Toby Studley

Toby Studley is a true people person. He’ll strike up a conversation with anyone he meets. Every warm handshake and lively chat is a chance to forge new connections. So, it’s no surprise he’s built a business doing just that.

His company, SPS Consulting based in Rockville, Maryland, provides accounting and financial services staffing, performs executive searches and offers program management services to a range of organizations in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and beyond. But Studley likes to sum up the company’s mission in one simple phrase: "We find the right people for the right job in the right company."

After graduating with his degree in business administration in 1990, Studley was recruited by Xerox, where he learned the ropes of sales and management. He moved on to a corporate recruiting firm in Washington, D.C., until he got the itch to start his own recruiting company.

“I’ve always been an entrepreneur at heart,” he says. “I thought to myself, ‘I could really do this.’”

In 1996, thanks to a generous renter’s market in Bethesda, Maryland, Studley found a deal on an office space he calls “closet-sized” and hired a recruiter.

“All I knew is if I could just get six people to use my temporary services, I could pay rent, pay my salary and pay my staff recruiter,” he recalls.

He got those six clients. Today, SPS’s network includes more than 240 employees placed in organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to local, state and federal government agencies. The company recently celebrated 20 years in operation.

“ When I started focusing on building relationships, the business got even better. ”

But getting the business off the ground took long hours and sacrifices in the early years, Studley recalls.

“The first 12 years, I was a very busy guy,” he says. “At some point I told myself, ‘if I can’t step away from the business for two days, then it’s not a good business.’”

Studley hired more staff and spent more time growing the business by doing what he does best—networking.

“When I started focusing on building relationships, the business got even better,” he says. “We’ve established relationships with top companies across the area and those relationships only continue to grow stronger.”