We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kate Harry Shipham a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Kate, appreciate you joining us today. Almost every entrepreneur we know has considered donating a portion of their revenue to an organization or cause – how did you make the decision of whether to donate? We’d love to hear the backstory if you’re open to sharing the details
I work in the world of law firms. They now are expected to have a stance on social justice issues both domestically and internationally. This is a huge shift from when I grew up in law firms in the 2000’s, where it was “only” the practice of law that was focused on.
Now, law firms – rightly or wrongly – have been pushed onto a national and often global platform where they are expected to use their authority and power for the greater good. They have risen to this expectation, despite the relative lack of preparedness to do so. They want to fall on the right side of these issues by giving pro bono hours, public statements, and community support where needed, just to name a few. They are now trained to always be actively listening to their clients and their needs locally and beyond; they are now a new type of lawyer, they are business problem solvers.
Where I can, I mirror my clients so that they know I really understand their business and the expectations that are placed upon them. My way of mirroring this is to donate a percentage of every search that KHS People runs to local and national organizations. I do this by focusing on five causes: children, teens, education, sexual abuse, and community betterment. To date, over 60 donations have been made to 18 non-profits across the US.
Believing firmly in giving back when one is in a position to do so, I enjoy being able to make these contributions and also show my clients that we, too, lean into social justice and betterment.
Kate, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
ABOUT MYSELF:
My name is Kate Harry Shipham and I am the Founder and CEO of KHS People LLC (KHS People).
KHS People is an executive search firm that focuses solely on placing senior marketing and business development professionals into law firms across the US.
Executive search is a specialized recruiting service – known by many as “headhunting”. It is the proactive and focused search for candidates that match the executive need of the client firm or company. Governing this relationship are terms that the executive search firm brings a high level of service, focus and sophistication, and that they bring a deeply established niche network that matches the client need.
HOW DID I GET HERE
I transitioned into executive search in 2011 by way of a career shift. Having practiced as an attorney for almost a decade, focusing on complex commercial litigation, alternative dispute resolution, and white-collar crime, I stopped practicing and relocated from Melbourne, Australia, to Chicago in the US. This move came about by way of a significant career promotion and opportunity for my husband. I repurposed my career as I knew it, and still focused on working in the legal profession, but from a completely different angle: executive search in the niche area of business professionals in law firms.
In 2017, I founded KHS People, an executive search firm placing senior marketing and business development professionals into law firms across the US. By bringing my combined in-house attorney and search experience into each client experience, I found I could personally relate and bring credibility through a level of service my clients hadn’t experienced previously.
From 2018 to 2022, I managed KHS People and loved the types of clients and work that seemed to flow pretty organically. Also, during these early years, I enjoyed another new role: being a parent to our daughter. I somehow figured it out – and survived – the early years of starting a business, which included the covid years and navigating parenthood. Despite all of this, my mission at the time with KHS People was clear, but relatively simple: providing exceptional service and having a deep network for my clients.
In 2023, and when our daughter was of school age, I took the handbrake off KHS People. I also now knew the next iteration of my mission: to provide unmatched client service, accompanied by homegrown data, to educate and counsel both firm clients and candidate clients alike. I knew this mission meant that the KHS People placements would be mutually successful and for the long placement. I also became very clear on adhering to a consistent set of principles and values integral to the KHS People brand.
HONING MY CRAFT
Now in my seventh year, I have learned that wearing the KHS People culture on my sleeve has generated a brand that exudes professionalism, honesty, and integrity. These traits are not always common in the world of recruiting, and so part of the KHS People success has been to treat all clients alike – both firms and individual candidates – and with a level of service that they typically hadn’t experienced before. With the bar in recruiting being relatively low, and our client service ethic being very high, we have created a highly personalized and unique experience which our clients share is unmatched in the industry.
We are now known for providing unmatched client service, accompanied by homegrown data, to educate and counsel both firm clients and candidate clients alike for a mutually successful and long-term placement.
Building a brand that has unwavering standards, and where our passion for our work shines through, has been, and still is, a huge source of pride for me personally. I have practiced and preached since day one that of the utmost importance to KHS People is confidentiality, transparency, and applying forward-thinking methods where business and law intersect. This is now paying dividends and I have enjoyed adding team members whose professional DNA effortlessly matches that of KHS People.
OUR SERVICES
We offer two types of services. The first is executive search for law firm marketing and business development departments. This means we are typically engaged by the Chief Marketing Officer of a law firm to help add growth roles for their ever-growing marketing teams. Marketing in a law firm includes traditional and digital marketing. business development, client development, client experience, pursuits and pitches, communications, and competitive intelligence. They use the umbrella word of “marketing” to include all these areas.
Our typical roles are Business Development Managers, Client Relationship Managers, Senior Marketing Managers, Business Development Directors, and Chief Marketing Officers.
These roles are internally focused, meaning the clients of a Business Development Director are the partners and attorneys of the firm. They help these professionals increase their market position, brand elevation, and specific industry focus through highly targeted revenue generating initiatives that increase their overall market share. These roles require a high EQ and exceptional relationship building and influencing skills.
They are not sales roles, but rather, they help the attorneys sell themselves and their specific services. Attorneys now go to market largely by industry, and so marketing professionals literally steer this big ship for them and are their trusted advisors.
The second is producing industry reports to educate and further the legal marketing profession. KHS People is about to run its fourth iteration of an industry wide salary and trends survey. The data captured produces a plethora of insights that are fed back to the profession in an intentional and strategic way. It also differentiates KHS People as a true authority in the industry of legal marketing recruitment and retention.
THE PROBLEMS WE SOLVE
Not unlike our law firm clients, we are charged with solving our client’s problems. Specifically, their marketing and business development recruiting and retention challenges.
We do this through proactive search, nurturing our deep network (and constantly thoughtfully growing this network), producing industry analysis and insights on salaries and trends, writing targeted thought leadership, speaking to our network and clients at industry conferences and C-level roundtables, and being the law firm’s C-suite advisor on the recruitment, retention, and engagement of law firm marketing professionals.
MOST PROUD OF
We have wonderful clients who are highly engaged and trust the work that we do. This unique position fueled the idea to be the authority on the industry salary data and trends.
The KHS People Salary Survey is a true example of this. We share this real-time data and industry trends in ways with our clients that we know will resonate. KHS People is now known for producing these data, insights and trends analysis in a way that preserves confidentiality, and that speaks to the laws governing salary history disclosure and accurate benchmarking. As a result, I can now offer CMOs a full suite of services that helps them recruit, retain, engage, and promote their marketing professionals.
OUR BRAND
We are a full-service executive search firm that is invested in relationships and actively listens to their clients and the challenges they face. We must also know the subject matter if we are to be highly effective, and so KHS People’s team has had first-hand experience in either law or marketing as a result.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Listening to really hear and understand what information or assistance clients actually need, and then giving that solution to them. This is different to giving the client or industry what you think they need.
There’s a subtle nuance, and sometimes some crossover, but actively listening and responding accordingly is what resonates without fail.
I often ask my clients what they need and add in different questions and angles to obtain information that is many layers beneath the surface. I love to absorb information and think about how to enhance or shift my services so that they always meet the constantly changing environment that my clients are in. This industry never stands still, and if you’re really listening you hear everything you need to know to move with it.
Any advice for managing a team?
Managing a team is a privilege, in my view. It is also a responsibility that is unmatched because you have the capability to shape people’s careers and career paths; to actually change their lives. In my industry, most people end up managing people by default; it’s imposed upon them at a certain point in time because they are escalated in their career because they are good at their job, not because they are prepared for managing a team.
I believe in:
– adding people who are different to compliment skills and diversity in thought
– trusting people to do their role
– empowering people to take ownership over their role
– openly displaying the firm culture
– having people’s backs and being accountable as the leader of the firm
– sitting back in moments where you see people can and want to make decisions
– letting other makes decisions that are different to yours
– showing a career path that covers the next two-to-three years; this exponentially increases engagement
– frequent and informal feedback
– no one is perfect, and moments of apparent failure are learnings to build from
– showing your appreciation in a way that is meaningful to that person
– paying people more than they are worth
All of this has resulted in people joining KHS People who are high-impact team players and who are valued for their contributions, potential within the firm, and their idea creation.
I also know that as a leader you set the culture, the energy, and the tone. We have a culture at KHS People which includes sharing the moments that are tougher and learning to grow accordingly – and often together – as a result.
The workforce in 2024 means that our lives are woven into our work in a very fluid way that also constantly challenges work/life balance and threatens to overwhelm us at any moment. Managing others in this current climate comes with incredible responsibility. It is also exceptionally rewarding if you are intentional about your leadership style and the onus of accountability that you bare.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.khspeople.com/
- Instagram: khspeople
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kateharryshipham/