About Spectrum | Spectrum Search Partners

Samantha Kotrba

Operations and Scheduling Administrator
Email: skotrba@spectrumsearchpartners.com

Sam joined Spectrum in October of 2024. She will play a key role in enhancing our productivity and efficiency by managing all scheduling for qualified candidate conversations and timely client discussions. She will also support the firm with custom reporting, research assignments, and other special projects.

A native of Chicago, Illinois, Sam brings nearly 7 and a half years of executive search experience. Most recently, she was Executive Search Assistant to the CEO at Caliber Associates, providing administrative, marketing, and sales support while overseeing their CRM integration project. Prior to this, she worked for Quick Leonard Kieffer, a Chicago-based firm. During her time there, she supported several Principals, Managing Partners, and Of Counsel Members. Initially, her role was mostly administrative, handling scheduling, reporting, CRM content, communications with internal and external stakeholders, logistics, and expense reports. Over time, her role expanded, and she also provided dedicated search support as a Recruiting Associate.

Sam brings a lot of energy and resourcefulness to Spectrum, along with her midwestern work ethic. She desires to learn as much as possible about how Spectrum, a retained executive search firm focused solely on private equity (and family offices), provides value to and engenders loyalty from its clients.

Sam is a summa cum laude graduate of DePaul University, where she earned her B.A. degree in Communication and Media. Her outside interests include a lifelong passion for Dance. She has been a performer, choreographer, and teacher and, at present, continues to mentor young students.

Danielle Border

Recruiting Associate
Email: dborder@spectrumsearchpartners.com

Danielle joined Spectrum in July of 2024 as a Recruiting Associate. She will support Spectrum’s growth and existing team with her PE domain expertise, advanced research, analytical, reporting, and client-facing and support skills. She brings 2+ years of working in Executive Retained Search for Focus Search Partners (FSP), where she supported numerous private equity-backed portfolio companies and high-growth clients. Her initial responsibilities with FSP focused on research, where she identified attractive candidates from each client’s desired target industries and/or companies, and helped her superiors craft each assignment’s search strategy. She was then promoted to join the execution side, where she directly worked for FSP Search Managers on Board of Director, Executive, and Senior Management roles for clients in the industrial distribution, healthtech, healthcare, and SaaS sectors.

Prior to joining FSP, she worked for two years for Altria in Account Management in the greater Dallas marketplace. In this role, she honed her commercial (sales and marketing) attributes and served as a trusted advisor and business partner to more than 150 privately-owned businesses. She also supported the company’s recruiting efforts with on-campus organizations and acquired her first taste of recruiting talent. While at Altria, she graduated from their proprietary Sales Training program.

Danielle, a native of Buffalo, NY, spent her formative years in Phoenix and is a Cum Laude graduate from the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management. In addition, she earned a Certificate in Data Analytics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School Online program.

Outside of the office, she enjoys fitness, reading, and spending time outdoors with her fiancé in Newport Beach, their newly adopted hometown in southern California.

Jacqueline (Jackie) Roman

Executive Assistant and Marketing Coordinator
Email: jroman@spectrumsearchpartners.com

In the Fall of 2022, Jackie joined Spectrum Search Partners as an Executive Assistant and Marketing Coordinator. She brings a wealth of highly relevant experience to Spectrum, between working in multiple entrepreneurial environments and supporting a Family Office, who were comprised of very successful commercial real estate investors. She is used to the pace of lean, fast-growing businesses, and the associated dynamics of supporting Founders and their senior management teams. Her attention to detail, self-initiative, enthusiasm, and customer-facing skills will enable Spectrum to continue offering world-class service to all the stakeholders it serves, and help the business scale.

Prior to joining Spectrum, Jackie assisted the Founder at “Balance Your Buzz”, a beverage start-up business. Earlier in her career, where she spent over a decade in the outdoor and ski industry, she supported the Chief Marketing Officer and his 60+ person Marketing Department at the Alterra Mountain Company, where she honed her creative abilities. Post-graduation, she worked in e-commerce marketing for WinterKids.com and WinterWomen.com, successfully organizing and managing product content and marketing imagery for thousands of kids and women’s winter gear and accessories.

Growing up in an Air Force family, Jackie is well traveled and has lived in many places (Oahu, Hawaii was her favorite as a kid). She moved to Colorado in high school and spent 20 years in her “home” state, residing mostly in Denver (with a few fortunate years living at 9,250 feet above sea level in ski country). She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and Communications from the University of Denver, and also holds a Colorado Real Estate Broker Associate’s license. Now living in Arizona, she and her fiancé are grateful for the year-round sunshine and plentiful outdoor activities State 48 provides. In addition to enjoying real estate in her free time, she is an avid fan of the outdoors, traveling, and spending time with her two corgis.

Danielle Sender

Senior Recruiting Director
Email: dsender@spectrumsearchpartners.com
Phone: (303) 223-4932

Danielle joined Spectrum in 2017. She executes and leads executive search initiatives within Spectrum’s core verticals, namely Business Services, Healthcare, Manufacturing and Technology. Previously, she was a Senior Associate at Accelent, Inc., a New York City-based retained executive search firm, focused on early through mature stage software, cyber security, digital media, e-commerce, and financial services clients. Earlier, she worked in Human Resources at One Zero Capital and Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds. Her diverse experience has proven to be invaluable to Spectrum’s private equity clients.

After receiving her undergraduate and masters degrees with honors from New York University, Danielle began her career as a professional counselor. The client-centered foundations in which she practiced in this capacity are a significant contributor to her work in executive search and human resources, where she has concentrated on recruiting top executive-level talent.

It comes as no surprise, given her high energy level, that competitive sports and avid hiking are two of her passions.

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Kevin Hahn

Chief Executive Officer & Managing Partner
Email: khahn@spectrumsearchpartners.com
Phone: (303) 534-8102

Kevin serves as the Chief Executive Officer for Spectrum Search Partners and has dedicated his career to recruiting world-class executive leadership talent. Having co-founded Spectrum in 2009 during the Great Recession, Kevin uses his 22+ years of executive search expertise leadership and business acumen to drive significant impact for Spectrum’s clients. He specifically created Spectrum’s recruiting capabilities to serve complex and fast-growing businesses, most of which are private equity-backed. Kevin works with private equity firms and their boards, CEOs and other executive leaders – to build their teams, optimize company performance, and provide substantial ROI on their invested capital. Having personally led several hundred searches throughout his career, Kevin remains a hands-on, involved leader in the business. He leads Spectrum’s CEO Search Practice, along with many other senior level assignments. Spectrum is one of the fastest growing retained search firms in the country and now serves over 60 private equity, venture capital and family office clients. Kevin has significant industry expertise across all the verticals that private equity invests in. He takes exceptional pride in the fact that Spectrum has filled 100% of its assignments and has become a partner for life to many of its clients.

Prior to Spectrum, Kevin was a managing director in Denver for DHR International, the fifth largest executive search firm in the United States. During his time at DHR, the Denver office became one of the largest branches in the world. They were also recognized as the top executive search firm in Colorado for four consecutive years during his time there. Kevin and his team supported leading Fortune 500 companies, private equity firms, and other emerging organizations. He made the firm’s President’s Club every year. Earlier in his career Kevin worked for Career Forum Inc., a local boutique company as well as Tri-Worth Solutions, a family-owned firm. He was the top-performing consultant with both organizations and gained a valuable professional foundation.

Kevin earned a BA degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder. He is an avid sports fan and supports several nonprofits, including the Jamie Beck Foundation, Denver Rescue Mission, and the Salvation Army.

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Jay Lane

President & Managing Partner
Email: jlane@spectrumsearchpartners.com
Phone: (303) 534-8101

Jay joined Spectrum at its inception in 2009, and established its recruiting function. He pioneered the Company’s ability to develop impactful, customized Recruiting strategies that successfully target highly desirable candidates who thrive in private equity-owned businesses. In his current role, in addition to leading the Recruiting team, he manages functional leadership assignments, C-level search assignments and client relationships. He has worked on several hundred searches during his tenure at Spectrum and has considerable knowledge within every core vertical we support. His deep expertise and insights in information technology, SaaS, and E-Commerce are tremendously valued by Spectrum’s clients. Jay’s passion for helping clients manage change in this rapidly evolving world enables Spectrum to remain a trusted advisor and a valued source for industry trends and best practices.

Jay has worked in the retained executive search industry since 2005. Prior to Spectrum, he worked for Tri-Worth Solutions and helped build its national footprint. Before TWS, he worked at DHR International, the 5^th largest retained executive search firm in the United States, where he placed executive level talent at both Fortune 500 and entrepreneurial businesses. He started his career in the marketing services space for Marketing Werks, an experiential marketing and branding firm.

A former Two-Time Vermont State High School football champion, Jay earned his undergraduate degree at Western New England University, where he also played football. Married and the father of two boys, Jay’s hands are more than full these days though he is an entrepreneur himself and the co-Founder of Jawbox Jerky, as well as a board member of the Jamie Beck Foundation, which raises money to help families affected by brain aneurysms.

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Tom Shahnazarian

Chairman & Founding Partner
Email: tom@spectrumsearchpartners.com
Phone: (303) 534-8105

Tom co-founded Spectrum Search Partners with Kevin Hahn in 2009. He leads the firm’s business development efforts, manages search assignments, and owns responsibility for several of its clients. He has spent the past 15 years in the human capital business, partnering with Kevin at two executive search firms (DHR International and Tri Worth Solutions), and serving as Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for FASTAFF, a leading travel nursing firm, whom he helped sell to private equity. His passion for helping small and middle market-sized companies grow and maximize their potential with exceptional talent is a big reason why Spectrum was started.

Prior to his transition to executive search, Tom spent two decades working directly for several CEOs of highly entrepreneurial businesses that transformed their industries. Leveraging his operating experience from these different growth environments (each with their own cultural dynamics), coupled with Kevin’s 25 years of executive search industry expertise, has given Spectrum’s clients a dedicated partner who can truly appreciate and address their challenges and needs on a comprehensive level.

Earlier in Tom’s career, he worked for the Founder/CEO of Corporate Express, the world’s largest B2B distributor of office products, where he helped devise its highly successful merger and acquisitions strategy, established their corporate and business development functions and, following its sale, was a key executive in turning around its $1 billion national accounts organization. The growth and success of Corporate Express – from start-up to reaching the Fortune 350 in fewer than 10 years – remains a great untold story. Tom’s career started at TIAA-CREF, the world’s largest pension fund, where he managed a $150 million real estate loan portfolio for clients on a national basis. He then joined the FD Rich Company, a family-owned real estate development firm, where he held numerous Sales and Marketing roles and truly learned the meaning of being “hands-on.

Tom has spent his entire career in the service industry and takes considerable pride in developing mutually rewarding relationships, and doing whatever he can to bring out the best in others. He earned his BA degree from Bucknell University and an MBA in Finance from the University of Connecticut. He has been a guest lecturer at the University of Denver and Columbia University’s MBA programs, and is a mentor to first-time CEOs and Sales Leaders. He is an active fundraiser for several nonprofit organizations whose missions are to help those impacted by cancer and substance abuse, and he volunteers his time with musicians and songwriters on their career development.

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Heather Wiester

Vice President of Recruiting
Email: hwiester@spectrumsearchpartners.com
Phone: (303) 534-8106

Heather joined Spectrum in 2009. She has worked in executive search for 20 years and has partnered with Spectrum’s CEO, Kevin Hahn, for much of that time. Heather has played a pivotal role in developing Spectrum’s private equity-centric candidate identification and acquisition capabilities, as well as both supporting and leading executive C-level and functional leadership searches. She has worked extensively in each of the 6 primary verticals that Spectrum supports as well as others, including direct marketing, education (for profit and on-line providers), and hospitality sectors. Heather has successfully completed hundreds of searches over the course of her career. Her depth and versatility have enabled Spectrum to execute on its strategy to be a single source provider to its PE clients.

Heather was recruited out of college by the CEO of Staffmark, a top 10 staffing agency in the country. Her contributions enabled them to successfully establish a profitable office in Memphis, and helped propel the firm’s sales growth to the top 1% of the staffing industry. Relocation to Colorado led to meeting Kevin Hahn, who hired her to join Career Forum, a leading contingency search firm in the Rocky Mountain region. In 2004, she was recruited by Kevin to join DHR International, and this started her career in retained executive search. Prior to joining Spectrum, she also worked for Tri Worth Solutions, a privately held retained executive search firm. Her experience working for several different types of search providers (staffing, contingency and retained) has provided valuable lessons for successfully meeting the needs of Spectrum’s clients and building exceptionally strong relationships with both active and prospective candidates.

Heather is a Cum Laude graduate from the University of Memphis, the city she grew up in, with a degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. In addition to being a wife, mom, avid cook, lover of the outdoors, and fitness enthusiast, she is actively involved in fundraising for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and Community Food Share – Feeding America.

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Danielle Lorenc

Vice President of Operations
Email: dlorenc@spectrumsearchpartners.com
Phone: (720) 571-9460

Dani joined Spectrum in January of 2020. In this role, she is responsible for supporting each facet of our business and ensuring that all of our Client commitments have been successfully honored. She will also strengthen Spectrum’s internal processes so that we can remain one or two steps ahead of our clients at all times and become more efficient. She was a natural fit for us – throughout her career she thrived in entrepreneurial environments wearing multiple hats, solved problems quickly and independently, improved how things were done by paying special attention to the details, and had considerable success working closely with Clients, Candidates, and Vendors. Her eternally positive attitude inspires all of us who have the pleasure to work with her.

Prior to Spectrum, she spent nearly 5 years at The Premier Group Staffing, LLC., where initially she oversaw Operations for this temporary staffing business that placed Accounting and Construction talent. Over time, she assumed additional responsibilities in their Human Resources and Accounting departments. In her final role, she was a Client Services Manager and assisted with managing the needs of their 200+ customers. She started her career at The Innkeeper, an Advertising and Travel Trade Agency, where she held roles in Customer Service, Reservations and Marketing and also developed their Web Site and Social Media capabilities.

Though born in New York, Dani grew up in Western Colorado and moved to Denver a decade ago. She earned her undergraduate degree in Business and Project Management from the University of Phoenix. Other passions of hers include travel, exploring new cultures, being outdoors, volleyball and trying new things. She is very family oriented and has two brothers whom she credits for pushing her outside her comfort zone and setting herself up for a lifetime of continuous learning.

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Jake Opitz

Recruiting Manager
Email: jopitz@spectrumsearchpartners.com

Jake joined Spectrum Search Partners as a Recruiting Manager in 2022. Previously, he devoted virtually all of his adult life to professional baseball. He played for the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies organizations before retiring in 2015. He then turned his attention to the business side, initially selling bats along the eastern US for Dove Tail Bats before joining the Colorado Rockies organization as a coach in 2017. Most recently, he was the Supervisor/Manager of the Rockies’ Arizona League affiliate, where he managed a 50-man roster and directed a 10-man staff, while also earning the 2021 Manager of the Year award.

He brings highly transferable skills – a keen eye for talent, a dedicated team player, strong competitive drive, results-oriented, and natural communication skills – to the Spectrum family, coupled with an intense desire to learn. Over the course of his baseball career, he has mentored and trained many high performers and managed in complex people-intensive environments. He has also had to lead and make critical and timely decisions without perfect information – attributes that are at play every day with Spectrum’s fast-growing customers. He embraces and lives with a strong sense of urgency, which embodies Spectrum’s core value of always moving and executing at “private equity speed”.

Jake will work across all 6 of Spectrum’s key verticals, and actively support searches for key members of our Clients’ Executive Leadership Teams and their direct reports. He will also provide research assistance for new opportunities, Clients, and Board of Director requests, and manage other Special Projects as they arise.

A Colorado native, Jake earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Nebraska (where he also was a four-year starter for their baseball team). In his spare time, he and his wife Katelin are busy raising two children and live in the suburbs of Denver.

Luke Bingley

Senior Recruiting Director
Email: lbingley@spectrumsearchpartners.com
Phone: (720) 428-2275

Luke joined Spectrum Search Partners as a Recruiting Director in 2018. He brings over a decade of search industry experience, with considerable expertise in cybersecurity, healthcare, and technology. He’s acquired hands-on external and internal recruiting experience having worked in retained, contingent, and corporate search environments, where he filled executive and leadership roles in the following functional areas: Accounting and Finance, IT, Sales and Marketing, Operations and Supply Chain.

After graduating college from the University of Missouri with Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, Luke joined an IT Staffing firm headquartered in St. Louis (his hometown) named Technology Partners, where he cut his teeth in the contingent search world. He then transitioned to DHR International, the 5^th largest Retained Executive Search Firm in the United States, where he supported an array of Fortune 500 and privately-held companies. A promotion at DHR brought him to Denver, where he eventually started his own retained search firm named Kaleo, where he focused on the digital healthcare domain. Luke’s entrepreneurial DNA allows him to relate very easily to Spectrum’s customer base.

Prior to joining Spectrum, Luke received a unique opportunity to join Coalfire, a PE-backed, leading global cybersecurity consulting firm, where he owned responsibility for their internal IT recruiting efforts across the entire business. This was his first foray into corporate recruiting, where he sourced and recruited highly skilled Hackers (Penetration Testers) and other professionals, enabling Coalfire to build a world class team of subject matter experts to serve their clients. While networking and recruiting for his boss there, he met a leading Talent Acquisition professional Denver who recruited him to join her team at Cisco, where he specialized in their Corporate Functions and Digitization business unit, and enhanced his IT, Sales and Marketing, and Operational recruiting skillsets by completing numerous assignments in Digital Marketing, the Internet of Things (IoT), Silicon Photonics and Recurring Revenue Software Models (SaaS).

A longing to return to the world of retained executive search, coupled with Spectrum’s desire to expand its team, led to his current role. Luke brings to Spectrum and its clients, a passion for building long term relationships and a never-ending desire to learn, and continuously improve. Among his favorite hobbies are Fly Fishing, Snowboarding, Overlanding and Onewheeling

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Hannah Williams

Recruiting Director
Email: hwilliams@spectrumsearchpartners.com
Phone: (720) 428-2275

Hannah joined Spectrum in 2015 after working for the CFO at Inspirato by American Express, one of Colorado’s most exciting and successful entrepreneurial companies. Having firsthand operational experience on the client side has been extremely valuable to her successful transition into retained executive search. She fills critical assignments in each of Spectrum’s 6 core verticals, with particular emphasis on leadership roles in accounting & finance, human resources, information technology, and sales.

Hannah is a graduate of The Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado, having majored in finance. Her analytical foundation is highly valued by Spectrum customers seeking creative solutions to their human capital needs. Hannah’s competitive spirit and drive is a by-product of many years of competitive athletics, including lettering for 4 years on her high school soccer team, which she captained her senior year.

A native of Rockford, Illinois, Hannah sits on the board of Project Aspire, a Denver-based nonprofit dedicated to providing scholarships for women pursuing advanced STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) degrees.

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Our Mission

The Spectrum Team