Constance Dierickx

Constance Dierickx helps boards and senior executives with high-stakes decisions and in crisis. She has worked with over 500 executives and more than 30 boards in 20 countries on 5 continents. Clients include Fortune 50 companies, high-tech start-ups, privately-owned, family-owned businesses, medical institutions, government agencies and not-for-profit organizations.

Early in her career at a major Wall Street firm, she observed irrational decision making in both clients and colleagues, sometimes leading to devastating loss. Her curiosity about what led even smart people to make poor decisions led her to study psychology and decision science and earn a PhD. Her research includes study of governance, chief executive transitions, mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, behavior change and public health.

Constance is a contributor to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Chief Executive, Corporate Board Member and has been interviewed for The Wall Street Journal and numerous podcasts. The National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) calls her an expert in mergers and acquisitions and crisis. The author of two books, High Stakes Leadership: Leading and Succeeding Through Courage, Judgment, and Fortitude and The Merger Mindset, she is also a partner in The Board Mindset, a firm specializing in work with boards of directors in the US and Canada.

Constance is a frequent speaker on leadership and decision-making, especially the effect of unconscious cognitive biases that lead even smart people, astray. She teaches on the topics of governance, M&A, and strategic decision-making for clients, professional associations, and at Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow, Russia.

She chairs the board of The Partnership Against Domestic Violence, is chair of the Governance Committee of the Board of Trustees of Mary Baldwin University, and the Advisory Board of Executive Women of Goizueta (Emory University) and is Past-President of OnBoard.

Constance and her husband, Michael live in Atlanta, GA and are the parents to two adult daughters. They are enthusiastic travelers, having been to countries from Australia to Turkey. Constance is an avid amateur chef and maintains an inexplicable interest in boxing.