Patricia S. Cook, Ph.D.
Chair and CEO

Pat has more than 20 years of experience in management and marketing consulting, financial services and executive search. Since entering the search profession in 1984, Pat's singular focus has been serving major corporations in need of senior talent to effect significant growth and transformation within the financial services, health care, information services, retail, entertainment, media, packaged goods and private equity industries.

She has successfully completed top management assignments for such blue chip organizations as American Express, Booz & Company, Credit Suisse, CVS Health, Fidelity Investments, J.P. Morgan Chase, IBM, NBC Universal, News Corporation, The Nielsen Company, Polo Ralph Lauren, Sony and Viacom, to name a few. Pat has recruited executives across senior management with an emphasis on the CEO, CFO, CMO and general management functions. In addition, as a licensed psychologist, Pat has conducted management evaluations of senior executives on behalf of acquiring organizations or newly hired CEOs.

Prior to forming Cook & Company, Pat was a Senior Partner and Director of Heidrick & Struggles and an active member of the firm’s Consumer, E-Business and Financial Services Global Practices. Earlier, Pat was a Partner and Global Executive Committee Member of Ward Howell International and, subsequently, of A.T. Kearney. She began her career in executive search consulting with Egon Zehnder International, the major Swiss-based firm. Before entering the search profession, she was a Senior Vice President of Yankelovich, Skelly and White, the marketing consulting organization. From 1979-1984, Pat was a Senior Vice President of Chemical Bank and held line management positions in the bank’s domestic and international divisions serving consumers, corporations and financial institutions around the globe.

Previously, she was a Senior Vice President of Louis Harris & Associates, the pollsters, and, earlier in her career, an Associate with the management-consulting firm of Booz & Company. While completing her doctoral studies, Pat was a Senior Project Director with Abt Associates, managing large-scale public policy studies on war on poverty programs for the Federal government.

Pat received her Bachelor’s, Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Psychology from Boston University, where she was an NDEA Teaching Fellow.  Among her outside activities, Pat is active in the International Women’s Forum, the Economic Club of New York,  the Board of Trustees of the Bronxville School Foundation and serves on the Dean’s Advisory Committee of Boston University.