Andrew ChastainJack serves as one of my most trusted advisers. I was introduced to Jack as my executive coach during a planned CEO transition. He was hired by our board to counsel me as the internal candidate; however, Jack’s counsel went far beyond helping me prepare to serve as CEO. He challenged me to focus on the real goal of being a great authentic leader. Over the course of two years, I learned a great deal about myself, how to approach work and leadership and organizational planning in a longer term manner. Jack organized my development but more importantly, his intuitive nature led us on a journey more powerful than a planned exercise. Jack is a great confidential sounding board and leverages his own experiences and competencies to assist an executive’s development. After my formal selection as CEO, Jack and I used The First 90 Days framework to guide my on-boarding. He continues to be a significant professional and personal resource.
Chuck WardellAs a CEO for a major company, I fully appreciate the roll that Jack has played as trusted advisor and mentor for both personal and business guidance. I also found Jack to be good council for the leadership advice that you do not necessarily find within most corporate settings. I watched Jack become a true innovator and a nimble thinker who gets the bigger picture and despite all the frustration that a process driven bureaucracy creates, observed him build the foundation for the leadership business that Korn/Ferry enjoys today. Jack also has lived, as I have, a life of comrades in arms…those who care about each other, help each other and keep in touch. Jack is truly a sensational friend.
Elias OlmetaI’ve known and worked with Jack for over five years and along the way he’s been a mentor, friend and trusted advisor. We immediately clicked and we started working together upon my transition to a general management and leadership position as divisional CFO and COO of Solera Holdings, a software company.
He helped me to understand that leading an organization is not the same as leading individual teams. He also showed me how my assumptions (sometimes about life and people), behaviors, and in many cases, feelings, could have subtle yet profound impacts on the organization and those around me.
We’ve continued working together in my new role as CFO of Mitchell International, where we have focused on my onboarding and learning the ambiguities of a new culture. He’s been an invaluable guide and sounding board.I couldn’t recommend Jack more highly. Few people have impacted my professional career the way he has. He tailored his approach and style (no cookie cutter stuff) to help me “see” and grow based on the areas I needed to explore and strengthen. In some cases even withholding information or observations until I was in a position or “ready” to learn and absorb them. That type of coaching can only happen upon reaching a deep level of trust coupled with the insight he attained from working for so many years in a professional environment and understanding ambiguities and pressures of senior leadership.
John RatliffTrust, focus and action. These three words are what set Jack apart.
Jack won the initial engagement with me because it was clear from the outset that he is trust worthy. From our first conversation, I believed he would work to help me be a better leader rather than report to the boss or the Board. My initial impression was proven true and my confidence in him has only deepened over time.
Working with Jack has enabled me to focus both my energy and intellect on strategy, tactics and operational issues in a way that previously had not been possible. That intensity of focus ignited a fire that was instrumental in me embracing both the challenges and opportunities of leadership.
I also gained tremendous benefit from his work scope that included 360 feedback, not the least of which was input from peers and Board members. Jack helped me translate that information into action, enabling me to do things differently and better.
Two years later, Jack is a valued mentor and friend which brings me back to where I started – with trust.
Neil BrandmaierI have worked with Jack for 18 months now, beginning with a team alignment assignment in India and then several assignments in the US. Jack came highly recommended in the area of senior team alignment given his extensive professional career.
The assignments in India and the US involved groups of hard charging senior team members that while high performing needed to continue to improve on the results they delivered. My team members took quickly to Jack with his easy going style and his extensive international experience in Asia, Europe and Latin America.
I have now seen Jack successfully improve the performance of teams in three different instances. I like the lack of “cookie cutter” techniques and his customized focus on the client and his/her specific needs. He has become a trusted advisor to me and I recommend him highly.
Nick CraigThe key to leading in the current volatile, uncertain, chaotic, ambiguous (VUCA) world is to step into one’s deeper wisdom as a leader and get it done. Jack is one of the very few C-suite coaches I have brought in to our programs (Authentic Leadership) to take on the most business critical and sensitive engagements. This isn’t “normal coaching”. Rather Jack becomes a trusted mentor who has himself as a senior exec sat in the shoes of the leader he is working with. Calm, focused, straight talk that is the edgy truth said in a way you can hear it and act on it is Jack’s magic. Jack continues to be a key anchor resource in our coaching practice.
Shaun GradyJack mentored several senior groups of AstraZeneca executives participating in the Harvard Business School Enterprise Leadership Programme. The groups were diverse and predictably strong minded executives each dealing with different professional, business and personal challenges at different stages of careers in different functions and roles operating in a fast changing and ambiguous environment in the Company and healthcare industry.
Jack’s skill is to cut through all the noise and distil down to simplify the specific issues for each individual and therefore work with and support business leaders on clarifying and addressing all aspects of leadership and effective delivery relevant to the individual.
Jack’s background in Banking and genuine open and supportive personality and approach quickly establishes common experiences and credibility as well as the classic secure environment to surface and address the real issues and obstacles. The genuine interest in and apparent fondness for colleagues in the group result in Jack continuing contact and support with and for the group on issues specific and general long after the programme finished.
Ted BililiesI have known Jack for more than 15 years and consider him the best executive advisor in the business. He has assisted me tremendously in my career as I have, in turn, assisted others. Jack’s unique combination of wisdom and good humor, combined with real authenticity, makes him a superb business partner and advisor. I continue to rely on Jack, and endorse him without reservation.
z Dr. Don LongbottomJack was initially recommended to me by John Bassler, a member of our congregation and a former partner of Jack’s at Korn/Ferry International. The assignment is to assist me as we re-unify a very strong-minded congregation around a set of principles and mission statement produced by the congregants themselves.
Previous outside facilitation had not worked so the bar was even higher going in for our team. Jack in turn introduced his excellent partner-Elizabeth Resnick-with whom he previously worked at Chase Manhattan and with whom he does team alignment work.
Together with leading members of the congregation, we have made great progress in the last six months and are indeed very close to achieving consensus on what the next permanent minister should bring to the table when he/she assumes the role-this being the ultimate goal of our exercise together.
I have been most impressed with the professionalism and flexibility shown by Elizabeth and Jack as they have guided us through the alignment process, beginning with a “history wall, then to a mission-setting exercise and in September, to a congregation-wide exercise in which we will mutually decide the best way forward in making our mission truly come alive.
Both Elizabeth and Jack make the well-being of the congregation their agenda rather than pursuing their (Elizabeth and Jack’s) personal wants and wishes. Their combined corporate backgrounds along with being persons of genuine faith and active in their respective temple/church lends great credibility to what they have to offer.
I would heartedly recommend Elizabeth and Jack to any non-profit or profit based client needing that special touch of caring, professionalism and sensitivity I have seen so present in the work we have done together.
Gary HourihanI hired Jack in 2003 to help me build Korn/Ferry’s Leadership Consulting business and to lead our North American leadership consulting operation. At that time, leadership consulting was a fledgling business within Korn/Ferry with less than $10MM in global revenue and less than $2MM in North American revenue. What attracted me to Jack was his unbridled optimism, a true understanding of how to build and motivate a team, strong internal networking skills, and the ability to proactively address and minimize conflict. His ability to network and address conflict were particularly critical to our success given our need to build credibility with an initially skeptical group of experienced and highly successful search consultants.
Largely as a result of Jack’s management and strong interpersonal skills, our North American leadership business grew more than seven fold by 2008 while our quality, as measured by client satisfaction surveys, remained the highest in the firm. In 2006, I expanded Jack’s role to also help build our South American and Latin American leadership business, where he had similar success.
Jack relates extremely well to all types of people and exhibits a strong sense of values and integrity. He cares deeply about what he does and can readily bring disparate groups together around a common goal.
Kevin CashmanMy colleagues and I at LeaderSource worked closely with Jack in the business integration of our LeaderSource capabilities into the Korn/Ferry culture. We worked particularly hard to integrate our large-scale coaching and development capability into appropriate portions of the existing leadership business at Korn/Ferry. Through Jack’s world class ability to connect people with each other and the strategy, the integration process went much smoother than we initially anticipated as we soon found ourselves an equal member at the leadership table there.
Additionally, Jack served as a confidant and personal coach to me and a number of my LeaderSource colleagues allowing us to better deal with what could have been a much harder process. Jack also served the same role with Dee Gaeddert, his successor in the North American role and Francisco Moreno, his successor in the South American role.
If you need someone who can bring incredible connection to team, culture and strategy, then Jack is the guy!
Linda HymanI worked with Jack fairly intensively for eight years while he was at Korn Ferry, beginning in 2003 when I was the senior client partner of the firm in charge of the overall firm relationship with a major pharmaceutical company and Jack had joined to head up our Americas leadership consulting effort.
Given the (then) infancy of the practice particularly in the Americas, what was needed was someone to re-energize the effort; make the existing folks believe in themselves and each other to become more effective; and act as primarily an internal salesman with the executive search corps so that they would grant access to their clients.
Due to his previous global experience with the Chase Manhattan Bank; his leadership consulting background with Senn-Delaney; his natural relational skills and authenticity, the Americas effort enjoyed great success over the ensuing seven plus years Jack was with us. He would be the first to say he didn’t do this by himself but instead, created the environment in which his people could excel.
Revenue growth reached double-digits; client satisfaction was the highest in the firm; and employee morale and team cohesiveness soared. We added many new high caliber people during this seven/eight year period thus expanding our capability and footprint.
In addition to individual new hires, we also acquired two substantial leadership consulting firms during that period (Lominger International and Leadersource). Due to his relational and integrative strengths, we asked Jack to assume the lead on the day-to-day integration of these entities into the Korn/Ferry culture. Jack’s contribution to this critical initiative can’t be underestimated as these new entity product offerings very quickly became a staple of the Americas overall offering portfolio as the foundation of our core competitive differentiator.
Jack became a trusted advisor to me during this period and we still keep in contact to this day. His wisdom, experience, trustworthiness and passion to help others succeed and grow are the fundamental attributes that separate him from the “pack.” There is Jack and then there is everyone else!
Bob RosholtJack is a well seasoned professional focused on talent and how to develop winning teams. I have personally benefited from Jack’s straight-forward coaching style that reflects a genuine caring for the individual’s success and well-being. Jack uses his deep experience to provide a customized approach to team alignment, rather than the mass-customized approaches others may offer.
Specifically, Jack helped me solve specific issues I had with one of my teams, throwing out the boiler plate agenda and focusing on what I believed was important in the moment and for the team. Everyone who has worked with Jack finds him personally engaged, easy to work with in any setting and excelling at conflict resolution and problem solving that gets to the core of issue(s) for dysfunctional teams or leaders.
I have and would recommend Jack to help any firm tackle their talent and team development needs.
Jim HartJack is a unique combination of unfiltered honesty with tact and aplomb. He knows how to blend into a senior leadership team, become a trusted advisor without a hidden agenda. If you want one of those sticky senior leadership or organizational situations dealt with, while retaining and growing your best talent, then Jack possesses the experience, knowledge and capability to navigate the corporate world and get superior results. He truly maximizes the potential of each senior team leader, while building a collective team that performs beyond the sum of its individual parts (the “MacPhail” glue). When the leadership and organizational plumbing needs fixing, Jack’s the ideal man for the job.
Ken StevensJack and I began working together 12+ years ago in 1996. I was beginning a major business and organization realignment at the Banc One Retail Group. Jack was a member of the Senn-Delaney consulting team that we had hired. Given his prior experience at Chase Manhattan, Jack had instant credibility with my senior team and other Banc One employees.
However, what made Jack most effective in this assignment had very little to do with his professional background. Rather, it was Jack’s ability to create close personal relationships with individuals, combined with his insights and analytical abilities that helped us execute a successful realignment. When Banc One merged with First Chicago/NBD, Jack continued to be a respected champion of change as we attempted to combine two very different cultures. He always pushed us to delve more deeply into issues and create more lasting solutions.
In 2002 I once again called upon Jack and his Senn-Delaney colleagues to assist me in a new challenge in a very different industry, specialty retailing. At Bath and Body Works we were experimenting with a “co-leadership” model, pairing two new leaders in engineering a turnaround. Once again, Jack demonstrated an uncanny ability to quickly establish credibility with the management team in a very difficult situation.
Jack has a fundamental belief that virtually all business problems can be most effectively addressed through the appropriate level of investment in people-selection, development, feedback and intense attention to values and behaviors. His approach is very personal. He relates to all people (regardless of position or management level) with an extremely high level of integrity. Finally, the client’s agenda is Jack’s agenda. He approaches assignments with a sense of urgency and a focus on outcomes. I hope I will get to work with Jack again-every time I do, I learn something new.”
Tom CafaroJack worked very closely with my team and me, which consisted of the backbone of the college administrative and support staff, to align a disparate group around a set of principles and objectives key to the college’s success. He took all of us deeply into ourselves and how each of us affected the team dynamics and our chances for success. In the process, I learned a lot about how I have evolved as a leader.
Given my West Point and military background, I have been exposed to a good deal of leadership training and actual experience. Jack’s thorough knowledge of leadership issues, interactive learning processes and ability to communicate on a very personal level had an immediate and profound effect on the success of my team and indirectly on our entire institution. Several of my key directors told me that going through this experience with Jack literally changed their lives. Jack and I remain in contact as I am very comfortable in seeking his advice about issues of many kinds.
Werner BaumannI got to know Jack initially in 2000 when I had just transitioned into a new role as CFO for Bayer’s global Diagnostics Division. At that time, I faced two big challenges: Major post-integration restructuring/change management after the acquisition of Chiron Diagnostics, and my own challenge of moving into a significantly bigger and more complex management job.
Jack was a partner of Senn-Delaney, the firm which helped us with the major change management program. The program allowed us to develop our new post-integration culture in our joint Diagnostics business. Jack provided an ideal fit for the above requirements.
Jack is a very gifted people person. He quickly gains trust and access to people; understands how they tick; and is able to help both individuals and organizations change their behaviours as required. Besides being a person you really want to work with, he also brought the business experience I needed at the time to help me sort through my personnel and management issues.
The biggest contribution Jack made to me personally? He really helped me develop into a more rounded leader during the almost 15 months we worked intensively together. Looking back on the last ten years of further growth in my career, I believe it would have been very difficult to excel and perform at the same level without the learnings from Jack. He and I have kept good contact over the years and I continue to value his advice and support.
Bob HunterI have known Jack for 40+ years. I first met him when we recruited together at the Cornell business school (now the Johnson School) when I was the team leader and Jack was a young trainee. It was in the early 1970’s and we were aggressively picketed by a large group of militant anti-Vietnam War protesters. We required protection from the State Police to continue our recruiting. Jack’s sense of calm under those very tense circumstances (probably because he had already spent 18 months in Vietnam) and his knowledge of how things worked at Cornell truly saved the day and led to a number of superior hires. It was my first glimpse of a master communicator at work.
He subsequently worked for me as the Chase Manhattan Country Manager in Sweden when I was the bank’s Area Executive for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Through a combination of market orientation (he learned Swedish, became the President of the American Club of Sweden in Stockholm, befriended any number of Swedes and served as our team anchor in Scandinavia), he focused our team there on new sources of revenue (project financings, bigger ticket trade finance and sovereign financings) to the extent Sweden became one of our success stories in Chase Europe.
Jack then served as the Corporate Budget Director for the corporation, running the business planning process for the entire bank. This was (and is) a position that by its very nature tends to generate contention and disagreement. His success in this very difficult role, reporting to the senior most management of the bank, is in no small measure due to his superior understanding of how best to deal with people and the wide variety of personal motivations they bring to their roles. His skill in personal interaction in difficult situations is unequalled in my experience.
Bob McDonaldAs was typical in a large organization, Chase developed different businesses with different masters, always at loggerheads. That dynamic was alive and well until Jack MacPhail (and several colleagues in other Nordic countries) became the country manager in Sweden. Jack and I believed in open and full communication and that our competitors were other financial institutions, not ourselves. Dialogue led to ideas and a good understanding of what the competition intended. If I had half a story in London, Jack could usually fill in the details within a day or so. This gave Chase an enormous competitive advantage in a region in which Chase previously had limited success.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Chase dominated Swedish sovereign debt financings for over a decade to the eternal consternation of our competitors and surprise of the financial press. How did this communication model develop between us? Common sense, collegial behavior, a competitive desire to win and have some fun along the way drove this successful banking model. Shared Global Credit training helped us speak the same language and look at problem solving in a similar manner, but leadership traits go beyond classroom analytics. Jack became a respected leader in Sweden, amongst his peers, colleagues in the office, clients, competitors and more broadly within the Swedish community.
Our mutual success was driven from Jack’s Stockholm profile and portfolio of character traits that created the basis for our decade’s long success.
Mike UrkowitzJack was my Senior Vice President in charge of Treasury, Risk Management and Funding when I ran our InfoServ business, which was the wholesale information provision and transaction processing business of the Chase Manhattan Bank. He and I worked very closely together as he became my de facto chief of staff during those three years together. In that role, Jack ran the planning, budgeting, performance review, risk assessment/management and liquidity funds investing functions for the business. The business was substantial with 6000 associates spread across the world and became a pillar of the wholesale business of Chase.
We enjoyed significant growth during those years and Jack’s critical contribution was in a role never precisely defined, but recognized and respected by all. He acted very much as a critical “glue” to the organization, helping to bond the senior leadership team together during this challenging period. He became my alter ego and strengthened the morale and cohesiveness of our senior management team and the senior officer corps.
Jack’s unique contribution was enabled by his integrity and concern for people. These traits make him an excellent honest broker as he surfaced and helped resolve difficult issues in our hard-charging leadership team; and between our team and other organizations within Chase. He dealt very well with the intricacies of a highly matrixed organization, reporting dotted line to the chief financial and risk officers of the corporation and to the treasurer of the bank as well as me.
He is a people-oriented, seasoned professional who brings solid business focused orientation to his clients.