Jennifer Novack

Founding Partner

Prior to co-founding September Search Partners with Emily, and leading the global real assets practice together at Sheffield Haworth, Jennifer was a Managing Partner at Sousou Partners, where she built and led the Americas practice over the course of a decade. Jennifer began her career on the Foreign Exchange desk at Goldman Sachs, first in London, then New York. She graduated from Harvard with a degree in Economics and citation in Chinese, and speaks Spanish, German and Mandarin. Jennifer serves on the board of WX.

• What are three things you do (just about) every day?

  1. Walk my daughter to school

  2. Organize my day on yellow Post-Its 

  3. Tell my family I love them

• What are three things you wish you did every day?

  1. Walk to work

  2. Learn to cook something new

  3. Spend more time with friends and extended family

• Who do you go to for advice and why?

  Emily and family are my first stop.  I trust them and they have fantastic perspective.  I also enjoy finding wisdom everywhere – books, online, people I know well, and people I don’t.  There’s so much that’s shared in the human experience.

• What is most important to you about where you work?

  Hands down, the people. I love feeling happy and comfortable at work, and being part of a team that hopefully feels the same way. I appreciate the diversity of skills and perspectives we bring, while sharing values and knowing how to have fun. 

• What do you love about what you do?

  I love problem-solving and figuring out the puzzle of every search or candidate’s journey.
  

• What’s one book you often return to or recommend? Why?

  Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown.  A good friend in the industry gave it to me. I love the perspective it shares about phases of life, and ways to think about how we spend our time personally and professionally. 

• Where is your happy place?

  On or near water…whether watching the horizon over the ocean from the beach, or listening to tunes on the back of a sailboat.