Joe Mazzenga

Joe Mazzenga has a strong history as a consultant in building effective executive teams through leadership development and assessment; executive team performance; talent management; succession planning; and talent alignment amid organizational and cultural change.   His experience in helping Fortune 500 clients optimize their leadership and talent dovetails with Furst Group’s strategic talent management work in addition to its core of executive search.   Mazzenga has more than 25 years of experience in leadership development and strategy implementation. He has focused much of his talent in the healthcare sector, with clients including the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Advocate Healthcare, and Northwestern Memorial Faculty Foundation.   He has served as an executive consultant and coach to board members, physician chairs and C-suite executives on matters pertaining to board relations, leadership development, talent management, and enterprise-wide change. He has taught on change management at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.   Mazzenga was most recently with Aon Hewitt as Senior Vice President and Regional Practice Leader for their Central West region. In this role, he was responsible for business development, innovation and business results across the Talent and Rewards Practice. Clients included Hanover Insurance, NASDAQ, and Bank of America.   Prior to joining Aon, he was founder and principal partner of Whetstone, Inc., where he was lead consultant and strategist for a variety of clients in the United States and Europe, including Kao Brands-Jergens, Accenture, AAA Motor Club, Allstate, Motorola, Fireman’s Fund Insurance, Combined Insurance and Sprint.   Mazzenga also developed and led a multi-disciplinary, multi-practitioner psychotherapy practice for 17 years and was on staff with three Chicago-area hospitals. He earned a bachelor’s degree in human resources and organizational development from Trinity International University in Illinois as well as a master’s degree in social work and counseling psychology from George Williams College in Illinois.