William M. Byrnes

William M. Byrnes is a consultant at Grahall. He works with Boards of Directors and corporate executives in determining people strategy requirements for the implementation of organization business strategies. He founded Grahall Executive Search Alliance LLC as a business solutions consultancy. As Managing Partner, he heads the firm’s executive search practice focused vertically in the many disciplines of Financial Services and horizontally across industries in key management functions such as Finance, Human Resources, Legal/Audit/Compliance, Technology, Sales, Operations, etc.  Apart from industry sectors, we also are experienced in executive selection and placement in most key management functions such as Finance, Investing, Human Resources, Legal/Audit/Compliance, Technology, Sales, Operations, etc.

Bill’s corporate experience is broad and deep. His experience in Litigation Efforts, primarily at Fidelity and Xerox, includes the disciplines of Evaluation, Acquisition, Integration, Management Development and Divestiture. His Financial Services experience was gained in domestic and global firms at ICMA Retirement Corporation as COO; New York Life Investment Management as VP – Sales & Consultant Relations; Boston Financial as SVP & GM; Putnam Investments as SVP and Fidelity Investments as VP & Partner.

In his transitional assignment to Financial Services from corporate Human Resources, he served as president of Fidelity’s in-house executive search company. He also nurtured a Fidelity ‘temp works’ recruiting division which ultimately ‘spun off’ and became one of the largest temporary recruiting companies on the east coast. He also has extensive experience in corporate human resources, primarily with Xerox, where he designed and installed the company’s first 401(k) plan. Additional HR positions were at held at other Fortune 500 firms such as Avon, Westvaco and Emery Worldwide. Each one of these assignments included significant recruiting, employee development, compensation, change management and organizational design & development responsibilities.

He has been a speaker at various industry conferences in the US and Europe. He has been active in industry associations such as NICSA, ICI, SPARK and SHRM. Byrnes’ educational background includes a BS in History from SUNY – Geneseo and an MS in Personnel Administration from SUNY – Albany.