A senior people partner in the room for the decisions that shape the company — hiring, restructuring, leadership transitions — without a full-time search first.
DHW Consulting partners with CEOs, founders, and private-equity leaders to turn people decisions into operating results — clearer organization design, stronger leaders, and HR technology that managers actually use.
People agenda tied directly to the business plan and board priorities.
Structure, spans, and change that hold under growth and restructuring.
Critical roles, succession, and manager capability where it matters most.
Practical HR technology and AI inside everyday workflows — adopted, not shelved.
Forecasting and labor-cost insight CFOs can plan with.
An organization redesign for a 900-person SaaS company • a succession and critical-role plan for a Media company • an HR technology selection for a Non-profit • a joint HR–Finance workforce forecast for an Advertising firm
Most people problems are business problems in disguise: a structure that no longer fits, a critical role left exposed, a manager without the tools to have the hard conversation. DHW starts there.
A senior people partner in the room for the decisions that shape the company — hiring, restructuring, leadership transitions — without a full-time search first.
Diligence-ready people insight, critical-role risk made visible, and a 100-day people plan that supports the investment thesis.
Extra senior capacity for the work that can't wait — transformation, HR tech selection, and analytics — alongside your team, not instead of it.
Revenue in 2025 — up from $1.1M in DHW's first year, 2019. Full revenue history in About.
Hires placed by Dennis and Martin over 30+ years as professional recruiters focused on HR.
Of those placements were HR executives — CHROs, VPs of People, and Directors of HR.
Consulting engagements completed since DHW was founded in 2019, for 89 client organizations.
“The work is not to add more HR. It is to make every people decision clearer, faster, and more consistent — so managers can lead and the business can move.”
DHW Consulting Philosophy
DHW Consulting is a boutique HR advisory firm founded by Dennis Howard, with Martin Dorf. Its five practices, methods, and client work are set out below.
Dennis Howard founded DHW Consulting with Martin Dorf. Dennis and Martin are former professional recruiters who have spent more than 30 years focusing on HR — placing, advising, and learning from the people leaders they spent their careers recruiting. That vantage point shapes how DHW works: three decades spent inside hiring decisions, across hundreds of companies, gives the firm a recruiter's feel for talent and an operator's respect for what makes people stay.
Dennis spent the first half of his career in executive search, leading senior HR and leadership appointments for growth-stage and investor-backed companies, before moving into retained advisory work for founders and chief executives. He founded DHW to put that recruiting-honed judgment to work earlier — at the moment the organization is designed and the critical roles are defined, not just when a search begins.
Martin Dorf
Co-Founder
Martin Dorf co-founded DHW with Dennis Howard. Martin's recruiting career ran alongside Dennis's for much of those 30-plus years — building HR teams from the first hire up, advising on succession and critical-role searches, and coaching new people leaders through their first year in the seat. At DHW he partners with Dennis on people strategy, organization design, and client leadership, bringing the same long view: he has watched the leaders he placed succeed, struggle, and grow, and that pattern recognition is the heart of the firm's advice.
Together, Dennis and Martin have focused on HR for more than three decades — long enough to have seen hiring booms, restructurings, and every management fashion in between. DHW is the firm they built to share that perspective: recruiters by training, advisors by choice, and still, at root, in the business of matching the right people to the moments that matter.
Every engagement begins with the outcome the business needs — a spin-off, a growth target, a cost position — then works back to the people implications.
Policies don't change behavior. Managers equipped with clarity, language, and simple tools do. We design for the manager's day, not the HR binder.
Workforce data, labor-cost analysis, and clear baselines — so trade-offs are visible and leaders can decide with confidence.
The engagement ends when your team can run it without us. Playbooks, decision frameworks, and coaching are part of every delivery.
Firm history: DHW was founded in 2019 by Dennis Howard, with Martin Dorf, growing from executive advisory into five practices and a team of 14 — the two founders plus 12 consultants and associates. The firm has completed 147 consulting engagements for 89 client organizations since 2019, building on the founders' recruiting careers: 2,850 hires placed for 512 client organizations over 30+ years.
Our scale: what we earn, how many people we have placed, and how long our work lasts — Dennis and Martin's 30+ years as professional recruiters focused on HR, and the consulting firm they built on top of it in 2019.
Revenue in 2025
Cumulative revenue, 2019–2025
Hires placed over 30+ recruiting years
Candidate interviews conducted across those careers
Client organizations served as recruiters
Consulting engagements since 2019, for 89 organizations
Of executive placements still in role or promoted at 24 months
Of consulting engagements from repeat clients or referrals
Annual revenue since DHW's founding in 2019 — the seven years sum to the $27.4M cumulative figure above.
The breakdown of the 2,850 career placements — every one of them in or around HR, the founders' lifelong focus. Levels sum to 2,850.
Also on record: placements made in 44 states, a team of 14 people today (2 founders, 12 consultants & associates), and a typical HR leadership search shortlist presented in 21 days.
A firm of 14: the two founders, a practice lead for each area of expertise, and the consultants who do the work alongside them — plus six further consultants and associates not pictured.
Founder · Executive People Strategy
Leads board and CEO advisory. Thirty-plus years recruiting HR leaders before founding DHW.
Co-Founder · Leadership & Talent
Leads critical-role, succession and coaching work, built on a career of HR team-building searches.
Practice Lead · Org Design & Transformation
Background: a former transformation director who has led three large-scale restructures.
Practice Lead · HR Technology & AI
Background: HR platform implementations and AI adoption programs across Tech and SaaS firms.
Practice Lead · People Analytics & Planning
Background: workforce planning run jointly with CFO offices; labor-cost modeling specialist.
Senior Consultant · Executive People Strategy
Background: people diligence for investor-backed transactions and 100-day planning.
Senior Consultant · Leadership & Talent
Background: executive assessment and manager coaching for first-line leaders.
Engagement Manager
Background: runs engagement delivery, diagnostics and the firm's client rhythm.
Companies redesigning structure, leadership and hiring as they grow.
Content and publishing organizations working through change, succession and new operating models.
Mission-driven organizations building people strategy and leadership succession on constrained budgets.
Agencies where talent is the product — critical roles, retention and manager capability.
Subscription software firms scaling headcount, spans and workforce plans with Finance.
Select a practice to see its services, methodology, deliverables and an engagement example — then try its interactive tool. Each practice shows something different, in the way that practice actually works.
Each practice example names the client sector — Tech, Media, Non-profit, Advertising or SaaS. The interactive tools use only the inputs you set.
Every card below names the client sector — Tech, Media, Non-profit, Advertising or SaaS — and shows how DHW diagnoses, sequences, and measures the work.
Senior decision-makers — CHROs, VPs of People, CFOs and CEOs — across Tech, Media, Non-profit, Advertising and SaaS.
“DHW gave us a people agenda the board could actually debate — priorities, owners, and the critical roles we couldn't afford to lose, on two pages.”
Karen Doyle · CEO — SaaS
“The first HR advisors who spoke in labor-cost terms our CFO trusted. The shared forecast ended a year of dueling spreadsheets.”
James Osei · CFO — Tech
“They redesigned our structure with the managers who had to run it — and stayed until the new routines held without them.”
Laura Bennett · VP People — Media
“As CHRO, I needed a partner who gets both mission and margin. DHW built succession cover for the leadership roles we cannot afford to lose — without adding cost we cannot carry.”
Alicia Grant · CHRO — Non-profit
“In an agency, talent is the product. DHW helped us protect our critical client and creative leaders, and gave our managers a practical way to hold on to them.”
Daniel Reeves · CHRO — Advertising
“Scaling headcount fast, we needed structure without bureaucracy. DHW sequenced the spans, hiring and manager routines so growth didn't break how the company works.”
Nadia Rahman · VP People — Tech
This dashboard shows what each practice measures and how the measures connect, across clients in Tech, Media, Non-profit, Advertising and SaaS. Toggle the metric to explore 12 months of composite data, plotted in full below.
Baseline = Month 1 • Composite data across the five practices, showing the measures each practice owns — Strategy sets the agenda, Org Design changes structure, Talent protects critical roles, HR Tech drives adoption, Analytics evidences the result
Rises from 62 to 81 (+19 points) as manager routines and clarity work take hold.
Allocation of attention by value lever — a planning view (sums to 100%)
Share of effort across the five DHW practices in a combined engagement
Move the sliders with your own assumptions. This is a discussion tool — not a guarantee — using a simple model: avoided replacement cost from a 3-point turnover reduction.
Based on ~14 fewer exits a year (a 3-point turnover reduction, from 16% to 13%) at 75% of salary ($71,250) in replacement cost per exit. The estimate is driven by headcount, salary, and the fixed 3-point reduction — your current turnover rate sets the starting point shown here. Excludes manager time, vacancy, and onboarding drag.
Discuss your numbers →Click each phase to see the work, the deliverables, and the decision it enables.
A defined question, a senior answer. Board prep, org decisions, critical-role risk, and people diligence — scoped in weeks.
A sequenced program with milestones and measures — org design, HR tech implementation, or performance redesign.
Senior HR leadership inside the business for a season of change — while you hire, restructure, or scale.
Reports, thinking, and firm news from the practice — 2026.
Reports and articles from the DHW team
Announcements from the firm
Thursday, December 3, 2026 · 12:00–1:00 PM CT · Online
Dennis Howard and Marcus Bell walk through the 2027 outlook: hiring conditions, labor-cost pressure, and the three workforce decisions to make before January.
Tell us the decision you're facing. We'll respond with honest first thinking — whether DHW is the right fit or not.
Email: consulting@dhwcs.com
Office: 214 W Institute Place, Chicago, IL
Hours: Mon–Fri, 9am–5pm CT