Noah Sipes
Co-Founder
Noah grew up inside the green industry, in his family's greenhouses, nurseries, and garden centers. He left once, for business school and a career in enterprise sales. The industry pulled him back.
The road in
Noah comes from a family of green industry business owners. He grew up working in their greenhouses, nurseries, and garden centers, and in a Christmas tree wholesale operation that ran from Chicago to Nova Scotia. He did all of it: growing, partnerships, sales at home and across the border, and more than a few mornings hauling a truck full of trees through Chicago with his brother.
He left for business school at Baruch's Zicklin School of Business, then spent years in enterprise sales at Level 3 and CenturyLink, now Lumen. He designed secure global networks for large companies and sat across from the VPs and C-suite leaders making those calls. He learned how big organizations actually decide.
Then the industry pulled him back. He led sales for one of North America's largest orchid growers, then returned to a family business to run a ten-person international sales team across North America. Most recently he moved into leadership search in the green industry and learned the craft from the inside. Then he built Live Oak to run it the way it should be run.
At Live Oak, Noah leads client relationships and runs point on every search. If you hire Live Oak, he is who you talk to.
Tell me about you first. The business can wait. A meeting with me is really just a conversation.
Field notes
Roots
Colorado.
Home
South Florida, after stretches in New York, New Jersey, and Nashville.
Family
Family first, business second, and they were the same people. An older brother still in Colorado, in the family business. A partner who runs the City in the Garden initiative at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.
The dogs
Moby and Clyde, rescue brothers. Plus Ollie, a golden retriever and the new arrival.
A real weekend
Up early, sun on his face, feet in the grass. A walk through Fairchild, the ocean, a bookstore, a coffee.
Won't turn it down
Spicy cumin lamb hand-ripped noodles from Xi'an Famous Foods. An Italian beef from Johnnie's in Chicago, hot giardiniera, extra wet.
Rather be
In space. His grandfather engineered for Ball and NASA, so he came by it honest.
Off the clock
Dystopian novels, anything on or near the water, a creek in the Colorado Rockies, and good food in mom-and-pop spots.
The life behind the work
You deserve to know it all, up front. The search, the market, the comp that's too low, the interview that bombed. We're the merchants of reality.