Throughout her career spanning almost three decades, Jane-Scott Cantus has been advancing the strategic growth of innovation-led corporations in multiple industries such as aerospace/defense, cyber, financial services, media/new media/social media, healthcare, industrial/manufacturing, smart city and transportation and with professional and technical services firms.
For Boards, she employs proprietary methodologies that successfully transform the tactical, somewhat compliant Board into a high-functioning, value-add strategic Board. Her approach ensures alignment of Investors/Owners, Board and Management around Strategy-Culture-Organizational Design and Development, and Board composition embodying the requisite strategic and technical competencies and cultural fit for her client to achieve its long-term goals.
At the corporate C-suite level, she partners with executive teams to refine and implement vision-mission-values and strategic culture initiatives and to develop long-term corporate strategies. She has a particular expertise in developing senior executive talent strategies including succession planning and has personally recruited over 100 high-performing executives to Board, CEO and CXO positions and completed over 250 recruitments for her clients.
She advises private equity/venture capital firms and investors on selection and operational management of their portfolio companies and has served in interim C-suite positions at portfolio companies to implement re-branding, growth and turnaround strategies. She serves on the faculty of emerging technology accelerators, including Mach37 (cyber) and Smart City Works (energy, infrastructure, transportation) among others.
As a Fellow at the Institute for Business in Society at the University of Virginia (UVA) Darden School of Business, Ms. Cantus examines the relationship between C-suite executives and stakeholders, including the Board, investors, employees and external constituencies. She focuses on determining the impact of corporate strategic decisions on these stakeholders and the impact they in turn, have on the C-suite’s corporate strategic decision-making.
Over the course of her career, she has held management positions in corporate strategy, operations, marketing/business development, and program management at Bechtel Corporation, Lockheed-Martin Corporation, Morgan Stanley & Company and Fiduciary Trust International. She opened and managed the Virginia office of CTPartners and helped launch the technology and venture capital practices and the Virginia office of Korn/Ferry International.
Today, Ms. Cantus is the Managing Principal, Strategic Services and General Counsel of The ILEX Group, a veteran-owned small business providing strategic communications, government relations and lobbying services to a range of organizations from Fortune 500 corporations to start-up companies in the aerospace/defense, energy, industrial, technologies and transportation arenas. Concurrently, she serves as Principal Member of ILEX Leadership Associates, LLC, a woman-owned small business registered to do business with the federal government and the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Ms. Cantus is honored to serve on the National Advisory Council of PenFed Foundation since 2009. She was appointed by Virginia Governor Warner and re-appointed by Governor Kaine to the Virginia Small Business Financing Authority and by Governor McDonnell to the Virginia Small Business Commission. She serves on the Board of Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce and is involved in leadership positions at numerous other business and professional organizations.
Ms. Cantus earned her B.A. from Duke University, her MBA from UVA Darden School of Business, and her J.D. from The George Washington University Law School. She is a member of the Virginia State Bar.