We help our clients solve their biggest candidate screening, hiring, and onboarding problems.
The Strategic Consulting team at FA is composed of Lean Six Sigma Black Belts and experienced industry professionals dedicated to optimizing First Advantage clients’ background screening programs. Since the team was founded in 2016 by Chief Operating Officer Aaron Cook, we have consulted for hundreds of clients across the globe, including some of the world’s highest-volume employers, to improve screening programs, making us the leading experts in the industry.
Process Mapping and Optimization: We meticulously map out client screening, hiring, and onboarding processes, identifying pain points and areas for improvement. Our goal is to streamline these processes, ensuring seamless transitions and minimizing bottlenecks.
Benchmarking and Performance Analysis: We help clients compare processes, performance metrics, and results with those of similar industries and organizations. We deliver valuable and actionable insights and identify best practices that elevate our clients’ outcomes.
Balancing Speed, Cost, and Risk: Program alignment is at the heart of our approach. In background screening, speed, cost-effectiveness, and risk mitigation are interdependent. We provide the data and insights clients need to strike the right balance for their programs, ensuring optimal outcomes.
Data-Driven Decision-Making: Our experts analyze screening, hiring, and employee performance data so our clients can make fully-informed decisions about how background screening changes will impact downstream organizational performance. We can help bridge the gap between technical concepts and practical understanding for all levels of client stakeholders. Whether it’s executives or hiring teams, we ensure everyone is well-informed and making decisions with the best data available.
Continuous Improvement: Our analyses help even those clients with well-established and successful background screening programs. Employers need to continuously review screening practices to ensure alignment with ever-evolving government regulations, fast-moving technology, and shifts in company culture. We have developed standard analytical deliverables that help our clients stay on top of these discussions and continuously fine-tune screening programs for optimal efficiency.
As one of the world’s leading background screening companies, First Advantage has access to unparalleled amounts of industry data. No one is making more data-driven and well-informed hiring decisions than clients working with Strategic Consulting at First Advantage.
Rachel Fronapfel
is a Vice President of Operations with First Advantage, leading Quality, Analytics, and Strategic Consulting. Since 2016, Rachel has led the team of consultants that help First Advantage clients tackle their biggest hiring goals like streamlining high-volume onboarding processes, developing new background screening SOPs, reducing time-to-hire for new employees, and more. She is a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and an award-winning leader in global operations performance improvement. After graduating from the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, she worked as a labor economist for the US Department of Labor. For ten years, Rachel worked in Product Management and Development, creating demographic and behavioral data solutions used by world-class marketers. Her extensive background in operations management, behavioral modeling and statistics, and product development, bring a well-rounded and fresh perspective to her engagements with First Advantage clients.
Brian Larrow
is a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with extensive experience optimizing client screening programs through data-driven analytics and results-focused engagements. He has pioneered new methods of analyzing key metrics such as turnaround time, adjudication, missing information, and industry benchmarking. In his prior role with First Advantage, he leveraged his self-taught Mandarin Chinese language skills in managing the APAC region for several large global clients. In addition to his supply-chain-focused BBA from the University of San Diego, Brian is passionate about city planning and completed the [IN]CITY certificate program at the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design. An avid traveler, he has visited 37 countries, 49 US states, 30 Chinese provinces, and nearly 200 units of the National Park Service.
Nuno Ricardo
graduated summa cum laude from the University of Baltimore in 2006. He is a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with more than 15 years of product and operations management experience. He joined the First Advantage Strategic Consulting Team in November 2020. Nuno's wide-ranging experience gives him a unique perspective. His background in consumer segmentation, geographic information systems, and data analysis allows him to sift through vast datasets to find meaningful insights and effectively address challenges in background screening. When he is away from the office, you’ll likely find him in his backyard garden where he grows a variety of vegetables and herbs. Nuno is a founding member of the Walkerville Garden Society in Windsor, Ontario, where he lives with his partner and his cat. Nuno believes in growing talent and currently mentors two people, one in Toronto and one in Mexico City. He also believes in lifelong learning and now uses Duolingo to learn Italian, his fifth language. He now has a 3-year streak of daily learning.
Chuck Lauer
received his Master’s Degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology in 2009 from Missouri State University. During his time there, he simultaneously taught introductory psychology and began his tenure with the United States Office of Personnel Management where he eventually served as an analyst, budget certifying officer, personnel research psychologist, and organizational consultant. From there, he moved to Nielsen, where he managed a small team of product managers working on products ranging from demographics and cartographics to geodemographic segmentation and consumer demand modeling. He joined First Advantage in 2017, and since then has helped over a hundred clients reduce their processing time, refine their background check programs, thrive in the face of massive organizational changes, analyze performance, and guide groundbreaking new programs and procedures from inception to successful implementation and ROI. Chuck brings a focus on where systems meet people meet numbers, bringing together individual and organizational behavior and the metrics that allow us to understand and optimize them for businesses in the 21st century.
Savanna Green
brings over 15 years of deep expertise in the background screening industry to her role as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt at First Advantage. She is recognized for her multifaceted contributions, excelling in strategic solutioning, lean processing, client & internal training and education, project management, and power data analysis. Serving as a SOAR Facilitator and FA Mentorship committee member, Savanna actively contributes to FA employee and management training programs. Throughout her career, Savanna has collaborated with some of the world's largest and most trusted brands, optimizing their screening programs and earning a reputation as a trusted client advisor. Her commitment to excellence extends beyond the professional realm, as she volunteers as a chapter leader for one of the world's oldest women's non-profit organizations. With a focus on driving operational efficiency and client success, Savanna embodies a holistic approach to her work, leveraging her expertise and passion to make meaningful contributions both within and beyond corporate boundaries.
