Adele brings nearly thirty years of innovative leadership in executive search to her role as co-founder and managing partner of Pearl Street. Highly skilled in strategic marketing and business development, she began her search career implementing programs that supported new market entry and practice expansion before assuming a search portfolio of CEO and Vice President-level engagements on behalf of the Fortune 500 and venture/private equity portfolio companies.
Her shift to the nonprofit sector began with search at Special Olympics International and she immediately found herself drawn to outcomes that increased societal benefit rather than shareholder value. She has since led over 150 searches across nonprofit sectors and functions, delivering exceptional talent and partnering with presidents, boards, and leadership teams to devise strategies for culture transformation, recruitment and retention, and organizational design. A student of human behavior, she engages with authenticity and a natural warmth that builds trust, earning her high praise from clients and candidates.
Adele’s interest in advancing the work of mission driven clients was borne of her own family’s search for a better life. When she was a child, they fled civil war in Lebanon to settle north of Boston in the City of Lawrence, a vibrant community known for its culturally diverse population as well as its poverty rate and the barriers to success that engenders. Those life experiences created within her a drive to advocate for equity and access at every turn.
In addition to supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion through her daily work, she finds significant opportunity in her volunteer roles as an academic mentor with SquashBusters Lawrence and advisory board member to Aaron’s Presents. She is both a member and mentor with Women of Color in Fundraising & Philanthropy, an active supporter of the #HIREBLACK Initiative, and a member of the scholarship-granting Lebanese American Awareness Association. Occasionally you’ll see her pinch-hitting as a substitute teacher at her high school alma mater, the Greater Lawrence Technical School, where the teenagers keep her on her toes.
A lifelong learner, she is often refreshing her language skills or taking a course to satisfy her interests in human resources, sociology, and psychology. Adele holds a certification as a Diversity & Inclusion Recruiter. During off hours, she can be found literally running after her three-time marathoner husband and picking up shiny trinkets that her beloved rescue cats Vincent and Mia have pushed off tabletops.