Jane Kirkland is the founder of Kirkland Partners, a consulting firm that works with large corporations and private equity firms in the areas of business strategy, knowledge management, and corporate learning. Kirkland Partners helps senior executive teams grapple with high-priority strategic issues and develop critical thinking skills in the next generation of leaders within their organizations.
Prior to launching Kirkland Partners, Jane was a member of the executive team that took FreeMarkets public. She served first as Vice President and Chief Information Officer and then as Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer.
Before joining FreeMarkets, Jane spent eleven years at McKinsey and Company. She was a partner in McKinsey’s Cleveland/Pittsburgh Office where she served both financial institutions and industrial companies. Subsequently, she served as McKinsey’s Director of Knowledge Management. In this role, Jane was responsible for McKinsey’s knowledge management technology platform and its community of over 600 knowledge management professionals in over 35 countries. Throughout her career at McKinsey, Jane was active in both the Strategy Practice and the Financial Institutions Practice.
Prior to joining McKinsey, Jane was a Senior Software Engineer at Lockheed Sanders where she worked on defense electronics systems.
Jane graduated from Smith College cum laude with High Honors in English. She also holds an M.A.T. in English from Brown University and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Jane received her MBA with Highest Distinction from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College where she was a first-year Tuck Scholar. Jane has served on the MBA Advisory Board at Tuck and is currently Chair of the Carnegie Science Center Board. She is also ono the Board of Trustees Executive Committee at the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh where she was recently named a Life Trustee.
Jane is also a co-author of one of Harvard Business Review’s most popular articles, “Strategy Under Uncertainty”: http://hbr.org/1997/11/strategy-under-uncertainty/ar/1
Off the Clock:
Jane chairs the Carnegie Science Center Board:
and is a loyal member of the Pittsburgh Rowing Club:
http://www.pittsburghrowingclub.com/