JDG Associates Tapped by Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute to Find New Leader
June 17, 2026 – Rockville, MD-based executive search firm JDG Associates has been retained by the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI) to lead its search for a new president and CEO. The Chicago-based institute, the leading technical institute and trade association for the precast, prestressed concrete industry in North America, seeks a visionary and collaborative executive to succeed its long-serving chief executive, Bob Risser, who is retiring.
Reporting to the board of directors through the executive committee, the new CEO will direct all aspects of the institute’s operations, programs, finances, and business affairs, serving as the principal liaison between PCI’s volunteer leadership and its professional staff. The incoming leader inherits an organization at the strongest point in its 70-year history, with record financial reserves, the industry’s first precast concrete building code now referenced in the International Building Code, a deeply collaborative staff culture, and an updated strategic plan that will provide a clear roadmap for the organization’s future.
This is a stewardship-and-growth mandate, not an organizational turnaround, according to JDG Associates. The CEO will be the visible, engaged face of a uniquely collaborative community in which competitors, producers, engineers, academics, and suppliers work side by side to advance an industry generating more than $7 billion in annual sales. Success will require a relationship-driven leader who can earn credibility among engineers on organizational committees and producers on the plant floor alike. Someone who can build on PCI’s stable foundation and position the institute and its members ahead of industry shifts in consolidation, sustainability, workforce development, and artificial intelligence.
To fulfill this mandate, the search calls for three core capabilities. First, the next CEO must be an effective external champion and chief spokesperson, strengthening strategic partnerships with allied organizations, government agencies, code bodies, and academic institutions, and visibly engaging members in their plants and communities.
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Second, this leader must be a trusted internal figure and culture steward, leading, developing, and retaining a high-performing professional staff while preserving the collaborative, inclusive and supportive culture the board regards as a defining organizational asset, according to JDG Associates. Third, and equally important, is governance: the next CEO must partner closely with the board and executive committee to execute PCI’s strategic vision and guide the modernization of board and committee structures for a membership base facing consolidation.
Technical Institute and Trade Association
Founded in 1954, PCI is both a technical institute and a trade association. As a technical institute, it develops, maintains, and disseminates the industry’s body of knowledge, including standards, design manuals, the peer-reviewed PCI Journal, and research, and serves as an ANSI-accredited standards developer. As a trade association, PCI promotes the increased use of precast concrete, advocates for the industry, and certifies the plants, erectors, and personnel that produce and install it.
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JDG Associates has been providing executive recruitment services to Fortune 1000 corporations, associations and non-profits, federal, state, and local governments, research and consulting firms, and defense contractors since 1973. The firm’s research-intensive process and personal approach have resulted in more than 4,000 senior-level searches across a broad spectrum of industries and disciplines in the Washington, D.C. region and nationally.
Darren DeGioia serves as president of JDG. He conducts senior-level search assignments for research and consulting organizations as well as the public sector. His areas of expertise include information technology, accounting and finance, the quantitative sciences, operations/general management, marketing, and communications. Prior to joining JDG, Mr. DeGioia spent four years in the hospitality industry with the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts and Sheraton Hotels.
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Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
