Ashling O’Connor is a consultant in Spencer Stuart’s Technology, Media, Telecommunications & Services Practice. With a decade of executive search experience, she advises companies globally across media, entertainment, consumer tech, digital marketplaces and platforms and sport. She leverages a near 20-year career as a leading journalist covering these highly dynamic and disrupted sectors. Based in London, she brings a deep domain knowledge and an extensive global network to her client work.
Media expert with a global view
- Prior to joining Spencer Stuart, Ashling was a partner at a boutique firm, where she built the media, entertainment and technology practice in EMEA. She led senior executive searches for media clients globally. She also advised the sports industry on digital convergence around content, IP, rights and the live experience.
- Before executive search, she spent more than 12 years at The Times, where she worked as a sportswriter and a foreign correspondent in India, opening the newspaper’s first bureau in Mumbai. She was notably Olympics Correspondent for the 2012 London Games.
- Previously, she was media correspondent for the Financial Times, covering FTSE-listed media companies as well as the first disruptors of the dotcom boom. She began her career as a local news reporter.
Ashling is a graduate of the University of Nottingham, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in history. She is a member of the advisory board for StreetGames UK Ltd., a leading UK charity for bringing sport to young people in disadvantaged communities.