Using the strategies and tools outlined in Career Mapping, Virginia “Ginny” Clarke realized that she was ready to make a bold move in her own career. In March 2009 she chose to leave her role as a partner and the leader of the global diversity practice at Spencer Stuart, one of the world’s largest senior-level executive search firms. Committed to helping companies and individuals in these uncertain times she launched her business, providing talent management and career expertise. Through her firm, Talent Optimization Partners, LLC, Clarke provides corporate consulting and executive coaching services. She is a sought after speaker at professional gatherings, colleges and universities, and has been featured on numerous radio and television broadcasts.
During her 12-year tenure at Spencer Stuart, Clarke successfully recruited professionals in a variety of senior-level functions, including general management, finance, human resources, and marketing, as a member of the firm’s financial services and financial officer practices. In her leadership of the diversity practice, Clarke worked with global clients to customize diversity recruitment and retention strategies. She also oversaw the firm’s efforts to provide clients with diverse slates of candidates through knowledge management and by embedding diversity and inclusion into the firm’s culture and infrastructure.
Prior to joining Spencer Stuart, Clarke spent several years in banking and 10 years in the real estate investment management business with Jones Lang LaSalle (formerly LaSalle Partners) and Prudential Real Estate Investors. Her activities included asset management, portfolio management, capital raising, and client servicing. She received her bachelor of arts degree from the University of California, Davis in 1980 and served as a recruiter for the school after graduating. Clarke received her M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in 1984. In April 2009 she received a Kellogg Alumni Service Award. She serves on the boards of Medical Properties Trust in Birmingham, Alabama (NYSE: MPW) and the Chicago Sinfonietta, the nation’s most diverse symphony orchestra. Mother to a teenage son, Julian, and married to Thomas McElroy II, California native Clarke is a longtime resident of Chicago.
Co-author Echo Montgomery Garrett is a journalist with 25 years’ experience and author of several books, including most recently Why Don’t They Just Get a Job? One Couple’s Mission to End Poverty in Their Community (aha! Process, 2010) and My Orange Duffel Bag: A Journey to Radical Change (Operation Orange Media, 2010), which was the November 2010 book selection of the Pulpwood Queens, the largest book club in the nation. Her first book was the well-reviewed How To Make a Buck and Still Be a Decent Human Being: A Week with Rick Rose at Dataflex (HarperBusiness, 1993). She also ghostwrote Tales from the Top: Ten Crucial Questions from the World’s #1 Executive (Nelson Business, 2005). Her first business book received glowing write-ups in the Wall Street Journal, Inc., Publisher’s Weekly, and several other publications on management issues. Tales from the Top was a summer read pick in the Harvard Business Review Online and was excerpted and well-reviewed in many publications for corporate leaders and human resource managers. After her selection from a field of 25 writers, Echo wrote Dream No Little Dreams: How Clay Mathile transformed The Iams Company into the leader of the pack in the world of pet nutrition, the authorized biography of Clayton L. Mathile, former CEO/chairman of The Iams Company.
Formerly an editor at McCall’s and Venture magazines, and formerly a contributing writer for Money, BusinessWeek, Management Review, Investor’s Business Daily, and The Atlanta Business Chronicle, Garrett has been published in more than 75 national magazines, newspapers, and websites, including Parade, INC. Magazine, The New York Times, Delta Sky, Chief Executive, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, and Abcnews.com. She has been interviewed on Good Morning America, CNBC, CNN, and NY-1. She served as editor in chief of Atlanta Woman magazine. Her first issue took the gold for Best Single Issue out of 300 entrants at the 2005 GAMMA awards sponsored by the Magazine Association of the Southeast. The Auburn University graduate is a member of the Authors Guild, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the National Federation of Press Women, Atlanta Press Club, the Buckhead Club, and the Buckhead Business Association 2009 Leadership Class. Married to professional photographer Kevin Garrett and mother to two sons, Echo is co-founder and president of the Orange Duffel Bag Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for homeless youth and those aging out of foster care.