Based in Chicago, Edilson Camara is Egon Zehnder’s Chief Executive Officer. Drawing on his deep experience in natural resources and heavy industry, he is an expert on mining & metals and other resource sectors. Ed provides board consulting, executive search and leadership assessment services to global, local, and family-owned companies.
I feel privileged to help clients succeed, deploying my sector expertise and judgment on senior leadership issues, honed by over two decades at Egon Zehnder.
Ed joined Egon Zehnder in 1999, working with industrial clients in our São Paulo office before moving to Rio de Janeiro to open Egon Zehnder’s first office there. He then advanced to become the leader of the Brazilian practice while growing it to become the Firm’s most profitable worldwide. Ed was appointed to the Executive Committee in 2009 and later also joined the Finance Committee. Before moving to Chicago in August 2019, he was based in the Toronto office where he led the Canadian practice’s three offices from 2013-2019, doubling the Firm’s size in that country.
Prior to joining Egon Zehnder, Ed was the Strategic Planning Manager, Treasurer, and Assistant to the CEO at Holcim, a leading global construction materials group. In those roles he led corporate functions across Latin America, including strategic planning, finance, and marketing while being based in Brazil and Switzerland. Ed began his career as a business analyst at Exxon Chemical in Brazil, subsequently holding a range of corporate and client-facing responsibilities in Exxon’s downstream operations.
Ed earned a BSc in economics from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and an MBA from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland. In his private life, he enjoys listening to and playing rock music and is keenly interested in geopolitics and development economics. He and his wife have two adult children.
