Jude Rake is the founding principal of JDR Growth Partners. Before founding JDR, Jude served in multiple C-level roles – including CEO – for fifteen years. In each of these roles he built and led successful leadership teams that fueled significant improvements in workforce engagement, collaboration, accountability, and results.

Jude has been building businesses to create economic value for over four decades –  working with well-known companies such as Clorox, PepsiCo, and SC Johnson, as well as smaller family-owned and private equity-backed businesses such as Fellowes and Recycled Paper Greetings.

He has been recognized for leadership, creativity, and marketing excellence with awards including Clio, Mobius, and Effie awards, as well as the Burnham award for innovation. He also was named a Top 100 Marketer twice by Advertising Age.

He is a highly rated keynote speaker on the topics of leadership, strategy, high performance teams, and culture. Jude connects with leaders at all levels of any organization – leveraging his blue-collar roots, his sports and coaching background, and his breadth of experience across a wide range of industries and corporate functions – from factory line worker, engineer, and marketer to CEO and Board Director. His approach, his workshops, and his speeches are dynamic, engaging and actionable.

Jude is the author of The Bridge to Growth, How Servant Leaders Achieve Better Results, And Why It Matters Now More Than Ever, in which he provides a blueprint of nine proven leadership principles he used to improve the financial performance of several businesses by moving workforces from disengaged to enthusiastically committed to winning. It’s packed with useful tools and tips, and each leadership principle is articulated using real-world success models that bring the principles to life.

Jude treasures time with his family, and he loves sports – especially triathlons. Since discovering the sport in 1983, he has consistently ranked in the top 10% of his age group. He is a certified domestic violence professional and is committed to paying forward the mentoring he received earlier in his life by coaching youth athletics and helping kids navigate and recover from domestic violence.

Jude holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Purdue, and he received an MBA from The Booth School of Business at The University of Chicago.

He is an independent board director at The Wall Family Enterprise where he serves as Chair of the Compensation & Human Capital Management Committee. He also serves on the Board of Directors of A Safe Place, a center for the prevention of domestic violence. Jude was recognized by Purdue University with an Alumni Achievement Award.