Advisory Board
Stephen A. Miles
Managing Partner & Vice Chairman
Stephen Miles is a Vice Chairman and the Managing Partner, Leadership Advisory within Heidrick & Struggles' Leadership Consulting Practice, overseeing the firm's worldwide executive assessment/succession planning activities. He is also a key member of Heidrick & Struggles' CEO and Board Practice and is a member of the firm's management committee.
With more than 15 years of experience in assessment, top-level succession planning, organizational effectiveness and strategy consulting, Stephen specializes in CEO succession and has partnered with numerous Boards of global Fortune 500 companies to ensure that a successful leadership selection and transition occurs. Additionally, he is a recognized expert on the role of the Chief Operating Officer, and has consulted to numerous companies on the establishment and effectiveness of the position and supporting the transition from COO to effective CEO.
Stephen is a coach to more than 10 CEO/COOs around the world at any given time. He has built the Practice's coaching expertise by focusing on high-performance leadership competencies with a heavy emphasis on the business and cultural context. Stephen works extensively internationally and his clients cut across all industry sectors.
Prior to joining Heidrick & Struggles, Stephen held various positions at Andersen Consulting.
Education
Stephen holds a Bachelor's degree in Psychology and a Master's of Business Administration (summa cum laude), both from Queen's University in Kingston, Canada. He also holds a Master's Degree in Psychology (summa cum laude) from the University of Victoria.
Additional Information
Stephen is the author and co-editor of the best-selling book Leaders Talk Leadership. He also co-authored Riding Shotgun: The Role of the Chief Operating Officer, in addition to the cover article in the May 2006 issue of Harvard Business Review on the same topic. Stephen co-authored the feature article in the April 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review titled "The Leadership Team: Complementary Strengths or Conflicting Agendas?"
His third book, The Career Game: Applying Lessons from Game Theory to the Management of Your Career is due out later this year (Stanford University Press) and he has just completed a chapter on "Assessing the Leader" for Linkage Inc.'s Best Practices in Leadership Development Handbook 2nd Edition; Wiley 2009.
Thomas Znotins
Thomas has over 30 years of high-tech business experience spanning a range of small, medium and large enterprises. His career has included senior positions in Research and Development, Marketing, Business Development, Operations and Executive Management. Most recently, he was Senior Vice President of the Subsystems Products Group at JDS Uniphase Corporation and, since 2007, has worked as an independent business consultant.
During his career, Thomas has experienced hyper-growth, radical contraction and numerous business cycles. He is a results-driven leader with a track record of business development, revenue growth, profitability improvement and organizational re-engineering. He is a strong proponent of well-defined operational alignment, development and mentoring of staff, and a high level of employee empowerment.
Thomas has lived and worked in four countries (Canada, United States, Japan and France) and has done business in over a dozen more, primarily in Europe and the APAC region.
Education
Thomas holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and Chemistry from the University of Windsor and both a Masters and a Doctoral degree in Physics from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He participated in the MBA program at Seattle University prior to his relocation back to Canada and subsequently completed the Executive Development Program at Northeastern University in Boston, MA.
