Sheila Penrose is President of S. A. Penrose Advisors, and a trusted advisor to CEOs and C-Suite executives. She acts as Executive Advisor to BCG’s CEO Practice and as Mentor at ExCo Leadership. She has extensive experience in board dynamics, stakeholder management, CEO succession, talent and team-building, strategic M&A, capital allocation, and sustainability.
Sheila served as Chairman of JLL Inc. and as Director of McDonald’s Corp, chairing the Sustainability Committee. She has served as an independent director for global companies in the specialty chemicals, secure identity, financial systems, restaurant, and real estate services industries.
As Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of Corporate Leadership Center, Sheila partners with major companies to augment and accelerate the leadership development of their senior executives through the CEO Perspectives and Leading Women Executives programs.
A regular speaker at the World Economic Forum and a member of its Community of Corporate Chairmen, Sheila served as an advisor on WEF’s Global Parity initiative. A founding member of the US 30% Club and on the Advisory Board of Catalyst, Sheila has been a strong advocate of advancing women in business.
In her executive career, Sheila was President of Northern Trust’s Global Corporate Bank, the first and only woman on the company’s Management Committee for seven years. Previously in the UK, she was Economic Advisor at the British Treasury.
In addition to her business roles, Sheila serves on several non-profit boards in healthcare, science, and education.
With a degree in economics and a post-graduate diploma in education from the University of Birmingham in England, and a master’s degree from the London School of Economics, Sheila attended the Executive Program at Stanford Graduate School of Business. She later served on the Advisory Boards at Stanford GSB and LSE.
Sheila is a recipient of numerous awards, including Chicago Business Hall of Fame and Women on Boards; she was also a finalist for NYSE’s Chairman of the Year.