Our Team.
Behind every successful placement is a team that truly understands leadership. Our senior team combines sharp insight with a personal, consultative approach. We work closely with clients to identify leaders who not only fit the role, but shape the future.
Robert D. Friedman
Co-Founder & Managing Director
Robert “Rob” Friedman is a Co-founder and Managing Director at Kirkland West, where he specializes in executive search and leadership assessment for private equity firms and their portfolio companies. He helps investors build leadership teams that drive growth, scale operations, and deliver results.
​
Rob brings deep operating and advisory experience from General Electric, Booz Allen Hamilton, PepsiCo, and Gateway. His work spans the full C-suite, with a particular focus on placing high-impact Chief Financial Officers aligned with value creation goals.
​
In addition to executive search, Rob leads rigorous leadership assessments supporting pre-deal diligence, CEO evaluations, succession planning, and post-close alignment. He’s known for helping clients de-risk talent decisions and accelerate leadership impact.
​
Rob has led senior-level assignments across industries including business services, consumer products, financial services, healthcare, industrials, media, retail, and technology. His functional scope covers strategy, business development, finance, operations, marketing, and general management.
​
He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and a BA in Economics from Brown University, and an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School. rfriedman@kirklandwest.com
​
William P. Pyonteck, Jr.
Co-Founder & Managing Director
​William Pyonteck is a Co-founder and Managing Director at Kirkland West, where he works closely with private equity firms and their portfolio companies to recruit and assess senior leaders who drive enterprise value and deliver results under high-stakes conditions.
​William has successfully led numerous executive searches across consumer products, financial services, industrial goods, media, healthcare, and technology; focusing on roles in general management, finance, human resources, and operations. In addition to his search work, he has built a strong reputation for delivering rigorous leadership assessment to support pre-deal diligence, succession planning, and post-close performance alignment.
​With a proven track record of building high-performance leadership teams, William partners with PE investors to align talent with value creation plans bringing a strategic, data-driven approach to evaluating both new hires and existing executives within portfolio companies.
​William holds a degree in Economics from Harvard University. wpyonteck@kirklandwest.com​
​
Melanie C. Stokes
Managing Director
Melanie Stokes is a Managing Director at Kirkland West with nearly two decades of executive search and leadership advisory experience. She is a trusted partner to private equity firms and portfolio company leadership teams, known for her consultative approach, analytical rigor, and deep insight into organizational dynamics.
​
While Melanie works across a broad range of industries and functions, she brings particular expertise in private equity, corporate strategy, and commercial leadership, including high-impact sales roles. Her work consistently supports value creation by helping clients identify and secure executives who can drive growth, lead through transformation, and deliver results under pressure.
​
Melanie has successfully partnered with leadership teams across Fortune 500, mid-cap, small-cap, and privately held companies, including global private equity-backed businesses, to recruit and transition top-tier talent. Her industry experience spans consumer products, financial services, industrials, life sciences, media, retail, and technology.
​
In addition to executive search, Melanie plays a key role in delivering leadership assessment services, including executive benchmarking, succession planning, and post-close leadership evaluations. Her disciplined, data-informed process ensures alignment between candidate capabilities and the strategic imperatives of each investment. mstokes@kirklandwest.com
James Macdonald
Managing Director
A former client of Kirkland West, Jim Macdonald brings to the firm over twenty-five years of broad-gauged executive recruiting and human capital management experience with leading global organizations including Goldman Sachs, General Electric (NBC), Primedia (KKR) and Thomson Reuters. His career comprises a rare blend of both search-firm consulting and in-house, corporate recruiting roles enabling him to identify with and better advise clients.
Among his corporate recruiting roles, Jim led the executive search program at Thomson Reuters, the preeminent business information services provider, where he spearheaded the recruitment and succession planning effort of the top 100 leadership positions in the organization. Prior to Thomson, Jim directed firm-wide recruiting efforts for Goldman Sachs and ran the recruiting/human resources function for the home healthcare provider U.S. HomeCare. He also consulted on a full-time basis for Bridgewater Associates, working on the development of their top talent recruiting pipeline.
Jim’s executive search background comprises a decade of building his own recruiting practice, primarily with Russell Reynolds Associates (ultimately serving as Chief of Staff for the CEO) and Ross & Company, a leading search firm in the healthcare arena. Throughout his search career, he has conducted senior level recruiting assignments across a wide range of industries and functions, with a particular focus on education/media, financial services and healthcare.
Jim was born in Providence, Rhode Island, one of seven children of professional artists. He graduated from Yale University, where he played nationally-ranked college hockey, and went on to earn an MBA from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management. He has served in leadership/advisory roles with a number of civic, academic and cultural organizations--including the Executive Search Information Exchange (ESIX), the Business Council of Fairfield County (formerly known as SACIA), Stamford Center for the Arts, Cornell University, LaSalle Academy (Providence, RI) and Yale University.