Ashley Summerfield leads Egon Zehnder’s global CEO and Board Consulting Practice. He is a trusted advisor to scores of prestigious clients around the world and he specializes in building boards, enhancing their effectiveness, and advising on CEO succession planning. Ashley has deep experience across a range of sectors including financial services, travel & hospitality, consumer products, real estate, healthcare and industrials. Ashley prizes diversity and lateral thinking when leading searches for CEOs and board chairs. He also conducts external board effectiveness reviews. Family-owned businesses, not-for-profits, and public sector organizations have come to rely on his insight and advice, as well as major public companies and those under private equity ownership.
I feel an enormous sense of pride and gratitude when I look back on the impact of the people I’ve placed & advised around the world, during more than 25 years at this firm.
Prior to joining Egon Zehnder, Ashley joined the founding team of Central Europe Trust, with Nigel Lawson, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, a corporate finance advisory business specializing in Central and Eastern Europe. His early career was with strategy consultants Booz Allen & Hamilton.
Ashley has an MA from Cambridge University and an MPPM from Yale University. In his spare time, he plays jazz double bass, dabbles in landscape painting, and has volunteered as a biology teacher for TeachFirst. Ashley also served as Chair of the People Committee for National Citizen Service, a UK organization helping thousands of teenagers become “world-ready & work-ready.”
