PHILADELPHIA, PA — True is expanding into investigative executive due diligence with a new service aimed at helping investors and boards identify leadership risks before acquisitions, partnerships and other decisions where management performance can affect the value of a transaction.
The Philadelphia-based executive talent firm launched True Forensic Referencing and appointed Christopher Jaros as a partner to build and lead the business, according to the company.
The service expands True’s executive intelligence operations beyond executive search, assessment and leadership advisory work. It is designed to provide investors, boards and management teams with additional information about executives before investment and governance decisions.
True Forensic Referencing uses confidential interviews with sources spanning an executive’s career to identify recurring patterns in areas including decision-making, team building and performance under pressure.
The approach is intended to go beyond conventional employment references by examining how an executive has operated across multiple organizations and circumstances.
The expansion targets a risk particularly relevant to private-equity investors and corporate buyers: discovering leadership problems after a transaction has closed.
“Post-close leadership surprises are one of the most consistent and most preventable sources of value erosion in private equity and high-stakes corporate decisions,” Sam McGrath, global general manager of True Search, said.
McGrath said investors often subject businesses to extensive due diligence while conducting less intensive examination of the executives responsible for running them.
Jaros joins True after serving as a partner at a boutique global investigations firm in New York, where he helped lead its business intelligence practice. He has nearly two decades of experience spanning investigative due diligence, law and executive intelligence.
Before entering the investigations field, Jaros practiced law for more than a decade, including as a partner at a global law firm. His work included complex civil and criminal matters and federal regulatory investigations.
Chambers & Partners has ranked Jaros as a practitioner in crisis and risk management for global investigative due diligence, according to True.
“Growing the Forensic Referencing offering will allow True to extend its impact to a different phase of executive evaluation, before key investment and partnership decisions are made,” Jaros said.
The new operation also gives True another way to use its existing relationships with executives and clients alongside its technology platform, extending the firm’s role earlier into the investment and corporate decision-making process.
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