Overview
John Abele is a senior advisor in Heidrick & Struggles’ Chicago office and a member of the global Marketing, Sales, & Strategy Officers and Industrial practices, focusing on CEO, board, and general management search assignments.
Experience
John recruits CEOs, board directors, general managers, and top commercial and strategic leaders for a wide array of organizations across the industrial, consumer, technology, life sciences, professional services, and financial services sectors.
John recruits a wide variety of leaders across strategy, pricing, customer experience, and related areas. In the industrial sector, his work focuses on leading product manufacturers, building products, field service providers, and industrial distributors. John has helped clients develop corporate growth and sales strategies, navigate mergers and acquisitions, transform sales forces and distribution channels, improve marketing and pricing organizations, and successfully use technology to drive growth.
Prior to joining Heidrick & Struggles, John spent eight years at McKinsey & Company, where he led its marketing & sales practice and its industrial sector. At McKinsey, John worked with a variety of clients but focused much of his time on clients in the industrial, technology, consumer, and services sectors. Earlier in his career, John was a manager at Hewitt Associates LLC and a consultant at Andersen Consulting.
John has written or been quoted in leading publications including The Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, Crain’s, Inc. Magazine, AdAge, and Harvard Business Review. He has authored numerous articles and publicly presented on a variety of marketing, sales, and business development topics.
Education
Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Business, MBA in Finance and Management Strategy
University of Notre Dame, Bachelor’s Degree, summa cum laude, in Mechanical Engineering