Jude Rake

Jude Rake is the founding principal of JDR Growth Partners, a leadership consulting firm he launched to help family owners, boards, Chief Executives and their leadership teams achieve improved results and sustainable growth. He has advised and teamed with some of the most notable family owned enterprises.

"Jude has the strategic rigor we needed to reimagine our business model, and the operational expertise to help us execute ambitious new plans. Jude helped us apply just the right touch to get the most out of diverse stakeholders and teammates. In addition to improving our performance, we used his nine servant leadership principles to cultivate a higher level of trust in our organization."

- Tracy Tunney Ward, CEO at Miramar Services Inc.

Before founding JDR, Jude served in multiple C-level roles including CEO for eleven years. In each of these roles he built and led successful leadership teams that fueled significant improvements in workforce engagement, collaboration, accountability and results. He has been recognized for leadership, creativity and marketing excellence including Clio, Mobius, and Effie awards, and he received the Burnham award for innovation. He also was named a Top 100 Marketer twice by Advertising Age.

Jude has over 30 years of experience building businesses to create economic value, from well known consumer packaged goods companies such as Clorox, PepsiCo, and SC Johnson, to smaller family owned and private equity-backed businesses such as Fellowes and Recycled Paper Greetings. He has served on six Boards of Directors. Currently Jude is an independent board director at The Wall Family Enterprise in Madison, WI where he serves as Chair of the Compensation Committee. He also serves on the Board of Directors of A Safe Place, a center for the prevention of domestic violence in Lake County, Illinois. He is an active member of the Theta Chi Fraternity Alumni Board, the Advisory Council for the School of Civil Engineering at Purdue University, and the President’s Council at Purdue. Jude was recognized by Purdue University with an Alumni Achievement Award. He holds a Bachelors degree in Civil Engineering from Purdue, and he received an MBA from The Booth School of Business at The University of Chicago.

Jude is the author of The Bridge to Growth, How Servant Leaders Achieve Better Results, And Why It Matters Now More Than Ever, in which he provides a blueprint of nine proven leadership principles he used to improve the financial performance of several businesses by moving workforces from satisfactorily disengaged to enthusiastically committed to winning. It's packed with useful tools and tips, and each leadership principle is articulated using real-world success models that bring each principle to life.

"One of the best books I've read on leadership. If you want to raise your game by bringing out the best in others, do yourself a favor and read this book."

- Marshall Goldsmith, New York Times Best-selling author of What Got You Here Won't Get You There and Triggers

"In The Bridge to Growth, Jude Rake takes apart and examines strategy through the lens of servant leadership. His practical approach offers a clear eyed and accessible solution to first understanding and then overcoming a company’s obstacles to growth. The leader’s responsibility to be self aware, empowering of others and accountable are not new concepts– but Jude’s treatment is a breath of fresh air that leaders can intuitively understand and quickly adopt to create positive and sustainable change in themselves, their teams and their firms."

- Anne K. Smart, Director of The Family Business Center at The Quinlan School of Business, Loyola University Chicago

Jude connects with leaders at all levels of any organization, leveraging his blue-collar roots, his sports and coaching background, and his breadth of experience across a wide range of industries and corporate functions from factory line worker, engineer, and marketer to CEO and Board Director. He believes that leadership is both art and science, and that it can be learned. For four decades, Jude has been an eager student of leadership, and he has been fortunate to work with some outstanding leaders. His speeches, presentations, and workshops are dynamic, engaging and actionable.

Jude resides with his wife of 41 years, Kathy, in Libertyville, Illinois.