In 1992, Conrad co-founded Ethos and evolved it into a management consulting firm. The advisory services are specific to the “value stream” he identifies in the integrated processes of recruiting, on-boarding and retaining great talent, as well as coaching C-level executives seeking to make a career transition. He is the innovator behind the “Management by Expectations™” model which is at the core of all of the Ethos-based advisory services.

Prior to Ethos, Conrad was a Managing Partner with Heidrick & Struggles, a major global search firm. In addition to managing the San Francisco office and his personal search practice, he served on the Executive and Operating Committees. As Chairman of the Asia Task Force, he was responsible for opening and managing the Tokyo office as well.

The first four years of Conrad's search career were with Arthur Young Executive Resource Consultants, a subsidiary of Arthur Young, where he rose to Managing Director of the Bay Area and Pacific Northwest Practice. In the course of his career since 1982, he has been retained on more than 300 searches in more than a dozen industries. Earlier in his career, he was a strategic management consultant with Booz·Allen & Hamilton in San Francisco and an investment banker with the First Boston Corporation in New York.

Conrad has a Bachelor of Arts (magna cum laude) from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Business Administration from Stanford University. In addition, as a Rotary International Fellow he earned certificates from the University of Zurich and the Graduate School of Public Administration in St. Gallen, Switzerland. He speaks English, German and French.

Conrad has held the following professional memberships: Association for Corporate Growth (former Board Member of the San Francisco Chapter), International Association of Corporate and Professional Recruiters (former Board Member of the San Francisco Chapter), and the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. Conrad is featured in John Sibbald's New Career Makers, a guide to North America's top 250 executive recruiters.

Conrad is currently authoring a book entitled Expect Success. It will provide the roadmap for using the MBE model in a host of contexts.