Jane Sommers-Kelly

Jane Sommers-Kelly, Executive Consultant with The Advisory Alliance, has advised Fortune 100 corporate leaders globally on talent issues for over 17 years. Her extensive experience analyzing drivers of profitability in business operations underpins her ability to provide effective, seasoned counsel.

From her years as a Wall Street finance professional with JPMorgan, Jane understands the reality of business. Having won the mandate to issue the first-ever Slovak crown bond, and co-creating in 2001 the first mobile-enabled learning course, Jane knows the challenges of executing a first-to-market strategy. Having grown revenue in INSEAD’s Euro 30MM Custom business by 10% per year for three years running, Jane knows the myriad leadership skills that are necessary to run a business within a worldwide organization with diverse stakeholders.

Jane won and retained $3 MM/year of client business at Duke, with one client CEO’s noting he chose Duke because Jane’s “leadership, guidance and insight… would be there to personally shepherd us through.” Jane’s clients value her positive pragmatism and best-practice advice, so much so that her clients helped Duke CE win Financial Times’ #1 global ranking among all custom providers for 7 of her 9 years at the firm.

Jane succeeds in having her executive coaching clients address underlying issues at the intersection of their business and leadership challenges. Examples include:

Country General Managers new to their role and country: Managing large operations and budgets in excess of $100MM, the GMs worked with Jane to develop their strategic acumen to advance the existing top teams’ knowledge, while co-leading successful change management initiatives in their respective S. American and N. African countries.

High Potential global Head of Product for a software security firm: Business challenges included the integration of five newly acquired portfolio companies and their leadership into the Head’s decision making practices. Outcomes included “a much more productive way of communicating with them…which allowed me to focus on our 5-yr strategy.” The Head became an Executive Board Member as well.

With half her life spent outside the USA (France, Czech Republic), Jane has developed a global perspective on leadership, which benefits her clients. Jane is an INSEAD MBA graduate, and holds a summa-cum laude BA from UNC-Chapel Hill, where she was a Morehead Scholar.