Stephen was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas and upon graduation from the University of Texas at Austin with BA and BS degrees in Economics and Molecular Biology, Stephen attended Tulane University's AB Freeman School of Business to pursue his MBA. After Tulane, Stephen joined Austin McGregor as an Associate working directly for the Chairman and Founder, Chip McCreary. Under Chip's tutelage, Stephen completed numerous executive search assignments for clients in the Consumer Products, Manufacturing, Industrial, High Technology, and Healthcare fields.

After a two year hiatus from the firm where Stephen was a Partner with a national executive search firm, Stephen rejoined Austin McGregor in the late 90s as a Managing Partner and has since executed searches at the Vice President, President/GM/COO/CEO through Board of Directors/Advisors levels for clients throughout the US. Over the past 15+ years, Stephen has completed 100s of search assignments, completing his searches at a 99.5%+ success rate. Although his focus has been in the Technology sector over the past few years, Stephen has worked within every major vertical and sector during his career in the retained executive search industry. He has worked with public companies, mid-caps, and venture capital and private equity backed early and growth stage companies. He has worked with the portfolio companies of top venture capital and private equity firms located in all markets across the US; some of the investors he has worked with include: NEA, IVP, Morgenthaler, Mobius, Mayfield, Constellation Ventures, Alta Partners, Frontier Capital, JP Morgan Partners, Bessemer, Inflection Point Ventures, Oak Hill Venture Partners, Baker Capital, Sigma Partners, Charles River Ventures, USVP, Palomar Ventures, Accel Partners, JMI, Austin Ventures, Nokia Venture Partners, Oak Investment Partners, Sevin Rosen, Adams Capital Management, Ascent Venture Partners, Egan Managed Capital, JK&B Capital, Selby Venture Partners, DFW Capital Partners, SSM Partners, Noro-Mosely, Centerpoint Ventures, Leapfrog Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Doll Capital Management, Trinity Ventures, Alloy Ventures, and TL Ventures/Safeguard Scientifics.

In 2002, Stephen acquired the firm from the Founder at which time he retired and remains today our Chairman Emeritus. Stephen is married with 3 daughters and splits his time between Dallas and Palo Alto.