Jennifer Pendergast, based in Atlanta, is a member of Egon Zehnder’s Family Business Advisory. She draws on deep experience with multigenerational family-owned businesses with a particular focus on packaged consumer goods and family offices, helping them to create professional governance structures, develop leadership succession plans, and prepare and choose effective family and non-family leaders. Jennifer also conducts executive team assessment and development for enterprises ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies as well as nonprofit organizations.
I am most energized by connecting with clients, particularly family businesses, as they are facing critical inflection points around succession, leadership development and professionalization of governance.
Before joining Egon Zehnder, Jennifer was a Senior Consultant at the Family Business Consulting Group. Prior to that she was an Associate at McKinsey & Company. Earlier, Jennifer worked as an investment banker for a Wall Street firm and taught at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, the College of Management of the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Wharton Business School.
Jennifer earned a BS in Finance from the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce and a PhD in Management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She has published her research on corporate governance and top management leadership issues in various academic journals including the European Management Journal and Strategic Management Journal. Jennifer is also an active member of the Society of International Business Fellows. In her private life, she enjoys spending time with her teenage daughters, cycling, yoga and vegetarian cooking, and does volunteer work with disadvantaged children.
