Sara Spiering

Partner; Regional Managing Partner, Industrial Practice, Americas Heidrick & Struggles

Last Reviewed: September 18, 2026

Executive Summary

Sara Spiering is a Partner in the Chicago office of Heidrick & Struggles, Regional Managing Partner of the firm’s Industrial Practice for the Americas, and a partner in its global Board and Chief Executive Officer practice. She has placed more than 300 executives on corporate boards, mostly at industrial companies — a volume that makes her one of the more prolific board recruiters in that sector. She came to search from an unusual direction, having trained as a journalist at Medill and then practised management-side employment law and commercial litigation before joining Heidrick & Struggles in 2009. Both halves of that background show in the work: employment law is, at bottom, the law of who holds which job on what terms, and board recruitment is the same question at the top of the organisation.

Career Highlights

• Has placed more than 300 executives on corporate boards, primarily for industrial companies.
• Regional Managing Partner of Heidrick & Struggles’ Industrial Practice for the Americas, based in Chicago.
• Partner in the firm’s global Board and Chief Executive Officer practice, focused on board succession planning and director recruitment.
• Previously led Heidrick & Struggles’ global Diversified Services Sector.
• Works across supply chain and operations officer searches and diversity board recruiting.
• Practised management-focused employment law and commercial litigation at DeWitt Ross & Stevens before joining the firm in 2009.
• Articles Editor of the Law Review at the University of Wisconsin School of Law.
• Board member of the American Red Cross of Illinois, founding member of Chief, and a member of the Chicago Children’s Choir Ambassadors Board.

Professional Journey

Spiering read journalism at Northwestern’s Medill School and then went to law school at the University of Wisconsin, where she served as Articles Editor of the Law Review. Her legal career was spent at DeWitt Ross & Stevens practising management-focused employment law and commercial litigation — representing employers rather than employees, which puts a lawyer in constant proximity to how senior people are hired, evaluated, retained and removed.

She joined Heidrick & Struggles in 2009 and has built her practice there ever since. Her specialism settled on the intersection of two things the firm treats separately: industrial companies, and boards. Placing directors at industrial businesses is a particular discipline, because the candidate pool is constrained by operating experience that cannot be faked — plants, supply chains, safety records, capital cycles — and because industrial boards have been under sustained pressure to add technological and supply chain fluency without losing that operating depth. More than 300 board placements is the accumulated result.

Within the firm she has held wider leadership as well, having led the global Diversified Services Sector before taking on the Industrial Practice for the Americas as Regional Managing Partner. She also sits in the global Board and Chief Executive Officer practice, which handles chief executive succession and non-executive director recruitment across sectors, and her work includes supply chain and operations officer searches and diversity board recruiting.

Outside the firm she is a founding member of Chief, the private network for women in senior executive roles, serves on the board of the American Red Cross of Illinois and on the Chicago Children’s Choir Ambassadors Board, and was formerly a member of the International Women’s Forum.

Education

University of Wisconsin School of Law

JD; Articles Editor, Law Review

Northwestern University, Medill School of Journalism

BA, Journalism