Cathy Anterasian leads CEO Succession Services for Spencer Stuart in North America. She is an active member of the North American Board and CEO practices. Previously, she launched and co-led Spencer Stuart’s global Executive Assessment Services practice.

Expertise in succession, assessment and executive search

  • With more than 25 years of experience in succession planning, assessment, executive search and strategy consulting, Cathy advises boards and chief executive officers on the capabilities and potential of their teams, as well as the development of strategies and plans to prepare executives for CEO succession and other C-suite roles.
  • Cathy has partnered with numerous boards and CEOs of Fortune 500, mid-cap and privately held companies to ensure that successful leadership development, selection and transition occur. She has engaged with clients globally across financial services, life sciences, industrial, technology, retail and consumer sectors.
  • Through her consultative approach, and backed by rigorous evaluation and benchmarking, she helps organizations align their talent and succession strategies with their broader strategic and business goals.
  • Cathy is an active contributor to the firm’s thought leadership on the fundamentals that drive executive performance and how to cultivate these traits in leaders, as well as to the firm’s perspective on best practices in CEO succession planning. She also applies her leadership expertise to CEO, executive and director recruitment. Her work has won her the firm's Lou Rieger Quality Award on three separate occasions.

Earlier, Cathy was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. Prior to her consulting career, she was a professor of marketing at the University of Southern California and a systems engineer with IBM. She holds a Ph.D. in marketing from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a B.A., Phi Beta Kappa, in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Practice Areas