our team

Noel Barnard, Founding Partner

Ms. Barnard is the Founding Partner of CXO Connections (CXO), a boutique retained executive search firm.  She launched CXO in Austin, Texas in 2008 to address specific talent needs across a variety of industries, and provide flexibility in talent acquisition, regardless of economic cycles. 

Noel started in search as a partner with Top Gun Ventures, a premier executive search firm where she was responsible for launching the firms’ first Austin office.  Before her career shifted into talent acquisition, Noel served as Chairman, CEO and President of HyPerformix, a leading predictive analytics software and services company.   During her tenure as CEO, she received numerous awards, including Computerworld’s Computer Laureate Award for innovation in technology, the Austin Business Journal’s “Rising Star” Award, and one of Deloitte’s Fastest Growing Private Companies.

Throughout her career, Ms. Barnard has led the growth of multiple new business ventures and recruited exceptional human talent across a wide range of industries in companies that include both venture-backed startups and the Fortune 500.  Previously, Noel served as Vice President, IBM Tivoli; Managing Principal & National Practice Leader, IBM Global Services; Senior Vice President, Business Development, Snyder Communications; and Senior Vice President, Sales, Marketing, and Operations, The Sabre Group, a division of AMR, parent to American Airlines. 

Chet Baker, Partner

Mr. Baker, a career placement and executive search professional, joined CXO Connections in September 2011. He brings to the firm more than 20 years in management placement disciplines, including executive recruiting, corporate recruiting, and candidate consulting and preparation.

For more than seven years, Chet was President of Level C Consulting, a boutique executive search firm focused on Software, Information Technology, and Telecommunication placements for senior managers and C-level executives.  Following his work with Level C, Chet served as internal recruiter for Vail Resorts, concentrating on corporate positions.

Mr. Baker is a member of the Professional Association of Resume Writers, the Colorado Career Development Association, and a graduate of the University of New Mexico.

Lisa Hunt, Senior Talent Strategy & Acquisition Partner

Lisa re-joined CXO Connections (CXO) in January 2020 and brings to the firm over 25 years of corporate and executive search expertise; her prior tenure with CXO was from 2015 to 2017.

Prior to CXO, Lisa spent over 20 years in senior leadership recruiting for Accenture, a global leader in management consulting, technology, and outsourcing services.  During this time, Lisa led numerous leadership talent and recruiting initiatives across a broad range of industry verticals and corporate functions; her last 5 years of which was dedicated to the Financial Services Industry sector, where she led Accenture’s Global Financial Services Leadership Talent Acquisition.

Lisa’s experience helping clients spans across all facets of talent acquisition, including talent strategy development, talent mapping, and talent delivery at the executive levels, where she successfully and continuously delivered exceptional and diverse talent for key executives and stakeholders across the Accenture organization.  Prior to Accenture, Lisa spent 10 years with a boutique retained search firm in New York, again specializing in Financial Services.

Lisa graduated from Villanova University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Marketing. She and her husband, Richard, reside in metro Phoenix, Arizona. In her free time, Lisa enjoys volunteering at a local Wildlife Conservation Center, cooking, baking and spending time with family and friends at their retreat in Arizona’s High Country.

Tom Ayers, Managing Partner

Tom joins CXO Connections after a long career as an operating executive in the global IT industry. He has been a sought-after advisor to CEOs, Boards, and Private Equity firms. These diverse engagements covered multiple market segments and executive business functions, including a strong focus on improving talent acquisition and helping to rebuild multiple sales, marketing, business development and executive teams.

From 2008 to 2017 Tom served as President and CEO for three high-growth companies, including Tropos Networks, ABB Wireless Communication Systems, and N-Dimension Solutions.  From 1999 to 2007, Tom was the Chief Revenue Officer of two public software companies, McAfee Security and Blue Coat Systems where he helped deliver dramatic business results through disruptive market transitions, gaining thousands of new customers, taking company brands to number #1 in global market share, and reaching new highs in profitability.

Tom graduated with a BBA Degree from the University of Texas at Austin. He also serves on the advisory boards of several professional services and technology firms located in the U.S.

Sandy Della Ripa, Research & Operations Partner

Sandy Della Ripa joined CXO Connections in 2016 as Research & Operations Partner; since then, she has supported numerous search projects across a wide range of industry sectors, from the Fortune 500 to venture-backed startups. 

Sandy came to CXO Connections after 28 years of experience with a Fortune 500 P&C Insurance firm, where, among other assignments, she managed talent in the investigation and legal divisions. After leaving the corporate world, she spent three years with a Denver nonprofit conducting research and writing grants.

A Colorado native, Sandy recently relocated to the town of Loveland, Colorado, where life is simply good.

Mike McCarthy, Talent Acquisition Partner

Mike joined CXO Connections in January 2021 after a 30+ year career as an IT executive.  Before joining CXO, Mike was SVP of Portfolio Strategy, Product Management, and Operations with Unit4, a Netherlands-based SaaS ERP provider.  Prior to Unit4, Mike was Vice President of Product Management at Blackbaud, which provides SaaS solutions for the non-profit industry.  

The central themes of Mike’s career have been diversity and business transformation, where he has held a variety of roles in marketing, business strategy, operations, product management and engineering across a wide range of industry verticals, including healthcare, retail, non-profit, higher education, and professional services/consulting.  

The majority of Mike’s career was in leadership roles with IBM, the last being Vice President of Strategy for Cloud Services.  Mike’s particular focus over the last 10-15 years has been on market analysis, core business evaluation, cloud computing, cloud transformation, portfolio strategy, and product management operations.  Across all walks of his professional life, Mike consistently and successfully led initiatives to transform underperforming businesses.

Mike graduated from Michigan State University with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and from Duke University with a Masters in Business Administration.  Mike and his wife Jeanne have 5 adult children and live in Austin, TX.  In his free time, Mike enjoys boating, golfing, and volunteering with Mobile Loaves & Fishes and a variety of other local non-profits.