Heidrick & Struggles Assists Davidson College with the Recruitment of Inaugural Chief Career Officer
April 25, 2025 – Academic institutions continue to pump big fees into executive search firms nationwide. Many academic recruiting specialists say business, in fact, has never been better despite some sectors of executive search slowing over the past year. Even smaller recruiting outfits have multiple assignments running concurrently, all at the senior levels, and if there’s any slowdown coming it is to be found at the talent identification stage. With so much activity, it seems, talent demand is far outstripping the supply. The hunt for interim academic leadership is also picking up pace. In recent months, a number of top schools have announced they are looking for new, high profile leaders to take them into new eras of fundraising, digitalization, sports and, in some cases, globalization. This has kept executive search firms busy.
Executive search, leadership consulting, and culture shaping services provider Heidrick & Struggles recently assisted Davidson College in the recruitment of Mike Summers as chief career officer and executive director of the Betty and B. Frank Matthews II Center for Career Development. “Mike is a proven leader who will help ensure that our graduates are prepared for jobs that did not exist when they enrolled or for continued education that opens up even more fields where they can make a difference,” said Doug Hicks, president of Davidson College. “He will help leverage the powerful mix of students’ exploration and self-reflection in the classroom, their intensive experiences across internships and global projects and our extensive alumni network to build robust pathways for their leadership and service in the world.”
Mr. Summers will be the first career center leader to carry the chief career officer title at Davidson, reflecting the college-wide role for career development and networking with employers in the Charlotte region and beyond, alums, parents and friends of the college. The college partnered with Heidrick and Struggles to identify the inaugural holder of that title.
Mr. Summer is a veteran leader in career guidance and executive search across the higher education and corporate worlds. He comes to Davidson after eight years at Lafayette College, where he is associate vice president and leads the Gateway Career Center. He restructured and expanded that office to focus on the center’s four-year career development program, a valuable parallel to the Matthews Center’s emphasis on students engaging with career programs starting in their first semester on campus.
Prior to Lafayette, Mr. Summers led employer relations for the college and School of Business at Wake Forest University. He also spent eight years in executive search consulting, beginning with a focus in the biotechnology and pharmaceuticals industries. His career began in sales and as an account manager with eye health company Bausch & Lomb.
“Davidson ensures that students get more than career advice,” Mr. Summers said. “The college provides and continues to build out a learning-for-life program. I’m excited to join a team that supports students from all directions: career planning and guidance, employer connections and engagement and extraordinary help from alumni.”
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Davidson College is a private liberal arts college. It was established in 1837 by the Concord Presbytery and named after Revolutionary War general William Lee Davidson, who was killed at the nearby Battle of Cowan’s Ford. It is a four-year undergraduate institution and enrolls 1,973 students from 50 states and territories, Washington, D.C., and 46 countries.
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The Matthews Center provides career planning, advising and workshops for professionalization and skill development and recruiting programs across a wide range of fields and graduate programs. The Matthews Center’s career fairs have drawn a 200 percent increase in student attendance over the past three years.
Serving a Wide Range of Institutions
Chicago-based Heidrick & Struggles’ education and social enterprise practice provides advice and counsel to a wide range of institutions. Its areas of specialization include associations, culture and arts, education markets, foundations and philanthropy, government and policy, higher education, non-governmental organizations, and both public and private schools. Twenty-one percent of the placements the practice recruited over the past four years moved across country borders or global regions, said the firm.
The practice’s higher education specialty team conducts searches for public and private colleges and universities, including system head, chancellor, president, vice chancellor, vice president, provost, vice provost and deans, as well as functional roles such as chief financial officer, chief information officer, vice president of human resources, vice president of advancement and general counsel.
Related: Academic Sector Pumping Big Fees Into Search Firms
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
