About
About Kelly Yosten and KYO Search Partners
KYO Search Partners is a boutique search firm for digital, marketing and creative talent, founded and run by Kelly Yosten. Kelly has recruited at senior level since 2007, across business development and search, at national and regional staffing and recruiting firms before starting KYO. The firm places permanent, direct-hire talent, and it does the consulting work around a hire as well as the hire itself.
Who actually runs the searches?
Kelly does. Every one. That is the substantive difference between a boutique and a firm with a floor: the person you have the first conversation with is the person who writes the outreach, takes the calls, checks the references and tells you what she really thinks about the shortlist. Nothing is handed to a coordinator, and there is no version of this where a senior name closes the engagement and then disappears from it.
What does "AI-native" actually mean here?
It means the breadth of the work is automated and the judgment is not. That is worth being specific about, because the phrase gets used loosely. Market mapping, sourcing at scale and the first pass through a large volume of profiles are done with modern tooling, which is why a firm of one can cover a market that used to need a team. The conversations, the assessment against the brief, the references and the read on whether someone will thrive in a particular room are human and stay human. Anyone claiming the second half is automated is selling something.
Why does twenty years matter in a search?
Because most of what makes a search fast is knowledge you cannot acquire during the search. Who is good, who is realistically movable, which companies are quietly losing people, what a given title actually means at a given company, and what a band really is rather than what a salary tool guessed. That is accumulated rather than researched, and it is the reason the first conversation about a role so often changes the brief.
What does KYO believe about hiring?
- 01Most stalled searches are definition problems rather than sourcing problems.
- 02You usually need less than the job description says, and finding that out saves budget.
- 03The best candidates for a senior role are employed and are not reading your posting.
- 04Speed of decision is the biggest advantage a smaller company has, and the one most often wasted.
- 05Telling a client something they do not want to hear early is cheaper for them than being agreeable for three months.
What is KYO not?
Not a staffing firm and not a contract shop. Not a volume business, and not an agency floor with a name on the door and juniors doing the work. There is no database of candidates being pushed at roles, and no engagement gets taken on that Kelly does not believe can be won at the brief and the budget on the table.
Start a search
Talent is your greatest advantage. Let's find yours.
Start with a conversation about the role rather than about a contract.
kelly.yosten@kyosearchpartners.comCommon Questions
Is KYO one person?
- Yes, deliberately. Every search is run personally, which is the point of engaging a boutique rather than a firm with a team of coordinators.
Where does KYO work geographically?
- Across the United States, remote, hybrid and onsite depending on the client.
What does KYO not take on?
- Contract and temporary work, volume hiring, roles outside digital, marketing and creative, and searches Kelly does not believe are winnable as briefed.
How do you decide whether to take an engagement?
- On whether the brief and the budget describe someone who exists and can be persuaded to move. If they do not, that gets said before anything is signed.