Heidrick & Struggles adds Herve Pluche and Sonya Som as US partners

Recruitment and HR consultancy Heidrick & Struggles has added 18 new partners across its global operations, including two in the United States. Herve Pluche, who focuses on digital innovation, joins the San Francisco office, while diversity expert Sonya Som joins the firm’s Chicago office.

Herve Pluche brings more than two decades of experience across digital innovation and acceleration, spanning entrepreneurship, industry, and consulting work. He joins Heidrick Consulting from management accelerator Advantary, where as a partner he helped clients achieve growth through digital innovation.

Before Advantary, Pluche was vice president of the SAP Global Business Incubator, where he built and launched the company’s Precision Marketing consumer mobile solution. He joined SAP after the ERP software giant licensed his consumer mobile solutions firm StoreExperience, which he founded in 2007.

Prior to that, Pluche was president and CEO of customer service and workflow management software firm Neocase Software, and led investment activities in Silicon Valley for Avanti Partners and Telecom Italia Ventures.

Earlier in his career, Pluche was a consultant at Bain & Company, focusing on the telecom and enterprise software industries. He holds an MBA from Stanford University and a MS in aerospace engineering from the French National College of Aeronautical Engineering.

Sonya Som joins Heidrick & Struggles’ Chicago office, and will provide advisory support on diversity inclusion both internally and to the firm’s corporate clients. Som previously spent nine years at executive search firm Major, Linsey & Africa, where she was a partner in the firm’s legal recruitment practice. In the role, Som helped organizations solve legal recruiting needs, with an emphasis on diversity, candidate sourcing, career counseling, marketing, and business development.

Before that, Som spent a decade as a labor & employment and immigration attorney at several law firms, including Dykem Gossett, Laner Mulchin, and Baker Law Corporation. She holds a JD from Cornell Law School, and was named 2018 Executive of the Year by the National Bar Association’s General Counsel Invitational.

"We continue to expand our Executive Search and Heidrick Consulting businesses globally with consultants who bring diverse industry expertise and strong client relationships to the firm," Krishnan Rajagopalan, president and CEO, Heidrick & Struggles, said. "We look forward to their contributions to delivering a premier client experience and driving growth across the firm."

In addition to Pluche and Som, the firm added 12 partners in Europe and four partners in Asia-Pacific.