John Krook

Managing Partner/Executive Recruiter

I’ve been involved in Accounting/Finance recruiting in the Twin Cities since 2000. I started my career at United HealthCare in the Corporate Audit group, then joined Regis Corporation as a Treasury Manager. As a hiring manager at Regis, I used recruiters to staff positions regularly and I was attracted to the idea of recruiting because I had always wanted to own my own company. Recruiting seemed to offer the things that were most important to me: helping people; a job that paid based on performance, not tenure; flexibility; the ability to work from anywhere; and limited start-up/overhead costs. I joined Ajilon as an Executive Search Consultant for two years and met Jim Denk, who later became my business partner. Jim had many of the same interests as I did and he also wanted to start his own recruiting practice. In 2002, we started Gemini Solutions.

When we were planning to leave Ajilon and start our own firm, we struggled to come up with a name that we liked. As I talked to friends and family about my plans, I would say “When we start our own company, Jim and I are going to do this or Jim and I are going to do that.” We liked the ring of it and decided to name our firm Gemini Solutions.

We have made hundreds of placements at many companies in Minneapolis/St. Paul in the Accounting and Finance community. We’ve also placed professionals in technology, administrative, human resources, construction and manufacturing roles for clients with needs outside of Accounting from time to time. In addition to permanent placement, we’ve also placed Contractors for special projects, maternity leaves, year-end and other temporary needs at dozens of companies across the metro area.

Now that I’ve been recruiting for 20+ years, I would say the original reasons I wanted to work in the staffing industry are still as important to me as they were in 2000 and I’m thankful I’ve found a career that suits me the way recruiting does.

Education
BS General Business Administration, University of Wisconsin-Stout