About Simon+James
Simon+James is the consultative high touch talent development and professional placement firm that is agile in approach, technical in execution and encompasses a candidate centric model at the core of all we do. We have assembled a collection of proven best practices across all of our industries sub categories and have bundled it all together in a seamless offering. We’ve taken time to rethink everything.
With over 20 years of experience, we continue to see gaps that prevents our industry from evolving: too transactional, a lack of technical knowledge matching our customers, and a one size fits all mentality. Combined with these gaps, we believe that the industry will face its most disruption in the very near future. The good news is that there are best practices that work across our industries sub categories that we believe can be adopted into a seamless offering and allow us to focus on our absolute core, the candidate.
Leadership Team
Chief Executive Officer
Matthew James Ripaldi, an accomplished staffing industry veteran with over 20 years of experience. During his first 18 years…
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Matthew James Ripaldi, an accomplished staffing industry veteran with over 20 years of experience. During his first 18 years in the industry Matthew worked for The Adecco Group, a Global Fortune 500 Company and the world’s largest staffing firm. Starting off as a Technical Recruiter and quickly finding his passion for the business. This passion combined with a strong work ethic and consistent high-performance helped him excel to seven (7) consecutive promotional opportunities, holding executive leadership roles across eight (8) different industry leading brands; TAD Technical, Adecco Technical, Ajilon ICT, Ajilon Consulting, VendorPass, Modis IT, Modis Engineering and Modis Managed Solutions.
Matthew’s vast experience has led to extensive knowledge across contract staffing, direct hire, managed services, project based solutions, onsite MSP programs, payrolling, training and development and global client solutions. Matthew then joined Collabera as Executive Vice President in September of 2017 reporting directly to the Founder, Chairman and CEO of this fast growing and industry leading IT Staffing and Consulting Firm.
While with Collabera he was part of the Executive Management Team, supported their managed services business unit and launched Collabera’s stand-alone Direct Hire Practice. This role provided Matthew with extensive experience in direct hire, executive search and global delivery. Closing in on 20 years and learning directly from some of the industries legendary leaders, Matthew knew the time was right to take all he learned and launch Simon+James. As CEO Matthew helps set the strategic direction of Simon+James, continually looks to improve every aspect of the organization, works to drive scalable growth, operates with a collaborative and servant based leadership approach with this team and continues to run his own full desk. Matthew resides in Houston, Texas with his wife and son. “I am going to spend the rest of my career dedicated to the candidate and with that strive to transform and innovate the industry”.
Chief Strategy Officer
Brett Simon, a highly successful Managing Director, Recruiting Manager, Executive Recruiter and Agile Trainer…
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Brett Simon, a highly successful Managing Director, Recruiting Manager, Executive Recruiter and Agile Trainer who possess a unique combination of technical expertise and proven direct hire and executive search capabilities. An early software engineer Brett began his career on the technical side developing software before entering the industry joining Robert Half, the oldest and largest direct hire firm in the US. Having excelled early and working his way up to Practice Manager Brett learned the in’s and out’s of direct hire from this industry leader. He next became Recruiting Manager at Agile Velocity, a boutique Agile Consultancy based in Austin, Texas where he help build this consultancy wearing many hats including recruiter, recruiting manager, and Agile Trainer. It is here that Brett became an Agile Evangelist and was soon a Certified Scrum Master.
He then joined Modis to help launch a Direct Hire Practice and while in the role of Division Director was responsible for building a team and running a full desk. Brett excelled in the role and became the number 2 executive recruiter in all of North America placing CIO’s, CTO’s, Software Engineers, Architects and Big Data talent in and around Texas. He then assumed responsibility for the entire Modis IT Austin operation and continued to have success. In early 2017 he joined Collabera to help build and launch their stand-alone Direct Hire Practice. As one of the very first hires Brett applied his technical knowledge to helping Collabera build their own ATS, using his past experience to develop processes and procedures and all the while continued setting personal and company bests in placement fees generated. Brett always envisioned starting a firm in the industry he loves and bringing a more technical and consultative approach to the every day. His experience and proven track record within three (3) of the industry leading firms has given him the knowledge and tools to excel within Simon+James.
As Chief Strategy Officer Brett is tasked with helping to define and test the strategy of Simon+James. He ensures an Agile approach is followed within the DNA of the company and continues to run a full desk specializing in C-Level IT leadership roles and highly technical Architects and Software Engineers. Brett resides in Austin, Texas with his wife Kelli.
Senior Partner
Nicole Dao, a proven industry veteran who has excelled in business development over a 15 year career in the industry…
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Nicole Dao, a proven industry veteran who has excelled in business development over a 15 year career in the industry. She has vast experience across Engineering, Technical and IT Staffing, Director Hire and Managed Services. Her ability to partner with her client stakeholders along with developing customized full-cycle recruiting solutions has allowed her consistent success and the recipient of multiple business development awards.
As Partner for Simon+James, Nicole focuses on delivering top talent to companies in the Oil & Gas, Chemical, Electric and Power Utilities and Industrial Manufacturing industries. Nicole resides in Houston, Texas with her husband and son.
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