About
Why Virago Search Exists
Hiring decisions are carrying more weight than they used to.
What once felt like a straightforward evaluation now
touches systems, risk, timing, and long-term direction.
And the responsibility for getting it right still sits with leadership.
Virago exists to help leaders make hiring decisions with clarity
and judgment—especially when the cost of being wrong is high.
How We Think About Hiring
Most hiring decisions eventually reduce to a simple question:
“Is this candidate good?”
That question matters—but on its own, it’s incomplete.
A strong candidate can still be the wrong hire:
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for this moment
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under these constraints
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within this organization’s current state
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on the path to a specific future state
Our work is to help clients answer the harder question:
Is this the right person, for this role, right now—given everything this decision touches?
What We Do Differently
We find exceptional people.
Then we do the harder work of placing the right ones into the right roles at the right time.
That means:
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assessing context, not just capability
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designing for fit as a real variable—not a soft one
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and reducing risk rather than simply moving fast
The goal is not momentum for its own sake.
The goal is decisions that hold up.
Who We Work With
We work with leaders who carry real responsibility.
Often, they are navigating change, transformations, constraint and heightened scrutiny. They don't need more resumes. They need fewer, better answers.
They need confidence in the decision they’re making.
Hiring feels heavier now because it is.
If you’re looking for a partner who understands the weight of that decision—and helps you move forward with clarity—we’re happy to start with a conversation.
We work across regulated, technical, and high-stakes environments where hiring decisions carry real consequences.
About the Founders
Christine Santacroce is the founder of Virago Search. She is a founder, operator, and talent systems builder who works with leadership teams to make better hiring decisions—particularly in moments of growth, change, and complexity.
Over the past two decades, Christine has worked across executive search, internal talent acquisition, recruitment technology, and workforce strategy—partnering with Fortune 50 enterprises, private equity– and venture-backed companies, and scaling mid-market organizations. Her experience spans high-impact executive search and large, programmatic hiring initiatives across technology, data, insurance, and regulated environments, including work with private equity and venture backed startup companies.
Earlier in her career, Christine worked inside recruitment technology platforms, partnering closely with product and executive leadership on the design, scaling, and adoption of hiring technology used by tens of thousands of recruiters. That experience continues to inform her approach today, where her work sits at the intersection of expert human judgment, data, and emerging AI—focused on building hiring systems that are credible, fair, and durable.
Kay Abreu is Head of Operations at Virago Search, where she brings deep operational discipline and executional leadership to complex hiring initiatives. She works alongside leadership teams to ensure that talent programs—whether targeted searches or large-scale hiring efforts—are delivered with precision, consistency, and accountability.
Over the course of her career, Kay has partnered closely with Fortune 100 financial institutions as well as venture- and private equity–backed companies operating in fast-moving, high-growth environments, including Silicon Valley. Her expertise lies in scaling talent programs across varying levels of complexity, from focused, one-off initiatives to large, multi-role hiring efforts that require careful coordination, timeline management, and operational rigor.
Kay is a true operator. She manages process, execution, and delivery across engagements, ensuring that strategy translates into results. Drawing on more than fourteen years of experience spanning technology, finance, health services, and higher education, she brings an interdisciplinary approach to operations—combining structure, judgment, and a strong commitment to quality, inclusion, and service delivery.
Our Committment
Every engagement at Virago is grounded in the same commitment:
We will take the time to understand the moment you’re in, the constraints you’re operating under, and the future you’re trying to reach—before a single candidate is put forward.
We will surface risk early, ask the questions that matter, and offer our honest judgment—even when it complicates our own work.
We will measure our success not by speed or volume, but by whether the hire holds up under real conditions, long after the search is complete.
This is the standard we bring to every search.
Hartford, CT | Cambridge, MA | Westchester, NY
