With a team of 50+ business consultants and research associates, Connery Consulting has decades of industry experience. Priding ourselves on quality and personalized service, we are committed to excellence by bringing you the best of the best with a specialized approach.
We are industry experts providing a high level of professionalism, integrity and client satisfaction.
We offer a full suite of services including Compensation Advisory Services, HR Advisory Services and Talent Acquisition.
We take a personalized approach to fully understand and adapt to the unique needs of our clients.
NANCY CONNERY // Founding Principal
Nancy Connery is the founder and principal of Connery Consulting, the premier human capital consultancy that partners with the fastest-growing technology companies of all time. Her inspiring career spans HR management and operations positions for over 30 years.
Nancy began her career by partnering with Marc Benioff to build two key divisions at Oracle Corporation, including the company’s first philanthropic venture. Marc later recruited her as one of the three Oracle employees and Salesforce’s fifth employee. As Salesforce’s founding VP of HR, Nancy fueled the company’s remarkable growth by building its industry-leading HR infrastructure, personally recruiting more than 650 hires.
In 2007, Nancy embarked on a new mission to help entrepreneurs enable peak performance by empowering people. She designed Connery’s offering to support the rapid growth that technology companies demand: talent acquisition, strategic total rewards planning, and executive coaching. Nancy has personally advised unicorns Airbnb, Dropbox, Instacart, Facebook, Medium, Twitter and Zendesk to surmount the challenges of scaling as they develop into vibrant, profitable companies.
In 2021, Nancy co-founded compensation intelligence leader, OpenComp, with Connery cofounder Thanh Nguyen. OpenComp has raised nearly $25M from TIME Ventures (the investment vehicle for Marc Benioff), J.P. Morgan, and others. She sits on OpenComp’s board, as well as Mattermost’s advisory board and the Board of Directors at The Branson School, where Nancy serves on Governance and Building and Grounds.
Nancy still actively supports Compass Family Services, a philanthropic organization devoted to breaking the cycle of homelessness in San Francisco, where she formerly sat on the Board. Nancy is a strong supporter of college internships, working with the University of Colorado to advise and place college athletes in tech companies.
Nancy enjoys her family, global traveling, outdoor activities, and olives in her beer. Her mentors include Marc Benioff and her father, both of whom inspired her to give 110% to everything she does.
"I'm passionate about people,” Nancy says.
CLARISSA YU // Director of Operations and Executive Search
Clarissa oversees the Austin office and has led the talent research and sourcing team since 2016. She has managed key sourcing accounts and led full-cycle recruiting efforts for top technology companies in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City. A few of her past clients include Curology, Remix, Weebly, and Zendesk. She has built long-lasting client relationships as a collaborative and creative talent partner.
Prior to Connery, Clarissa began her career with the HR benefits team at Microsoft then transitioned into healthcare recruiting. Outside of the office, Clarissa loves to cook, work out, and spend time with her husband and their dog Tango.
SCOTT KIRSCH // Director, TalentAQ
Leading Connery's contingency arm, TalentAQ, Scott has been a part of the Connery team for over 3 years. He started on the embedded team as a Recruitment Consultant and Account Manager, consulting at fast-paced, high-growth companies including Uber, Rippling, and Luminar Technologies.
He brings over 10 years of recruiting experience with a background in both agency and internal recruitment. Prior to Connery, he led the recruitment and HR for an IoT start-up in Michigan.
Scott loves to explore national parks and go on hikes with his wife, Natalie, and dog, Belle.
JENICA CANDELARIA // Director, General Recruitment
Jenica Candelaria is a recruiting expert with just under a decade of successful experience in hiring and employee management. She started her career as a Recruitment Consultant at Connery Consulting where she managed and executed on every aspect of recruitment for both Technical and Non-Technical clients, working directly with C-level executives. From there she joined Slack where she managed a Technical Recruiting team who focused on rapidly scaling their product engineering organization.
Recently, Jenica re-joined Connery where she manages the Recruiting Consultant team and as strong believer in unlocking performance and fostering inclusive environments is focused on allowing her team to do the best work of their life, here at Connery.
Outside of work you can find Jenica spending time with her Husband, daughters and Boxer, Finn, creating new recipes in the kitchen and on occasion indulging in the latest netflix binge.
LAURA RICE // Director, Human Resources
As a Director of HR at Connery Consulting Laura Rice has over a decade of experience implementing strategic HR initiatives for the likes of Anchorfree (now Pango), Betterworks, Calm, Chan Zuckerberg, Crux Informatics, HotelTonight, Landed and SambaTV. Laura has been instrumental at Connery in rolling out numerous Compliance and HR Operational Reviews, overseeing strategic re-orgs, designing and implementing career leveling and job architecture, conducting 360s, coaching and training. Prior to Connery, Laura worked in HR for a leading financial services company and for one of Asia’s most prominent internet companies.
Laura’s pragmatic approach and “can-do attitude” have proven time and time again that she is an outstanding advisor and confidant to leading C-level executives in technology. There is no situation too tough for Laura to navigate, and she does it with extreme grace and compassion.
As a graduate of Cornell University Laura studied Industrial and Labor Relations. She has her PHR and SHRM-CP certifications as well. Laura played an active role in supporting victims of sexual assault during her volunteer work with Vera House. Today Laura and her husband are avid supporters of Doctors Without Borders. In her free time, Laura enjoys yoga, travel, and reading. Her favorite adventures over the years have been exploring Africa, Ireland and Italy.