Celebrating 5 Years

September 30, 2025

From the Desk of Hillary Mager

This September marks five years since I launched Sterling Strand — in the middle of COVID, four months after having my second baby, armed with just a laptop, a LinkedIn Recruiter account, and an idea: that executive search could be done differently.

What began as a solo effort has grown into a 20-person global team with nearly 200 searches completed and a 98.6% success rate. Along the way, we’ve weathered market highs and lows and proven that a data-driven, collaborative model works.

This year, we’ve been fortunate to welcome exceptional new teammates who bring incredible experience and fresh energy:

Sandya Swamy (McKinsey, Walmart, Meta; Chicago Booth)
Stephen Johnson (Riviera Partners, Google, Build Talent)
Zane Hwang (True Search; Vanderbilt University)
Eric Guajardo (RevelOne, Heidrick & Struggles; Harvard University)

To everyone who has believed in us, partnered with us, and championed our work — thank you. We couldn’t have done it without you. Here’s to the next five years.

Hillary Mager

Allara hires a Chief Commercial Officer

Excited to share that Nita Sommers has joined Allara as Chief Commercial Officer. Sterling Strand had the privilege of partnering with Founder & CEO Rachel Blank on this important search.

Nita has built her career across some of the most impactful healthtech companies including athenahealth, Castlight Health through IPO, Honor, Carbon Health and most recently Story Health. She brings a track record of scaling businesses and we are eager to see the momentum she will drive as Allara continues its mission to transform healthcare for women.