Dan Phelan is a Senior Advisor at Egon Zehnder. He draws on over 40 years’ experience as a senior executive and board director to counsel clients as a member of the Firm’s Health Care Practice. Clients greatly value his deep experience advising chief executives and board chairs on CEO succession and board governance. Dan also sits on the board of Kraton Corporation, a leading global producer of specialty polymers and bio-based products.
I’m excited to have the opportunity to help organizations strengthen their executive talent and corporate culture. People are what motivates me – I spent my career in healthcare because of how it positively impacts lives.
Before joining Egon Zehnder, Dan was a board member of UK-based Indivior PLC, a global pharmaceutical company that is transforming treatment for substance abuse disorders and serious mental illness, and TE Connectivity (formerly Tyco Electronics) chairing the Management Development and Compensation Committee. That was preceded by a 31-year career at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK): he began as the head of global labor relations before becoming its SVP Administration for global R&D, then advising three CEOs as the Chief Human Resources Officer before helping to turn GSK into a first-rate talent incubator as the Chief of Staff with responsibility for most corporate functions. Dan began his career as an officer in the U.S. Army Medical Service Corps and then joined a major Philadelphia law firm as an attorney specialized in labor issues.
Dan earned a BA from Rutgers College, an MA from The Ohio State University, and a JD from Rutgers University School of Law. Dan has served on several nonprofit boards including the boards of trustees of Rutgers University, Temple University Hospital, The Fairmount Park Conservancy, PBS affiliate WHYY, and cochaired the Corporate Executive Board of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Dan’s publications include “Picking the Right Insider for CEO Succession” in the Harvard Business Review and “Vision and Substance: the CHRO’s Role in Successful CEO Onboarding.”
