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NO. 472 | A JWC MEDIA PUBLICATION
SAFFRO FLAIR HIGHLAND PARK RESIDENT AND FORMER SELF-TAUGHT GYMNAST CHARLIE SAFFRO CONTINUES TO TAKE FLIGHT IN THE EXECUTIVE RECRUITING ARENA. BY BILL MCLEAN THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND
Ask any female gymnast, past or present: “What matters the most in a difficult balance beam routine?” “Easy,” she’d likely tell you. “Sticking your routine. It is the event that requires the most mental focus and a minor fumble can make or break your performance. It’s all about maintaining control and leveraging your flexibility with a balance of grace, strength, and power.” Charlie Saffro, 43, learned these lessons countless times as a self-taught gymnast growing up. Without any formal training prior to high school, Saffro relied on selfdiscipline and diligence to “connect the dots and figure it out” before awing spectators in the Deerfield High School gym where she competed as a varsity gymnast in the 1990s. Today? She’s still connecting, still taking on challenges, still impressing teammates—only now she’s doing it as the highly passionate President and Founder of CS Recruiting. Saffro started the company with an office in her current hometown of Highland Park and today, Saffro and her team of 35 employees continue to thrive in a virtual office environCS Recruiting Founder and President Charlie Saffro PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROBIN SUBAR ment. CS Recruiting, launched in 2011, is an work with manufacturers, retailers, trucking her future husband, Chad, a Highland Park Executive recruiting firm that specializes in companies, warehouse service providers, and High School graduate. “There are managers, the Supply Chain, Logistics, and Transtechnology platforms to help organizations and there are leaders. You can be good at portation industries. Saffro and her team identify the right person for their niche hir- one, not so good at the other. True leadering needs. ship, to me, is treating people as humans. It is the mission of CS Recruiting to It’s that simple. I respect my colleagues and make meaningful connections to empower want all of them to have a voice,” Saffro and inspire others to discover their full explains. potential. “Nothing means more to me than estab“I started the company on my own, but lishing a positive culture at CS Recruiting I never saw myself becoming a manager, so and growing together from there. Happy I spent the first several years working as an people are productive people, right?” employee at my own firm,” says Saffro, who Beth Herberholz has been happy—make majored in marketing at the University of that, ecstatic—since her Day One at CS Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she met Recruiting ten years ago. Herberholz rose
through the ranks serving in a variety of roles before being named Vice President of the firm in 2020. Herberholz joined the team as the company’s first employee, and as a fellow athlete, she appreciated the dichotomy of recruiting; where she could be a recognized independent contributor but also part of a growing team and something bigger. She quickly recognized the opportunity to progress her career by taking on more difficult tasks and building character through a myriad of business challenges that have shaped her into the executive she is today. All because of Charlie Saffro. “Charlie,” Herberholz says, “is a true connector. One of her best qualities and she has many admirable ones, is her willingness to give opportunities to others. And she fully understands her clients’ needs and cares about developing business relationships. But I’m having the ride of my life professionally because of how well Charlie connects with me and my colleagues. I’m looking at two cards on my desk, as we speak. She likes to regularly send them to all of us. Each has a motivational quote,” explains Herberholz. The daughter of entrepreneurs, Saffro got her first waitressing job at the age of ... 12. Twelve! An older cousin needed Saffro to help her out at a diner in Highwood one summer day. The grade-schooler put on an apron and poured coffee for policemen and firemen on her first day. “I got a minimal allowance as a kid, and I was okay with that,” says Saffro, who shares three sons (Madden, 14; Cameron, 12; and Jett, 10) with Chad, who now serves as an Executive Advisor to CS Recruiting. “I worked and studied and competed in gymnastics in high school. I will always be grateful for the way my parents raised me,” notes Saffro. “Their big thing to me was, ‘You’re welcome to buy things, as long as you work to pay for them.’” Continued on PG 8