searches last year at a time when sports and entertainment were reeling from the pandemic.

Perhaps the most visible assignment was the ACC commissioner search to replace the retiring John Swofford. Syracuse Chancellor and President Kent Syverud said Turnkey threw all of its resources into the search, which landed Northwestern AD Jim Phillips. It was deep — the process started with more than 100 names — and Turnkey brought candidates from diverse backgrounds.

“We were looking for an extraordinary array of candidates, both traditional and nontraditional,” said Syverud, who chairs the ACC’s council of presidents. “We had very strong candidates from athletics, business, media, academia, and none of them were looking for a job. That makes it complicated. But Turnkey brought people into the mix that got us very excited.”

With college sports being challenged in 2021 by name, image and likeness legislation, congressional involvement and the NCAA going before the Supreme Court this spring, the ACC presidents asked a lot of questions about the present and future of athletics. That shaped much of their discussions, said Louisville President Neeli Bendapudi.

“Through all of that, Len and his team did a really good job helping us understand the landscape and the nuances,” Bendapudi said. “That was vital.”

Perna’s considerable influence and relationships extend beyond hiring ADs, commissioners and front-office executives. Through his friendship with Miami Dolphins Managing General Partner Stephen Ross, Perna has become an advocate for RISE, the Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality, which formed in 2015.

As RISE has grown, Perna has become instrumental in raising the talent level at the nonprofit agency and recently consulted with CEO Diahann Billings-Burford to create and fill a fundraising position that has increased sponsorships and giving.

Turnkey’s work with RISE is pro bono, another indicator of Perna’s commitment to the agency.

“He’s really helped us with relationships and introductions,” Billings-Burford said. “What he does goes far beyond search.”

TurnkeyZRG will continue to be based in Haddonfield, N.J.

Editor’s note: This story is revised from the print edition.

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