Stephen A. Miles is an author and consultant to CEOs and corporate boards of directors. He is currently the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Miles Group, and is a director at CDK Global, where he serves as a member of the Compensation and Nominating & Governance Committees. Previously, he was a Vice Chairman at Heidrick & Struggles where he ran Leadership Advisory Services and was a member of both the Global CEO and Board Practice, and the firm’s management committee.
Background
Miles was born in Nairobi and lived a somewhat “nomadic” childhood in places such as South Africa, Iraq, Argentina and Canada. Driven by the study of human psychology, Miles received his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and a Masters in Psychology from the University of Victoria. After working as a social worker counseling maximum-security inmates at the Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario, Miles turned his focus to management and leadership, receiving his Masters in Business Administration from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Upon receiving his MBA, Miles worked for about a year as a consultant at Anderson Consulting before he arrived at Heidrick & Struggles in 1999. After arriving at Heidrick & Struggles as a research analyst, Miles moved on to become a vice chairman and run Leadership Advisory Services within the Leadership Consulting Practice, overseeing the firm’s worldwide executive assessment/succession planning activities.
Career
Miles' research centers on CEO succession and leadership. Using the 360 degree evaluation process, Miles has helped companies such as BHP Billiton, Nokia, Best Buy, and Adobe assess their internal leadership capacity and develop emerging leaders within each company. Miles was mentioned in a 2018 Business Week article as the executive coach of Snap, Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel, and is credited with helping Snap move from a "hub-and spoke" to a "distributed" model of leadership. Miles was featured in , Snap, Inc., in which he recounts his work with CEO Evan Spiegel. Marshall Goldsmith, noted that Miles is “near the top, especially given his age, probably has a broader knowledge base than ." In November 2010, Business Week magazine published a feature article on Miles, calling him the “rising star of CEO consulting” and “the CEO whisperer” and highlighting the successful work he has done in the area of CEO and executive coaching. Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe Systems has described Miles as “wicked smart,” while Marius Kloppers, CEO of BHP Billiton, has described him as “fearless in a soft but determined sense.” Miles and Stanford University Graduate School of Business Professor David F. Larcker have collaborated on a Stanford Graduate School of Business case study on CEO succession planning, entitled “Multimillionaire Matchmaker.” In a 2010 research study, they found that 51% of companies could not name a CEO successor today, if needed. Miles and Larcker continued this thread of research in 2011, to examine whether active CEOs make the best board members. They found evidence to suggest that while active CEOs bring prestige to a board, they are often not the best choice because they are commonly too busy with their own businesses to be a fully effective director. Stephen launched “C-Suite Intelligence,” a podcast for senior executives in 2019. Aimed at helping leaders continuously up their game amidst complex business environments the podcast reveals the secrets of highest performers, and encourages listeners to leverage this intelligence to power their careers. In 2012 Miles was invited back to his alma mater of Queen’s University to deliver the convocation address to the 2012 graduating MBA class. He used this opportunity to pay homage to a university that was so important in his life, and to share lessons with graduates on the importance of finding the three mentors that will matter during the course of their careers as well as other steps they should take to develop their leadership abilities. Miles’ 2006 book, Riding Shotgun: The Role of the Chief Operating Officer, was featured in the Harvard Business Review as one of the first in-depth studies of the COO’s role within a corporation and how the role can successfully intersect with that of the CEO. He is a regular contributor to the Management Blog at Bloomberg Businessweek, and is quoted regularly about succession planning and leadership issues in the press.
