Analytics today are revolutionizing traditional organizational structures. Rather than vision being driven exclusively from the top, some of the most important insights and strategic changes are emerging from data driven discoveries at every level. The right leaders and analysts can drive disproportionate value and accelerated growth in an organization, and the wrong ones can have long-term negative effects.  Organizations that aspire to rise and remain above their peers will need strong talent at all ranks.

Just as data and technology have transformed how businesses make decisions, they have transformed how to source top talent.  The challenge is no longer just how to network to find good candidates that are interested in a role.  Today, great search partners need to be able to define the roles that make the most impact and then combine a strong network with the ability to effectively mine the massive amount of information now available to find the ideal candidates for those roles.

Lingua Franca is a boutique retained executive and professional level search firm that places leaders in strategic roles that are driven by strong data and analytics.

We are former industry executives and consultants with more than 20 years of executive, analytical and advisory experience with large and small firms where strong analytics are a foundation for success.

This practical experience allows us to understand and define the essential skills and competencies needed to drive distinct value in industries and companies that demand strong analytical capabilities.

We partner with you to define which skills and competencies would most benefit your organization and how to structure roles to attract top talent and maximize their impact.  We then draw on an exclusive candidate network and refined search approach honed over the last 20+ years to identify exceptionally qualified people to fill these positions.

We can speak to candidates with a refreshing level of knowledge about what the roles truly entail because we have direct experience in the industry.  This level of insight allows us to generate the kind of interest that leads the right people to take the next step forward.

As industry veterans ourselves, we understand your business and the realities of operating in companies both large and small. We believe what separates us is:

• The ability to identify the specific needs of your organization and partner with you to craft roles that maximize the impact of new talent.
• A unique perspective on how the art and science of analytics blend together to drive value.  This insight allows us to differentiate and balance your needs in a role between judgment, experience, and raw quantitative horsepower.
• An exceptional ability to screen candidates that may appear similar, but possess subtle differences that can mean the difference between an ideal fit and a bad hire.
• An unparalleled network of top-tier candidates developed and curated over decades.
• Deep subject matter expertise that allows the candidates we present to be better informed and excited about your role before engaging directly with you, ensuring that all parties’ valuable time is well spent.

Assess Organizational Needs

As former consultants, we have years of experience in evaluating business models, organizational structures and the people leading and contributing within them. This expertise enables us to identify what gaps exist and how to best address them with the addition of new talent that rounds out your team and enables your organization to reach its full potential. 

Craft Positions for Maximum Impact

As former industry operators, we can design roles that reflect the reality of various environments and enable real value to be delivered. We start by helping define what the key focus of the search will be. There are many kinds of leaders and contributors with different strengths within the field and we can help sort through nuances between them to identify which would drive the most leverage in your organization. If there are multiple openings, we help identify options for how to fill those roles in ways that allow the most flexibility or value added.

Source Potential Candidates

The experienced team at Lingua Franca begins to source candidates with the essential skills and organizational culture fit. We have a network of potential candidates built up over the course of more than 30 years and with whom we remain in regular contact to ensure we have the most up to date view of their capabilities and interests.  We also have advanced search and evaluation capabilities outside of candidates well known to us that enable us to effectively identify strong potential fits for your roles.

Nuanced Screening to Identify the Best Talent

We have been interviewing and managing talented performers and leaders for decades and over that time, we’ve refined how to identify solid performers and superstars.  The indicators of who may be the right or wrong fit for your organization can be subtle and we have honed our screening process to detect these differences.  The candidates we present to you will be highly vetted to ensure your valuable time is spent wisely.

Create and Maintain Interest Through the Hiring Process

Miscommunication of requirements and job responsibilities can be common between search firms and candidates when the details aren’t well understood.  With a strong background built from doing these jobs or partnering side by side with those that have done them, we can communicate the details to candidates accurately.  Through this knowledge and an exploration of the goals of candidates to ensure they match the what the role provides, we can advance people through the process that are excited by the opportunity.

Our practice includes placing candidates at the top levels of an organization through the junior ranks needed to drive the day-to-day strategy development and insight. Our advanced screening techniques allow us to identify people with the specific industry experience you require or the raw capabilities to succeed in a new space

Brian Lawton, President

After starting his career in consulting, Brian joined Capital One where he spent nearly 20 years in various P&L ownership and strategic leadership roles in customer acquisition, marketing, customer and portfolio management, underwriting, operations, risk management and corporate training. He developed expertise in lending and deposit businesses across both consumer and small business customers. He was also accredited as a Credit Officer in recognition of his judgment, intuition, critical thinking and functional expertise.

Identifying and developing talent was a large part of Brian’s focus at Capital One. He spent extensive time interviewing candidates and was appointed one of the few senior case interviewers in the company based on his ability to effectively identify the most promising future associates. During his final 4 years at the firm, Brian led Enterprise Credit Training, where he had responsibility for the development and delivery of industry-leading training to new professionals through senior executives on core company strengths of advanced analytics, decision sciences and revenue & credit risk management.

Brian joined AQN Strategies as a Managing Director and built a practice focused on due diligence assessments of companies in consumer and small business lending on behalf of Private Equity clients. The firms ranged from established companies to small startups and these engagements often required rapid assessments of their business models and teams to identify sources of strength and opportunity. He also spent extensive time developing credit strategies for companies in consumer lending.

Brian holds an MBA from The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, where he graduated as a Fuqua Scholar. He also has a dual BA degree in both Economics and Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia.

Ben Sabloff, Chief Executive Officer

Ben Sabloff is an accomplished executive with credit risk, business strategy, mergers & acquisitions and business line P&L management experience at Fortune 500 banks, including 13 years at Capital One. Ben’s background enables him to bring a practicality and hands-on orientation to his consulting work. Ben is a veteran in the financial services industry, with experience in roles leveraging data and analytics to drive better decision-making while decreasing risk and liability. 

Ben co-founded AQN Strategies in 2016, where he currently serves as Managing Partner. AQN Strategies is a boutique consulting firm that helps businesses in Financial Services make better decisions using state of the art analytical techniques. 

Ben founded Lingua Franca in 2017 to help other companies gain access to experienced data and analytics talent across several sectors. Lingua Franca delivers a unique perspective into how the art and science of analytics comes together to drive value.

Ben holds an MBA from Stanford Business School and a BS dual degree in Accounting and Finance from the University of Richmond.

Jared Oren, Vice President

Jared is a seasoned professional with extensive executive search experience. Most recently, he was a principal at Heidrick & Struggles, a premiere global executive search firm. At Heidrick, Jared was a member of the firm’s Financial Services Practice and worked both with established institutions and nascent fintech companies. He led executive level search engagements across a wide array of functional areas, including finance, risk, data governance, operations, technology, legal, compliance and regulatory affairs.

At Heidrick, Jared was responsible for managing the search process from start to finish and served as a primary interface with clients throughout the engagement. In his search career, Jared has worked on 100+ c-level assignments and interviewed 1,000+ candidates. He began his Heidrick career as an MBA summer intern and steadily ascended into roles of increased responsibility.

Before business school, Jared worked as a consultant for Accenture’s Talent and Organization Performance practice, helping clients manage large-scale organizational transformation and change management efforts. He first joined Accenture in its Office of Government Relations, where he worked closely with the State and Local Government Practice to manage legislative risk and identify business development opportunities.

Jared received a BBA in Business Economics and Public Policy from George Washington University (summa cum laude) and an MBA from Georgetown University.