Ed Keller

Chief Marketing Officer and Partner L.E.K. Consulting

Last Reviewed: September 18, 2026

Executive Summary

Ed Keller is Chief Marketing Officer and a Partner in the Chicago office of L.E.K. Consulting, the global strategy consulting firm. His career has an unusual shape for a professional-services marketer: he began in classical consumer branding and advertising, at Leo Burnett, Landor Associates and Sears, and only later moved into marketing firms that sell expertise rather than products. That sequence — packaged goods and retail brand discipline first, professional services second — is what L.E.K. emphasises about him, and it distinguishes him from marketers who have spent an entire career inside consultancies. He arrived at L.E.K. after leading marketing at Navigant Consulting through its 2019 acquisition by Guidehouse. L.E.K. lists his capability area as Sustainability, which places him closer to the firm’s advisory content than a purely brand-facing CMO would sit.

Career Highlights

• Chief Marketing Officer and a Partner in the Chicago office of L.E.K. Consulting, with over 30 years in marketing and professional services.
• Listed by the firm with Sustainability as his capability area, tying the marketing function to L.E.K.’s substantive advisory work.
• Chief Marketing Officer of Navigant Consulting, leading its marketing function through the firm’s 2019 acquisition by Guidehouse.
• Head of Integrated Marketing at Grant Thornton LLP, running marketing strategy and execution across industries and regions.
• Senior marketing roles at Landor Associates and Leo Burnett, two of the best-known names in brand strategy and advertising.
• Retail brand marketing at Sears, Roebuck & Co.

Professional Journey

Keller’s career started on the agency and brand side rather than in professional services. At Leo Burnett he worked in advertising and at Landor Associates in branding strategy and design — the two disciplines that sit either side of a brand’s identity, one building the message and the other building the mark. He also held a marketing role at Sears, Roebuck & Co., giving him client-side retail experience alongside the agency work. This is the “classical consumer branding” grounding that L.E.K.’s own description of him leads with.

The move into professional services came with Grant Thornton LLP, where as Head of Integrated Marketing he was responsible for marketing strategy and execution across the firm’s industries and regions. Marketing an audit and advisory firm is a materially different problem from marketing a consumer brand: the product is people and judgement, the buying cycle is long and relationship-driven, and the brand has to carry credibility rather than affection. Keller has spent the second half of his career on that problem.

He then became Chief Marketing Officer of Navigant Consulting, the specialist consulting firm, and led its marketing through the 2019 transaction in which Guidehouse acquired the business — a period in which the marketing function has to hold a brand’s meaning steady while its ownership and name change underneath it.

At L.E.K. Consulting he is Chief Marketing Officer and a Partner based in Chicago. Partner status is worth noting: in a strategy firm it signals that the marketing chief sits inside the partnership rather than alongside it as a staff function. The firm lists Sustainability as his capability area, which suggests involvement in the substance of L.E.K.’s advisory practice and not solely in its promotion.

Education

Rice University

Bachelor of Arts

Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University

MBA