Claudio Fernández-Aráoz

Claudio Fernández-Aráoz is a top global expert on leadership and talent, family businesses, and personal growth. He was ranked by Bloomberg as one of the most influential executive search consultants in the world and selected by Thinkers50 as one of the world’s leading thinkers on talent.

An Executive Fellow for Executive Education at Harvard Business School, Claudio teaches at the school's executive programs for company owners, CEOs, senior executives and general managers.

Upon graduation at Stanford’s GSB he worked initially for McKinsey & Company in Europe, and then for over three decades for Egon Zehnder, where as a partner he was a member of its global executive committee for more than ten years. He founded the firm's assessment and development practice, and served as global leader of its professional development, people process, and intellectual capital development.

Claudio is an acclaimed keynote speaker in the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

He selectively advises and coaches global CEOs, company owners, next generation family leaders, and managing partners of professional service firms.

His latest book, It's Not the How or the What but the Who, was the winner of the Axiom Gold Award for the best HR book in English in the world. His previous book, Great People Decisions, has 15 international editions in all major languages.

He is also the author of several bestselling Harvard Business Review articles on leadership and talent, family businesses, and personal growth, including The Definitive Guide to Recruiting in Good Times and Bad, 21st Century Talent Spotting, Leadership Lessons from Great family Businesses, and Turning Potential into Success: The Missing Link in Leadership Development.

Claudio earned a master's in science in Industrial Engineering from the Argentine Catholic University (Gold Medal, highest GPA ever in that university) and an MBA from Stanford University, where he also graduated with honors as an Arjay Miller Scholar.