Jim Drury, a lion in the field of corporate board talent selection and recruitment, leads one of America’s foremost board advisory services firms, Chicago-based JamesDruryPartners. Retained by a third of the Fortune 100, his firm has successfully placed hundreds of America’s most accomplished executives onto the boards of the country’s largest public companies. In addition to generating thought-provoking intellectual capital such as “The Weight of America’s Boards,” Jim has revolutionized the field through his firm’s principal advisory service, BoardSelect®, a process that upends the traditional search model and enables CEOs and other top executives to proactively select the outside board they join.

Prior to founding JamesDruryPartners, Jim was Vice Chairman, Americas, and served on the board of Spencer Stuart – a leading global executive search firm. He is a past Board Director of the Association of Executive Search Consultants and a former member of the University of Chicago’s Booth School Advisory Council. Jim currently serves on the boards of several Chicago-area civic and professional organizations.
A renowned innovator and industry thought leader, Jim pioneered the development of two of the country’s most respected corporate governance conferences, Toward Common Ground at Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management, and The Directors' College at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. Jim earned his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and a BS in Engineering from the University of Notre Dame.

JamesDruryPartners, an elite board advisory services firm, offers a diverse array of board placement and recruitment solutions. JDP has advised more than 400 of the country’s top executives through BoardSelect®, the firm’s innovative board placement offering. In addition, JDP undertakes traditional director search/board recruitment engagements and is frequently retained to replace retiring directors, rejuvenate legacy boards, and assemble new boards for spinouts and IPOs. JDP also provides director assessments, administers board evaluations, and undertakes CEO search assignments on a selective basis.