Catherine Zhu

Catherine Zhu, based in Toronto, is Egon Zehnder’s Global Head of Sustainability Practice. She is a trusted advisor to boards, entrepreneurial CEOs and family business owners on their critical leadership decisions. Catherine brings deep multi-regional business expertise to her clients, providing talent and governance advice to firms operating on the global stage. She is the former Co-Head of Egon Zehnder’s Greater China Practice and was Managing Partner in Hong Kong until 2019.

If the higher purpose of great leaders is to serve humanity, then the Purpose of our Practice should be to discover, develop and enable leaders on our collective journey towards Sustainable Growth.

A thought partner in CEO Succession, Board Diversity, and Sustainability, Catherine has partnered with founders of technology companies in Asia, North America and Europe to attract and develop their top leadership teams. Prior to joining Egon Zehnder, Catherine was a Managing Director at Electronic Data Systems (EDS). Earlier in her career she held leadership roles with Motorola, Nortel, and Yum! Brands.

Catherine earned an MBA from the University of Toronto and a BA from Zhejiang University in China. She served on the Board of Save the Children (Hong Kong) for five years. She is currently a Trustee of The Commons Project, a New York based global public trust for health data sharing. She is also a mentor for Creative Destructive Lab, a nonprofit organization that shares founders’ ambition and scales early stage, science & technology based companies.