Meet the Founder

Carrie Stone is the President of cStone & Associates, a global search firm performing senior executive and corporate board assignments. She founded the firm after a successful career where she was actively engaged in the recruitment of executive talent. Throughout her career, she was frequently frustrated by the quality of service and results of many search firms.

Prior to launching cStone & Associates, Carrie conducted interviews with CEO’s, heads of talent acquisition and Private Equity Partners to learn first-hand about their experiences with executive search firms. She quickly saw a clear opportunity to create a search firm with a differentiated business model. cStone & Associates was formed shortly thereafter with a performance oriented business delivering a personalized consulting approach with bespoke service.

Recognized for superior business judgment, analytical thinking, and insights, Carrie is a sought after and trusted advisor. Her prior executive experience with large public companies, private equity backed companies and other global businesses, provides broad business knowledge to her clients. Her background includes CEO leadership, senior executive management, as well as Board and Committee expertise.

I am immensely grateful to be leading a company where the work that we do is transformational for clients and candidates. Recruiting an exceptional board candidate or executive is often a game changer for the client and lifechanging for the candidate. Nothing delights me more than exceeding client expectations and “making the match!”

Carrie Stone

President, cStone & Associates

A Wealth of Experience

Carrie’s expertise and relevant knowledge from her experiences as a prior senior executive with a Fortune 100, a venture capitalist and board member provide unique perspectives and networks to her clients. As a CEO and senior executive of global businesses, Carrie has led turnarounds with profitable revenue acceleration, hyper growth companies, product innovation, brand management, multi-channel marketing and new channels of distribution. She has also served as an Independent Board Director on public and private companies serving on Compensation and Nominating and Governance Committees.

Carrie was a Venture Partner and an Entrepreneur in Residence with Enterprise Partners Venture Capital in La Jolla, a $1.1B venture fund investing in emerging stage technology and life science companies. Carrie developed business leadership skills earlier in her career as an executive with entertainment, consumer product, retail, multi- channel, and consumer companies.

Carrie is an active member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO,) a leadership organization with over 30,000 global members with combined company revenues of 9 trillion dollars. She served on the International Board as the second woman in the history of the organization to do so. She also served on the Diversity and Compensation Committees and as the Chair of the International Forum Committee. She also held leadership roles for Global Leadership Conferences held around the world.

Carrie is a Co-Founder of the San Diego Chapter, Women Corporate Directors, a global organization of women directors serving on over 8500 boards worldwide. She is a sought-after speaker providing insights and guidance to high potential board aspirants for organizations including NACD and Deloitte. Carrie has also served on the Steering Committee for the Director of the Year Awards for the Corporate Directors Forum. Carrie is a Co-Founder and former board member of San Diego Social Venture Partners (SDSVP,) a philanthropic organization amplifying the impact of not-for-profit organizations seeking to accelerate positive social change.

I´m very impressed with the professionalism and highly personalized approach from cStone & Associates. What makes Carrie unique is that she genuinely cares. She cares about her customer´s needs, and therefore she has very high standards for the candidates, but she also cares about the candidates. In my professional experience, working with Carrie was the best executive search experience I have had.

Joao Paulo Malagueria

President, EMEA, Hologic

We Care

Do Well. Be Good. Here to Serve.

I feel a great responsibility for us to utilize our time, treasure and talents to make our world a better place.

San Diego Social Venture Partners

Co-Founder, Carrie Stone, envisioned an opportunity for a highly engaged philanthropic model using a venture philanthropy approach. She had a passion for cultivating engaged philanthropists with a focus on accountable investing in sustainable and impactful NFP organizations. Today, SDSVP is among the most impactful NFP organizations in the region catalyzing "investors" and partners pooling resources and talent to advance change in the community. Since inception SDSVP has donated 93,000 strategic volunteer hours and over $11 million in funding and in-kind services to over 100 NFP organizations in the region. SDSVP was named NFP organization of the year in 2011.

Just In Time for Foster Youth

Just in Time for Foster Youth engages a caring community to help transitioning foster youth achieve self-sufficiency and well-being. Without family support, young adults are at risk of being homeless, unemployed and under-educated. Only too often they plunge onto a path of lifelong dependence, homelessness or prison. cSTONE & ASSOCIATES engages in assisting Foster Youth transition to an apartments providing furniture and essentials and provides gift cards during holidays.

Voices for Children

Voices for Children is a private, nonprofit organization that recruits, trains, and supports Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteers who speak up for the needs and well-being of children in foster care. Carrie is a trained CASA advocating for and reporting on the progress and needs of her assigned foster youth enabling judges to make the best decisions for their futures.

WE

Carrie began to engage her son in volunteer activities at age seven. Through their journey of volunteering together, Carrie met Free the Children Co-Founder, Craig Kielburger and was inspired by his passion and courage to create a movement at the age of 12 to free children from poverty. With a passion for raising children who care and contribute, Carrie created and Championed "African Adventures:Foundations for the Future", a volunteer experience for Young Presidents Organization (YPO) families to fully immerse themselves in the Masai Mara culture in Kenya building a school while working and learning in the community. With WE, Carrie developed youth and adult programming centered on personal goals and action plans to make a difference.

Generate Hope

Generate Hope is a safe place for survivors of sex trafficking to heal and find restoration in long term housing with trauma informed therapy, education and vocational support. Carrie teaches workshops to survivors in the Learning Center.

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is the most successful orphan-elephant and rhino rescue and rehabilitation program in the world and one of the pioneering conservation organizations for wildlife and habitat protection in East Africa. We love the baby elephant foster parent program and tracking the progress of our adopted orphan elephants.

We value the hands on personalized service that cStone & Associates provides to our partner companies. Carrie acts with a sense of urgency to deliver results. We can count on timely communication and excellent leadership with cStone & Associates.

Terry Lee

Executive Chairman, BRG Sports