The Rise And Fall Of A Corporate Headhunter

Few dot-com era headhunters labored more mightily to crack the Big Time than Jeffrey E. Christian. The tall, sharply dressed recruiter from Cleveland worked tirelessly to promote himself and his firm, Christian & Timbers. As he battled to beat out more established headhunters, Christian used a combination of doggedness, public-relations savvy, and salesmanship to sign up Silicon Valley's biggest players. He courted the national business media, often conducting phone interviews on a treadmill during marathon workouts. His name became a fixture on The Midas List, Forbes' ranking of best dealmakers. And in 1999 his position as one of the Valley's most celebrated headhunters seemed all but assured when he vanquished the acknowledged powerhouses of his industry to place Carleton S. "Carly" Fiorina at Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ ). Jeff Christian, it seemed, had finally arrived.

Then the boom ended. And Christian returned to his hometown of Cleveland. In the Valley, he was largely forgotten, just another gold-rush striver who briefly cashed in and then faded away. So the surprise was palpable in executive recruiting circles when word came that Christian had been charged with reckless homicide and involuntary manslaughter in the overdose death of another executive recruiter, 31-year-old Thomas J. Wasil. As if that were not enough, Christian, who was indicted in December, was also charged with corrupting a juvenile and inducing others to take drugs following the nonlethal overdose of a 17-year-old in his home a month after Wasil's death. And the Wasil family plans to file a lawsuit against Christian. "Holy sh-t," said one major headhunter when BusinessWeek contacted him. "I had no idea," said another. "I'm shocked."