Founder and Director
Valli founded ABA Personnel Services in 1986 with the goal of providing more effective and personalized staffing services. He realized that both accuracy and speed were essential to meeting his clients’ needs, so ABA became one of the first agencies to use personal computers in the sourcing, recruiting, and placing of candidates. Under Valli’s leadership, ABA quickly grew into a multi-branch agency employing thousands of temporary workers (as many as 1,400 hires per year) across multiple industries and achieved Inc. 500 as one of the fastest-growing companies in America. By 1992, ABA Personnel had become ABA Search & Staffing with an emphasis on search and placement. As president, Valli guided the agency into the more specialized areas of Innovative IT, Engineering, and Legal as the company continued to diversify. In 2020, ABA Search was recognized by Forbes to be one of America’s Best Recruiting Firms in both the Professional Search (#37) and Executive Search (#124) categories! ABA Search is one of only 69 top-performing firms in America awarded in both categories!
Born in Philadelphia, Valli attended prep school at Tabor Academy, a naval honor school on the coast of Massachusetts. He went on to earn a BA in communications from the University of New Hampshire, followed by his MBA from Suffolk University in Boston. His career in staffing started in 1982 when he joined Adia Personnel (now Adecco) as a sales professional in San Francisco. He was promoted to Branch Manager in 1984 and, in that role, Valli opened and managed a local Adia office, which he rapidly built into the 8th most profitable branch of more than 500 Adia offices nationwide.
Valli lives in Hillsborough, CA with his wife, Mandy (ABA’s President). With their two sons out of college and pursuing careers in other cities, they’d be empty nesters if not for their black Lab, Sargent Pepper, keeping them on their toes.
Favorite things to do in the Bay Area: Hiking in Purisima Creek Redwoods Park, gardening (Persian fruit trees and roses!), and snow skiing.
Favorite quote: “I go to a synagogue, church, and mosque, and I see the same spirit at the same altar.” – Rumi
President
Mandy helped found ABA in 1986 with Valli Farmaian. With her love of people and innate ability to nurture relationships, she knew the staffing industry was where she wanted to be, and she hasn’t looked back since. In her role as president, Mandy spearheads ABA’s Sales and Recruiting efforts, leading the ABA team in candidate searches and development of ABA’s Life Sciences, Technology, and Legal divisions. Her extensive network of Bay Area talent and employers as well as her years of expertise in recruiting and professional placement are the key drivers to ABA’s success – earning the company a spot on the Inc. 500 as one of the fastest growing companies in the US. She has successfully completed retained and contingency search for attorneys as well as technology executives.
Having established Legal as one of ABA’s core divisions, Mandy returned to ABA after three years working with the Eastridge Group. Under her guidance, these divisions provide staffing solutions to some of the Bay Area’s top technology companies as well as law firms and corporate legal departments.
Mandy earned her BA in political science and French literature from the University of California, Berkeley. After several years of city life in San Francisco, she moved with her family to Hillsborough, CA where she remains active in the community and is a board member of the San Mateo County Health Foundation.
Favorite things to do in the Bay Area: Hiking, movies, and farmers markets (and the occasional tennis game!).
Favorite quote: “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” – Winston Churchill
Partner - Accounting & Finance Practice
Shane joined ABA in 2020, as the Accounting & Finance Practice Leader. He is an accomplished executive with nearly 20 years of combined recruiting and business experience. His subject matter expertise spans several disciplines including talent management, accounting, finance, audit, tax, SEC financial & regulatory reporting, SOX/internal controls, treasury, compliance, risk and investing.
Shane started his career in public accounting at the Big 4 doing audit and tax before working at JPMorgan Chase as a Fund Administration Controller. He spent over a decade in the business world before transitioning into executive search and recruitment where he has helped place hundreds of accounting and finance professionals across all industries nationwide.
He is a two-time graduate of Capital University with a BA in Accounting and an MBA with a Finance concentration. He is also a certified public accountant (CPA) in the State of Ohio and a certified LinkedIn Professional Recruiter.
He gets fulfillment by helping others to find careers that they enjoy and feels very blessed to be able to provide for his family while doing what he truly loves. His wife is a nurse and they have 2 boys and 1 girl.
Favorite things to do in the Bay Area: Hiking, camping, attending football games, and visiting the local wineries.
Favorite quote: “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” – Mark Twain
Director, Executive Recruiter - Life Sciences and Legal
Josh joined ABA in 2019 as a legal recruiter after relocating to the Bay Area from the East Coast. He worked as a legal recruiter for close to a decade in New York City focusing on lateral placements at international law firms with a special focus on Asia markets and practices. He holds a B.A. in Communications from Fordham University. He enjoys the excitement and challenges of getting to know and understand the personality and long-term goals of his clients in order to help them find success and professional fulfillment.
In another lifetime Josh was a professional musician who toured throughout the country, wrote jingles for commercials and started an independent concert promotion company. He lives outside San Francisco with his wife and daughter.
Favorite Things to Do in the Bay Area: Camping, hiking, and exploring new restaurants
Director, Executive Search - Biometrics
Denise joined ABA in 2019, as a Director of Executive Search. She has been working as a Recruiter for the past 16 years, 10 of which have been supporting the Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical industries, specifically in the areas of biometrics and clinical trials. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Emmanuel College in Boston, MA. Denise takes pride in developing long-term relationships and is particularly excited about getting to know clients and candidates beyond the job description and the resume. She is passionate about connecting top talent with the right opportunity.
Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Denise played soccer throughout her youth and also in college. She's currently the Assistant Coach to her son's soccer team. Denise lives in Placer County where she enjoys family time with her husband, two boys, and their chocolate lab, Suzy. She spends her weekends on house projects, gardening, crafting, coaching her son’s soccer team, exploring, spending time with friends and family, and camping.
Favorite things to do in Placer County: Exploring all of the fun activities Placer County has to offer, lake days, and wine tasting
Favorite Quote: "Keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you." – Walt Whitman
Operations Manager
Sarah joined ABA in 2019, serving as the company’s Operations Manager. Over the past decade, Sarah has managed the small bookkeeping firm she started serving private and business clients in the San Francisco East Bay. Sarah brings extensive experience in operational process to ABA plus a steadfast commitment to advance ABA’s business goals and strategies.
Sarah began her career in the software industry, teaching courses at Golden Gate University in San Francisco and seminars throughout the state. She went on to co-author “The Advantage Series” for McGraw-Hill Higher Education, texts aimed at developing proficiency using Microsoft Office applications. The series enjoyed broad and sustained success in the marketplace.
A Northern California native, Sarah and her husband reside today in the East Bay city of Piedmont. Two of their children currently attend college and their youngest is in high school. Sarah earned her B.A. in Communications at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Favorite things to do in the Bay Area: Hiking with her two dogs in the Oakland Hills, gardening, mentoring young writers
Favorite Quote: “True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.” - C.S. Lewis
Talent Manager
Kathryn is the most recent member of ABA Search, joining the team in September 2022 as the Executive Assistant to the President, a role she played prior to ABA while providing teams with operational and data management aid. She has spent her professional career working across the agriculture, luxury travel, and hospitality industries and has gained a range of interpersonal, technical, and administrative skills along the way. With experience in finance, human resources, and digital marketing, Kathryn has a well-rounded understanding of the internal mechanics of a small business. She earned her B.A. in Film and Media Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. After spending ten years in Southern California, Kathryn currently lives in Northern California, far north of her native San Francisco Bay Area.
Favorite Things to Do: Surfing, camping, cooking with friends