A Boutique Executive Search Firm for Agencies
F&C Executive Search specializes in executive search for advertising and marketing agencies and creative and marketing organizations. We partner with agency leaders when the stakes are high and the outcome matters long after the hire is made.
“When leadership changes, an organization’s trajectory changes with it.”
Executive Search Is a Turning Point
Leadership Decisions Shape Everything That Follows
Leadership choices influence culture, clarity, momentum, and long-term direction. At the executive level, hiring is not a transaction, but a decision that sets the course for what follows.
The Right Leader Changes What’s Possible
We believe the right leader does more than fill a role. They steady an organization, sharpen decision-making, and create the conditions that drive meaningful change.
“Leadership is the leverage point that separates organizations destined for incremental change from those that redefine their markets. ”
A Founder-Led, High-Touch Firm
F&C was built to operate differently from large, volume-driven search firms. We engage directly at the senior-most level and focus on leadership decisions with long-term impact.
Judgment, Discretion, and Direct Involvement
Each engagement includes founder involvement and a team-based approach grounded in research, pattern recognition, and judgment. At the executive level, confidentiality and trust are not procedural considerations, but essential conditions for doing the work well.
Anchored in Experience
F&C was founded in 2010 by Jill Detwiler, whose career has been shaped by decades of immersion in the agency world. That experience allows her to advise agency leaders with clarity and perspective when decisions shape everything that comes next.
A Legacy That Shapes How We Search
Jill grew up inside the world of agencies and executive search. The daughter of Jack Fristoe, founder of Fristoe & Carleton, she developed an early understanding of how leadership shapes organizations. After beginning her career in account management, she joined the firm her father built and went on to establish F&C as a boutique executive search firm focused on agencies and creative organizations.
The firm’s foundation traces back to 1987, when Jack Fristoe took over Timbers & Fristoe following an early career in advertising at Leo Burnett. With the addition of Robert Carleton in 1993, Fristoe & Carleton became a respected national executive search firm serving the advertising industry.
That legacy continues to inform how F&C works today: a belief in high standards, thoughtful matches, and the long-term impact of leadership decisions. F&C carries that forward with a focused commitment to executive search for agencies, where each placement shapes what comes next.
Built for Long-Term Partnership
Designed for the Long View
F&C is structured to support agency leadership today and as the industry evolves. We partner with leaders who value judgment and clarity and understand that leadership decisions influence culture, direction, and long-term outcomes.
Our relationships, our established network and pipeline of executive talent, and our unique perspective on what it takes to build the future state of an agency set us apart.
Our niche focus on executive search for advertising and marketing agencies gives us deep insight into this specific hiring environment and the leaders who thrive in it.