Company Bio

At Starbridge Group Inc., we are committed to supporting our clients in building a team of people who have the knowledge, skills and attributes to make their business vision a reality. We accomplish this by consulting with our clients on staffing and compensation issues, and by successfully placing qualified candidates in targeted positions within their organization.

We work only in the consulting, training, education, and learning technology industries. Our clients are companies that either sell training, consulting and related services to other buseness or provide educational tools for school systems. We also help companies that are trying to hire in-house trainers or in-house consulting and training professionals.

Our corporate expertise is in collaborating with clients to build a hiring profile that is linked to the business needs behind the job. We identify and recruit candidates who have demonstrated the ability to do what our clients need them to do and we have helped our clients successfully hire into all levels of their organization from trainer to company president. This is the level of business understanding and the caliber of candidate our clients require.

As a team, the Starbridge Group has accumulated years of experience in the training, education and consulting industries. And we have worked professionally at every level for which we now recruit. Founded in 1988, we have established a reputation for creating success for our clients and achieving national recognition for our accomplishments in the recruiting field. Many members of our team have repeatedly been recognized as "Account Executive of the Year" by our industry trade associations, and all of our team members continue to rank as national performers.

Kathleen Kurke
Managing Partner

As National Practice Leader, Kathleen has remained a leader in the executive search industry for the last 17 years of her recruiting career. Kathleen was selected for membership in the Pinnacle Society in 1995, a recruiting industry honor society recognizing the top 60 executive recruiters worldwide, and serves on the Board of Directors of this prestigious society.

Kathleen has dedicated more than 25 years to the consulting and training industry and has worked professionally at almost every level for which StarbridgeGroup recruits. Kathleen is committed to staying abreast of the issues and trends of our focus industries (training, consulting, and learning technologies).

Her introduction to the training industry goes back to 1980, when she developed a set of training centers across the United States for a national non-profit organization.

"Effective hiring begins long before you make an offer to a candidate."

Kathleen is unique in Search Industry, in that she has a personal appreciation for the perspective of the training buyer as well as a firsthand understanding of the realities of the training "vendor". This understanding has grown out of her long experience as both a buyer and a seller of training related services.

Early in her career Kathleen bought a well-known sales training program and taught it to thousands of fund raising executives. Later, Kathleen learned the "vendor" side when she sold for The Forum Corporation and successfully opened new territories. She came to understand the senior management issues when she was Vice President of Sales for an educational software and training firm.

Before moving into recruiting, Kathleen built a successful business strategy and training practice which she later sold to her largest client. Over the years, she has worked as a buyer, training manager, sales manager, instructor, course developer, and consultant. Kathleen’s experience in her industry specialty go beyond those of most recruiters, and uniquely qualifies her to be a highly valued business resource to our current and future clients.