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UMass Amherst Foundation
Lindauer was thrilled to welcome Adele Mezher and the rest of the Pearl Street team to the Lindauer family in 2025.
Adele brings to her clients and candidates over three decades of experience in the executive search industry and a track record of successfully completing hundreds of searches across industries, sectors, missions, and functions. She manages a full portfolio of executive search and talent strategy engagements and has introduced new, market‑responsive service offerings and partnership models that keep clients closely supported through search, transition, and culture change. Her clients span global university systems and independent schools to academic medical centers, research institutions, foundations and grantmaking organizations, federated organizations, and nonprofits at pivotal inflection points.
As Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Pearl Street, Adele leads Pearl Street’s search enterprise, scaling a boutique platform to deliver outsized performance. Now as Senior Vice President and Managing Director with Lindauer, she ensures clients benefit from the combined research capabilities, talent networks, and executive search services that Lindauer and Pearl Street bring to the nonprofit sector.
The first half of Adele’s career was spent implementing strategies for media relations, new market entry, and practice expansion as head of Marketing for multiple Top 10 for-profit search firms and an international search and M&A advisory firm. She also carried a portfolio of CEO and VP-level searches for Fortune 500 and venture/private-equity backed technology and manufacturing clients. Responding to her own mission drive, she found herself transitioning to the nonprofit sector, where she has spent the last 15-plus years building an expertise in CEO and advancement and development searches.
Adele’s hallmark is a hands-on model. She personally recruits on her client engagements so that she can directly take their opportunity to market and guide conversations with candidates who value her career counsel. A student of human behavior, she directs the search process with highly developed instincts, emotional intelligence, and expert pacing. Her sincere interest in people means that she engages with openness and a natural warmth that builds confidence among hiring teams and talent alike.
Her interest in advancing mission driven work was borne of her own family’s search for a better life. As a child, they fled civil war in the Middle East to settle north of Boston, in a vibrant community known for its culturally diverse population as well as its poverty rate and the barriers to success that creates. Those life experiences created within her a drive to advocate for access to opportunity. Of the 100 searches that she completed in the last five years, more than 40% of her placements represented leaders who were underrecognized in their prior roles.
In addition to advancing access through her daily work, she finds significant opportunity in her volunteer roles as an academic mentor with SquashBusters Lawrence and advisory board member to Aaron’s Presents. The proud daughter of schoolteachers, Adele is an Instructor for Boston University’s Certificate in Fundraising Program. Occasionally you’ll see her pinch-hitting as a substitute teacher at her high school alma mater, the Greater Lawrence Technical School, where the teenagers give her the education. She is a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, BoardSource, SHRM, and Women in Development-Boston, and both a member and mentor of Women of Color in Fundraising & Philanthropy.
A lifelong learner, Adele is often refreshing her language skills or taking a course to satisfy her interests in human resources, sociology, and psychology. During off hours, she can be found literally running after her four-time marathoner husband and picking up shiny trinkets that her beloved rescue cats Vincent and Mia have pushed off tabletops.
Lindauer was thrilled to welcome Maeve Clifford and the rest of the Pearl Street team to the Lindauer family in 2025.
Maeve Clifford is a nationally recognized executive search leader. With more than 20 years of blended nonprofit and executive search experience, Maeve is known for uniting rigorous, data-informed practices with a deeply human approach to leadership search and advisory work.
Throughout her career, Maeve has led and advised on executive and C-suite searches, partnering with boards and hiring committees through moments of transition and opportunity. She brings a rare combination of search practitioner, strategist, and advisor—equally comfortable shaping strategy, managing client relationships, and diving into the details of research and assessment. Known for her judgment, steadiness, and curiosity, Maeve approaches each engagement with both rigor and empathy, helping organizations make leadership decisions that last.
As Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Pearl Street, Maeve oversees strategy, marketing, research, and learning & development, aligning the firm’s practices and presence with its values and commitment to excellence in search. Now as Senior Vice President and Managing Director with Lindauer, she ensures clients benefit from the combined research capabilities, talent networks, and executive search services that Lindauer and Pearl Street bring to the nonprofit sector.
Under Maeve’s leadership, Pearl Street has earned recognition for transparency, inclusion, and measurable results. She has also advanced business intelligence and data analytics initiatives that strengthen client outcomes and accelerat candidate pool development.
Maeve began her career in the nonprofit sector—holding roles at Harvard University, a charter school network, and community-based organizations—where she gained firsthand insight into the leadership qualities that drive mission success. She later played a key role in launching two national executive search firms, where she established and led the research functions, developing the methodologies, tools, and teams that elevated firmwide practices and advanced the discipline of search.
Maeve is active in professional networks that convene leaders across philanthropy, education, and the nonprofit community. A Boston native, she lives with her husband and son outside San Diego. Maeve holds a bachelor’s degree in American History from Wellesley College.
Lindauer was thrilled to welcome Emily Horsford and the rest of the Pearl Street team to the Lindauer family in 2025.
With a 20-year career spanning executive search and philanthropy, Emily is deeply attuned to the needs of mission-driven leaders, and she brings an ability to guide clients and candidates with insight, empathy, and care.
As Senior Associate with Pearl Street, Emily is an invaluable asset in supporting the firm’s commitment to connecting people with their purpose. Now as a Senior Associate for Lindauer, she ensures clients benefit from the combined research capabilities, talent networks, and executive search services that Lindauer and Pearl Street bring to the nonprofit sector.
Prior to joining Lindauer and Pearl Street, Emily served as an Executive Recruiter with Isaacson, Miller’s Advancement practice, where she led search and research strategies and identified top talent for an array of mission-driven organizations, including leading colleges and universities, academic medical centers, research institutes, and an array of nonprofits.
Before transitioning into executive search, Emily built a decade-long career in development, beginning in donor stewardship and annual giving before advancing to major and principal gifts for several prominent Boston-area institutions. She has played a key role in securing transformational funding and engaging influential volunteer leaders in support of mission-driven initiatives.
Leveraging her expertise in relationship management and a passion for advancing holistic health, Emily also founded and led a workplace wellness consultancy, where she partnered with corporate clients to create supportive and transformative employee programs.
Emily holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Union College and is a certified Kripalu Yoga Instructor. She is a native of Western Massachusetts and currently resides in the Boston area with her family.
