i have a list of companies and names of their top executives. how do i
find these executives' email addresses? i am looking for someone to
take the list from me and give back the email addresses.

Hi harshal_maniar,

Because there are no online executive email directories and I don't
know how many executives you want to email, what you're looking for
may be somewhat difficult depending which executives you want to find
out about.

There are companies that will take your list and provide you with such
a service for a fee, and I'll talk about that more below.  Here are
other approaches that you might want to take to find the information
you're seeking:

1) Visit company websites

Many executives have their email address listed on the site. For
example,
Sharper Image's CEO, Richard Thalheimer, encourages customers to send
him feedback.
http://www.sharperimage.com/us/en/letterfromchair.jhtml
I can't really attest to whether or not all of the executives actually
*read* what you send them, but I did email Thalheimer at the address
listed on that page and I received a response the same day.


2) Guess the address

This site has a great primer on how to find the email address for
those with corporate accounts:
http://www.webfoot.com/advice/FindingEmailAddresses.html
(Scroll down to "Guessing Strategies)

Here's the condensed version of what's on that site:
 	- Find the company domain name
	- Try these combinations of addresses and see which ones work:
              firstname.lastname@domainname
              firstname_lastname@domainname
              last (family) name @domainname
              first (given) name plus last initial @domainname
              first initial plus last name @domainname
              last name plus first initial @domainname


3) Try directories

There are lots of email directories on the Web, although I searched
for Michael Eisner on several of the major sites and didn't come up
with what I'd call satisfactory results. (Michael@disney.com,
eisner@disney.com and big-cheese@disney.com came up as results on
Internet Address Finder, but I can't verify that any of those are
correct, especially since a celebrity address site lists yet another
email address for him...)

http://www.iaf.net/searchresults.htm
http://www.mailhollywood.com/letters/e/e.htm

This site gives a fairly good list of sites to search:
http://guide.darwinmag.com/reference/lookup/email/

and this site lets you search several email directories and reverse
directories from one page:

http://www.freeality.com/findet.htm

You can also try these category lists for more sites to search:

Yahoo! - Individual Email Addresses
http://dir.yahoo.com/Reference/Phone_Numbers_and_Addresses/Email_Addresses/Individuals/

Yahoo! - B2B Investigative Services
http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Business_to_Business/Investigative_Services/

4) Buy the data
Depending on the size of your list, trying to track down addresses one
by one may be more time consuming than it's worth. You can try
marketing services that sell database information such as Zapdata,
which allows you to create a customized list based on the information
you're seeking. Prices start at $500 for customized reports; however,
you should confirm that they'd give you the address of the executives
you're looking for rather than just a general company email address.

https://zapleads.zapdata.com/

Here's where you can find a list of other companies that offer a
similar service:
http://directory.google.com/Top/Business/Opportunities/Inventions/Services/Marketing/

Google search terms used:
://www.google.com/search?q=executive+email+address
executive email address

email address directory
://www.google.com/search?q=email+address+directory

email address Michael Eisner
://www.google.com/search?q=email+address+Michael+Eisner

Yahoo! search terms used:

finding business email address 
http://google.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=finding+business+email+address&hc=0&hs=0

reverse directory email address
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=reverse+directory+email+address

A popular site for that kind of info is www.hoovers.com. 
To take the list from you and give you addresses you could contact
hoovers, or buy subscription and have somoone write you a "webbot"
that does it.

I've checked out the profile information that Hoover's offers with a
paid subscription. Although it does list names and biographical
information for company officers, it doesn't specifically say that
they also provide email addresses.

http://www.hoovers.com/hoov/join/sample_officers.html

You'll have to contact them to find out if that information is
included in a subscription.

You can call Hoover's at 1-888-310-6087 or email them from here:
http://www.hoovers.com/hoov/join/freedemo.html

There are three subscription plans to choose from. The "Hoover's Lite"
subscription is $49.95 a month or $399 annually.

If you are guessing at the address based on a standard formula (like
first initial, last name@company.com), try doing a Google search for
it.

This will sometimes turn up some verification that you guesssed
correctly.

I have used a database from Career Search but it's rather expensive.

You might want to try American Business Directories 1-888/260-7938
They have a similar database you can purchase on CD for $1000 or use
on their website in smaller increments. (I don't have their web site
but the above should be enough info to search it out)

You're just plain not likely to find any other source than these two
with this kind of info (and  American Business Directories may not
even have it... I have yet to use it)

Even in the case of Career Search the availability of this information
in their database is spotty at best.

Please let me know if you find anything better.  By the way I have an
electronic newsletter that goes out to 6000+ US CEOs.  Maybe you could
place a small ad in the newsletter and get them to contact you.  What
are you hoping to pitch them?

cpart@partneringagreements.com

To simply outsource researching the email addresses, you could post
the project on Elance.com.  This site has processed hundreds of
thousands of such business requests over the past few years.  Likely
you will receive bids from 10+ individuals with great qualifications
and relevant experience.

You can try http://www.lead411.com.  They provide email addresses of executives.

Visit www.theFutureNet.ca as they have a many different Executive
Contact databases of US and Global Executives email addresses as well
as full contact information.  The costs are really fair as well and
they have complete descriptions of their different Executive Contact
Databases on their home page.