Headquarters: Minneapolis
Revenues (FY 2005): $21 million
Founded: 2002
Employees: 195
Ticker: Private
Web Sites: www.salollc.com
What It Does: Temporary staffing for finance professionals


When John Folkestad and Amy Langer saw a big opportunity in the temporary staffing industry, they quit their high-paying jobs, sat out one-year noncompete agreements with their employer, and then founded Sálo in 2002.

Sálo matches accountants and other financial professionals with employers for temporary projects. The firm, which has seen more than 100 percent revenue growth each year, is expanding its reach to include human resources and operations professionals through its Vallon and Oberon divisions.

Folkestad and Langer are both CPAs. Before joining the staffing industry, Folkestad was an auditor for the Minneapolis office of Deloitte & Touche, then joined a national staffing firm in 1992; he later recruited Langer to join him there.

In 2002, both left the organization due to disagreements over its business model. Folkestad and Langer wanted the firm to provide benefits for its consultants, but it was unwilling to move in that direction.

“We thought if we could bring together the top-level people in the marketplace, treat them well, give the benefits that they couldn’t get anywhere else, that we might have something,” Langer says.  Sálo offers its consultants, all of whom are senior-level professionals, medical and dental insurance, a 401(k) plan, profit sharing, and paid vacation and holidays. They also receive a nameplate, business cards, and a phone number that remains the same as they move from job to job.

Key to Sálo’s success is matching consultants to projects suited to their skills. Langer and Folkestad wished to differentiate themselves from other staffing firms where they say top-level consultants are not always placed in the right projects. “There is not a lot of time taken in the art of the match,” Folkestad says.

Sálo’s business model works for both financial consultants and its clients. Customers often need highly skilled accountants and other professionals for major projects—going public, for instance—that won’t last long enough to warrant hiring them permanently. At the same time, many consultants prefer a variety of projects, as well as periods of time off between them.

Starting Sálo in the midst of a recession didn’t slow the partners down. “We started seeing articles in the newspaper, shortages in financial staff, shortages here, shortages there,” Folkestad notes. “And again, what we are hearing now in the next 10 to 12 years, national shortages in executives, senior talent around finance, which is right where we are positioned.”

Folkestad and Langer predict that Sálo’s three business divisions will earn revenues of $35 million in 2006. “People are the most critical thing to making businesses grow or fail,” Folkestad observes. “We’ve always been good at that match and assessing people, and even internally finding the right kind of people has helped us grow.”