Annie Simonds helps organizations across all industries assess CEOs and build boards committed to the highest levels of impact. With more than 25 years of experience in leadership consulting and drawing from her cross-industry knowledge and deep understanding of the current geopolitical landscape, she counsels towards systems-level change to help organizations and their leaders translate emerging trends into opportunities that can transform their businesses, their communities — and the world.

Annie is an impartial adviser to the CEOs and boards of some of the world’s most high-profile organizations. She guides her clients through substantive change, innovation and social entrepreneurship, often by bringing together private, public and third sector leaders. She has significant expertise helping rapidly evolving organizations grow where existing models may not exist, applying an innovator’s mindset to help ensure the right level of change to catalyze versus paralyze. She looks beyond pedigree in order to recruit leaders who align not only with the role, but also will succeed within the broader context of the operating environment or system.

In addition to recruiting CEOs and board members, she advises on organizational restructuring, organizational culture and critical board/governance issues, including succession. She is passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. She serves on the boards of IAVI, Project HOPE, and the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia, bringing firsthand perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing boards and leaders at the intersection of public, private and third sector implementers and funders.

Expertise

Annie works across industries and specializes in:

  • CEO search and succession
  • Board of director advisory (recruitment, succession, governance)
  • Succession (CEO, board, founder)
  • Organizational culture

 

Additional expertise in:

  • Global health
  • Global development
  • Social enterprise
  • Innovation economy
  • NGOs
  • Biopharma/healthcare
  • Ventures
  • Family offices

 

Recent work

  • Leading more than 250 CEO and board transitions
  • Advising a board and leading the CEO search of a biotech company, with C-suite build-out, resulting in almost $1 billion in growth
  • Advising a group of chairs and CEOs from multinational conglomerates to recruit a CEO for a global organization that brings together global leaders from business and civil society to advance sustainability and human rights in business
  • Leading multiple clients through the transitions of founder-led to next-generation CEO, including organizational assessment, team effectiveness and culture evolution

Previous Experience

  • Managing director and founder of the global development practice and office managing partner, Washington, D.C., for another global leadership advisory firm
  • Various roles in research environments, including the Department of Neuropathology and Neurobiology at Johns Hopkins University Hospital; Department of Neurosurgery/Cerebrovascular Disease at the University of Virginia Medical Center; University of Connecticut and Lombardi Cancer Research Center at Georgetown University

Education

  • B.A. in biology from the University of Virginia
  • Post-graduate business program at the McIntire Business Institute, University of Virginia
  • Executive Education Leadership Program at Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania

Practice Areas