About Us
--------
Shadow Search works with organizations that take hiring seriously.
Sometimes that means a pivot point: a new function, a leadership gap, a team being rebuilt under pressure. Sometimes it means a critical role that opened up and needs to be filled with the same discipline and care regardless.
We specialize in senior search across communications, public affairs, marketing, advocacy and the leadership functions where all of them converge. In a market where AI can surface a candidate list in minutes, we do the thing the technology can't: we know the people, we read the room and we stay in the work with you until it's right.
Our approach is personal and discreet. One team, not a bait-and-switch. Real access to the people running the search. And enough attention to the details that you never have to manage us.
How you build a team shapes what you become. We take that part seriously.
Will Caggiano
Will Caggiano has spent 20 years inside the back channels of the talent market, and the most valuable thing he's built in that time isn't a database. It's judgment.
He works with CEOs, founders and senior leaders making high-stakes hiring decisions at moments of growth, change and organizational pressure. His depth sits at the intersection of communications, marketing, public affairs, advocacy and the organizations that live and die by their reputations. He doesn't just find the candidate. He helps clarify what the role actually requires, reads the human dynamics around it and stays in the room until the decision is right.
After 15 years leading practices at a global retained search firm, he founded Shadow to do this work the way he believed it should be done: personal, discreet and focused on what the client is becoming, not just what they need right now.
Will also convenes Shadow Salon, an invite-only series on leadership, trust, culture and the human side of work.
Patrick Eagan
Patrick “Patt” Eagan thinks like a strategist and works like someone who's actually had to build things.
He has spent his career growing and shaping organizations — as an operator from within, as an advisor and investor from outside and as a founder from the ground up. It's given him a complete picture of how organizations actually work and what they need to thrive, including the parts that don't show up on an org chart. He works with senior leaders at inflection points, helping them think clearly about what they're building, how they're building it and who's right to see it through. He's at his best coming in early, when the real questions are still forming.
Alongside his work at Shadow, Patrick co-founded and runs Common Wealth Crush Co., a winery incubator in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. He holds a BSBA from the University of Richmond and an MBA from UVA Darden.
Kim Miller
Kim Miller has worked in rooms where the pressure is commercial, the pace is relentless and the ability to read people fast is the whole game. She's done it in media, in politics, in tech and at agencies, including senior roles at Sports Illustrated, PEOPLE, Google and leading political firms.
At Shadow, she focuses on growth-oriented searches: revenue-facing talent, communications and media leadership and the candidates who have to operate across brand, business and stakeholder pressure simultaneously. She builds trust quickly in executive conversations, which matters more than most clients initially realize.
Rachel Caggiano
Rachel Kennedy Caggiano spent nearly 20 years inside agencies before joining Shadow, and most of that time was spent in two places: the room where the client is deciding whether to trust you, and the room where the team is deciding whether to stay.
That dual fluency, between organizational pressure and the people inside it, is what she brings to executive search. She advises founders, CEOs and senior leaders at organizations navigating growth, transformation and reputational complexity. She's particularly useful when the search touches culture, when the hire has to carry more than the job description, or when the organization is building something it hasn't fully named yet.
Before Shadow, she served as Group Managing Director and Office Head at Ogilvy DC, where she ran the office through record performance and built a culture people didn't want to leave.
She also conceives and produces Shadow Salon, the firm's invite-only series on leadership, trust, culture and the forces reshaping how organizations and the people inside them work.
Braden Wright
Braden Wright has spent 20 years building things at the intersection of media, technology and public affairs. Senior roles at The Washington Post, AOL, POLITICO, LinkedIn and Nextdoor gave him something most search professionals don't have: a firsthand understanding of how leadership actually functions inside organizations at scale, and what happens when it doesn't.
At Shadow, he brings network intelligence, market feel and a relational style built on long-term trust. He's especially effective in searches that require a nuanced read on how a candidate will actually operate inside a specific culture, not just on paper.