Building with Purpose: Jeremy Sanchez on Growth, Grit, and Why Chicago Matters

At its core, Merraine Group is about people, builders, operators, and leaders driven to create meaningful impact. Few embody that spirit more than Jeremy Sanchez.

Now serving as Head of Growth at Merraine Group, Jeremy brings nearly 15 years of experience across executive recruitment, leadership hiring, talent strategy, and business development. But titles only tell part of the story. What defines Jeremy most is the way he approaches the work: with intensity, heart, and a deep belief that the right people change everything.

As he puts it, “I’ve been in the people and recruiting business for 15 years, across industries, across functions… just always been a builder in the people business.”

That builder mentality has shaped every chapter of his career—from agency recruiting to in-house executive search, from scaling high-growth teams to launching his own firm, CultureHub Insights. Today, that same mindset is helping drive Merraine’s expansion into Chicago and new markets nationwide.

Jeremy’s philosophy is simple and consistent: people are not a support function to the business, they are the business.

That belief has guided a career spanning agency and in-house recruiting, Fortune 500 problem-solving, startup scaling, and executive partnership. Over the years, he has built a reputation as a connector, operator, and trusted talent partner who understands that hiring is never just about filling a role. It is about shaping trajectory.

For Jeremy, the stakes are clear. In today’s environment—defined by AI disruption, leaner teams, and rising performance expectations—the cost of a bad hire is higher than ever. The right hire, on the other hand, becomes a multiplier.

That perspective is a major part of what he now brings to Merraine: an operator-first, founder-first lens on talent, growth, and long-term partnership.

Like many entrepreneurs, Jeremy spent years building experience before deciding to bet on himself.

He began his recruiting career at a Fortune 500 services firm, specializing in the Financial Services sector. While there, he led three service verticals (Direct-Hire Search, Temporary Staffing, and project-based consulting) and managed multiple team members, eventually driving his branch to a #3 global ranking out of 325 offices across 30 countries. Later, he joined the West Coast firm Beacon Resources to help position the company for acquisition and lead the opening of their Chicago office. There, he supported a diverse client base, from startups to major enterprises, by scoping project-based engagements and facilitating critical hires across Finance, HR, Operations, IT, and Executive leadership.

The turning point came with one simple question: “What’s the worst that can happen? That kind of really stuck with me… I just wasn’t giving myself enough credit.”

That mindset pushed him to launch CultureHub Insights, his own firm built around tailored talent solutions, founder partnership, and strategic growth support. It was a leap rooted in self-belief and preparation. By then, Jeremy had spent years in the trenches learning how organizations scale, where talent breaks down, and what it really takes to build high-performing teams.

The entrepreneurial chapter also sharpened a mindset he still carries today—resilience, humility, and a willingness to embrace the hard parts of growth.

“Every day is going to be shoveling shit… it just prepared me to have a growth mindset and embrace everything.”

That line is more than a quote. It reflects how Jeremy sees the work: growth is rarely glamorous, but the builders who succeed are the ones willing to stay in it, adapt, and keep moving.

After two years of building CultureHub Insights, Jeremy arrived at another defining moment, one that ultimately brought him to Merraine Group.

The opportunity emerged through his connection with Kass and Mike Lazerow, whose entrepreneurial story and operator mindset made a lasting impression on him. Their vision for growth, combined with Merraine’s strong foundation and leadership, created a rare kind of alignment.

“When you get offered a seat on the rocket ship, don’t ask what seat, just hop on.”

For Jeremy, joining Merraine was not about stepping away from what he built. It was about scaling it. With CultureHub Insights officially joining Merraine Group, the move represented a strategic combination of agility and infrastructure: founder-led precision paired with the reach, reputation, and track record of an established search firm.

As Jeremy describes it, Merraine offered both momentum and mission. A 25-year legacy. A nationally recognized reputation. A deep belief in partnership over transactions. And leadership that understands what it means to build.

“It was a lifetime opportunity… I have the utmost respect for Kass and Mike and everything they’ve built.”

Jeremy joins Merraine at a transformational moment.

As Head of Growth, he is helping spearhead the firm’s expansion into new markets, beginning in Chicago and extending nationwide. His focus centers on connecting elite founders, investors, and builders with the tailored talent and growth strategies they need to solve their biggest challenges.

That work is backed by a powerful platform. Merraine has been recognized as a Top 10 Search Firm by Modern Healthcare, and the firm brings a 97.3% retention rate across more than 1,700 clients. For Jeremy, those numbers matter because they reinforce the same principle he has always believed in: hiring is not transactional. Done right, it is transformational.

He sees Merraine as differentiated not only by outcomes but by mindset.

The firm’s work spans executive search, retained search, contingent hiring, and broader talent solutions across healthcare, nonprofit, digital health, and growth sectors. Now, with added momentum behind Chicago expansion and broader national growth, Jeremy is helping extend that same standard into the worlds of tech, VC, PE, startups, and founder-led businesses.

For Jeremy, this next chapter is also deeply personal.

A proud Chicagoan and first-generation Filipino American, he brings both identity and hometown pride into the work. Chicago is not just where he lives; it is central to how he sees community, grit, and opportunity.

“Chicago is home… I want to shine a light on Chicago and what we’re building.”

That sense of place comes through clearly in the way he talks about the city. Jeremy believes Chicago is one of the best places in the world to build, especially because of the people. The city’s founders, operators, investors, and emerging leaders have the talent and toughness to compete at the highest level, even if they do not always get the same spotlight as coastal markets.

“There’s a lot of great things in our tech startups and our ecosystem here that I want to help with.”

That belief is helping shape Merraine’s presence in the market. Under Jeremy’s leadership, the expansion is not just about business development. It is about building real community: curating events, bringing together founders and operators, and creating rooms where meaningful conversations can happen without fluff.

His message is clear: Chicago deserves attention, investment, and world-class talent support, and Merraine intends to be part of that story.

Jeremy’s approach to recruiting is rooted in partnership, not transactions.

He is not interested in a one-size-fits-all playbook because he knows no two companies scale the same way.

“Every company has different teams, different people, different problems… you really need an organization that can customize your talent solutions.”

That adaptability is backed by a broad range of experience. Over the course of his career, Jeremy has worked across direct hire, retained search, project consulting, contract staffing, executive recruitment, and strategic talent advisory. He has supported companies ranging from startups to Fortune 20 enterprises, always with an eye toward fit, impact, and long-term value.

But more than anything, Jeremy leads with generosity and execution.

“My way I operate is… give, give, give, give some more without an invoice.”

That mindset shows up repeatedly in his work and in the relationships he builds. He often talks about being a “secret weapon” for the partners he supports, someone who shows up, creates value, and helps solve the hard things. In his view, real recruiting is not reactive. It is proactive, strategic, and deeply human.

Jeremy’s path to Merraine has been shaped by real operating experience in high-growth environments.

Before launching CultureHub Insights and stepping into his role at Merraine, he played a major role in scaling teams at project44, one of the most prominent names in supply chain visibility software. There, he led executive and leadership hiring across multiple departments, supported high-impact transitions, and helped shape talent strategy inside a founder-led, growth-equity-backed company.

His earlier experience also includes helping expand a new Chicago office at Beacon Resources, where he supported businesses ranging from startups to major enterprises with finance, HR, operations, IT, and executive talent needs.

That range matters. Jeremy understands both the speed of startups and the complexity of larger systems. He has seen the “war for talent” from multiple sides, and that gives him a practical, informed perspective on what companies need now, especially in an era where the old recruiting playbooks no longer work.

As Jeremy steps into this new chapter, he is not simply continuing his career; he is helping build the future of Merraine’s growth platform.

He is doing that through new market expansion, founder and operator relationships, strategic events, and a broader push to help companies solve talent and growth challenges with more precision and more partnership.

He is also doing it with a clear sense of mission.

“Winners gravitate towards each other… and I just know that we can be a great value to all the Chicago startups and founders in their next phase of growth.”

That line captures what makes Jeremy such a natural fit for this moment. He believes in momentum. He believes in builders. And he believes that when the right people come together, growth follows.

At the heart of it all is the philosophy that continues to guide his work:

“Do good, be good… we truly want to help good people build even better things.”

That is not just Jeremy’s mindset. It is the kind of energy he brings into every partnership, every conversation, and every chapter ahead.