Biography
Based in Boston, Steve Kelner is President and Co-Founder of Ascent, where he also oversees leadership assessment and developmental practices. He brings over 30 years of expertise in the nature of top leadership and how to evaluate and develop it, advising global firms, including creating the leadership evaluation process for the two leading executive search firms.
Prior to joining Ascent, Steve served as the Global Thought Leader for Assessment and Development at Spencer Stuart. There he drove the advancement of all Spencer Stuart’s assessment, reporting, and developmental methodology, developing consultant and corporate capability as well as consulting to global clients on assessment, CEO succession planning, transition and development, board effectiveness, and change.
Previously, Steve developed and executed the assessment and development methodology at Egon Zehnder, including their leadership and potential assessment, development, team effectiveness, and board review approaches, all while working with clients globally.
Before his seventeen years with the search industry, Steve was Senior Director of Services for WebCT (now Blackboard), building the consulting and training arm of the leading provider of online platforms for higher education. He came to that from the Center for Quality of Management, a nonprofit focused on mutual learning for executive leadership.
Steve started his career with seven years with Hay/McBer, ultimately as a senior consultant and director of new products and services, including co-creating the first valid set of scaled leadership competencies.
He has multiple publications, both fiction and nonfiction, including numerous articles and a forthcoming book on leadership: Where You Can Lead, as well as a book on motivating writers and creativity, and is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations as well as the Association for Psychological Science. He is currently collaborating with fellow motivational psychologists on research to apply AI to motive scoring.
