About Us

chris@accelerated-search.com 

513-883-2631

Accelerated Search Partners was founded by a degreed accountant in Chris Castanias.  After spending the first few years of his career working in general accounting roles for a large healthcare organization and a Fortune 500 manufacturing company, Chris changed professions and became an executive recruiter with a focus on the recruitment of accounting & finance professionals.

Throughout his 25-year recruiting career, Chris, who's been consistently recognized by The Cincinnati Business Courier as one of Cincinnati's top executive recruiters has held leadership recruiting roles both on the corporate side, and with contingent third-party recruiting firms.

While as Director of Recruiting at a Big 4 CPA firm, he designed their first in-house “experienced hire” recruiting program.

In addition, he's been a regular guest speaker at both The University of Cincinnati and Wright State University, where he talks about topics such as “careers in accounting”, and “interviewing techniques".

pam.plunkett@accelerated-search.com

513-236-2048

Pam brings an abundance of experience to Accelerated Search Partners. She spent several years as an award-winning recruiter with a nationally recognized recruiting firm before pivoting into executive level roles in manufacturing and then eventually into education.  

After her transition from recruiting Pam spent 10 years in food manufacturing as VP of Contract Manufacturing where she worked with leading specialty food companies on new product development and new product launches. In that role she interacted with employees from Production, Quality Assurance, Research and Development, Sanitation and more, which allowed her to gain insight as to the skill sets and education that each of these roles required in addition to the importance of each of those positions. 

She left the manufacturing world after the sale of the company she was working for & spent the next 15 years as an educator before returning to her original professional roots as a Recruiting Manager with Accelerated Search Partners.

Since joining Accelerated Search Partners Pam’s primary focus has been the food and beverage industry. Her combination of prior recruiting experience coupled with her corporate food manufacturing experience has led to Pam having great success in matching the best qualified individuals with the right clients. 

stacey.ward@accelerated-search.com

614-271-2110

Stacey Ward has over 20 years of experience in consumer-packaged goods, pharmaceutical and insurance recruiting.   She's successfully filled searches ranging from marketing/sales/research & development/finance/IT/supply chain and actuaries at varying levels from individual contributor to senior director. 

After graduating from The Ohio State University, she started her career in insurance where she cut her recruiting teeth.  She eventually took on recruiting leadership roles with global leaders in the pharmaceutical, consumer packaged goods and food manufacturing  industries which gave her an opportunity to work on more strategic roles.  Stacey has also led college intern programs and partnered with large diversity organizations (NBMBA, NSHBA, NABA & NSBE) to recruit top talent into organizations.

She has a passion for partnering with companies to learn their business, and gain thorough knowledge of each role she works on to represent it to her talent pools.  

When she is not working, Stacey enjoys time with her husband, two teenage daughters and dachshund/jack russell mix named Oscar.   When she is not cheering on her daughter in the HS band or traveling to national volleyball games with her young daughter, she is either watching sports or doing yard work with her husband.  She loves cheering on her beloved Ohio State Buckeyes & Cincinnati Bengals.  

brian.tooley@accelerated-search.com

513-768-2831

Brian is a senior finance leader with over 30 years of experience in various corporate finance positions with both Fortune 50 and small company start-ups. With his extensive corporate finance experience Brian has a complete understanding of the details of accounting and finance positions & the ability to identify candidates with the necessary experience to fill them.

Brian’s experience includes has over.  Brian spent over 21 years as a Finance Manager with a Fortune 50 consumer goods company.  He’s also held roles as CFO for 2 companies in the Food & Beverage Industry, as a Manager in the Financial Transformation Advisory Practice of a Big 4 CPA firm. Throughout his career, Brian gained experience in leading cross-functional teams through change management, financial systems implementations, and continuous improvement efforts.
In his most recent roles, Brian led the company’s organization and systems through sales growth from $3MM to $20MM in 3 years, while also beating profit goals by a 150 index in all 3 years. His 20+ years in consumer goods included managing forecasting and financial management for plants, global product supply, marketing operations, and general office (IT and Accounting operations), Product Supply and FI/CO SAP implementations, and technical and business process stewardship for SG&A and Marketing budgets and reporting, Cost Accounting, and Accounts Payable. 

In addition to his corporate finance roles Brian is also an entrepreneur who has owned a home improvement franchise. 

stephanie.baldwin@accelerated-search.com

513-349-1634

After starting her career as a recruiter with an emphasis on recruiting travel nurses and allied professionals, Stephanie transitioned to corporate where she assisted C Suite executives with training and development.

Upon returning to the recruiting world, Stephanie has focused on sourcing exceptional candidates primarily within the food and beverage manufacturing industry.

In her spare time, Stephanie enjoys spending time with her family (particularly her new grand-daughter), & exploring the great outdoors.