The American Council on Education (ACE) has announced that Faith Montgomery, Senior Vice President and Managing Director at Lindauer, has been appointed Co-Chair of the Executive Search Roundtable (ESR) for the 2025–2026 term. She will serve in this leadership role alongside Dr. Liliana Rodríguez, Vice President and Managing Director at Greenwood Asher & Associates.
ACE, the nation’s most influential higher education association, is widely regarded as a critical resource for higher education leaders. The organization conducts research, provides policy insights, and convenes presidents and senior leaders to discuss trends, challenges, and solutions shaping the sector. The Executive Search Roundtable, established in partnership with ACE, is a collaborative forum for executive search professionals who support leadership recruitment at the presidential and C-suite levels.
Montgomery brings deep experience in executive recruitment and leadership development to the ESR. At Lindauer, she leads searches that have placed transformational leaders in higher education and the nonprofit sector. Her work reflects a longstanding commitment to advancing leadership excellence and diversity across institutions.
“The Executive Search Roundtable plays a crucial role in informing best practices, driving innovation, and ensuring transparency in the search profession,” said Montgomery. “As co-chair, I am honored to join Dr. Rodríguez in helping to shape meaningful conversations about the future of leadership in higher education. This includes addressing pressing topics such as the use of AI in recruitment, evolving search standards, and how our industry can best support leaders navigating presidential and C-suite searches.”
The Executive Search Roundtable provides a platform for executive search professionals to share market insights, collaborate on research, and strengthen approaches to recruiting and stewarding leadership talent. Through industry-wide programming, research initiatives, and an annual conference supported by ACE, the ESR advances knowledge-sharing and professional growth across the field.
“We’re grateful to have Faith stepping into this role,” said Jesse O’Connell, Chief Advancement Officer at the American Council on Education. “Her deep experience in executive recruitment and her dedication to fostering meaningful conversations about leadership will be an asset to the Executive Search Roundtable and the broader higher education community.”
Montgomery and Rodríguez’s leadership at the ESR will build on a tradition of collaboration while reinforcing the Roundtable’s role as a source of knowledge, trends, and best practices for firms and institutions alike.