Jeff Cox
Senior Advisor and Chairman, Symphony Consulting
Jeff joined West Monroe as a Managing Partner in 2020 when he co-founded the firm’s Organization & People practice, before retiring in January of 2025. For over 25 years, he has worked with global clients across broad industries on a variety of people related issues from enterprise operating model design, re-structuring, workforce planning/analytics, total rewards, human capital technology selection/implementation, attracting/selecting/retaining key talent.
Jeff has advised on over 750 M&A transactions – supporting financial sponsors and strategics on both the buy and sell side of acquisitions, carve-outs and stand-ups. He has deep subject matter expertise in synergy modeling/realization, people related risk management, rewards design, talent selection/retention, sales effectiveness and HR product/services related commercial diligence. Prior to joining West Monroe, Jeff spent 21 years with Mercer where he was a Senior Partner and the global leader of the M&A Advisory Services business.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from Concordia University and a Master’s in Jurisprudence from Loyola University Chicago. He is also an alumnus of Northwestern University’s Kellogg Management Institute program for executives.
Jeff was the architect of Mercer’s M&A Readiness Research Series™, including the first report titled People Risks in M&A Transactions (2016), as well as Flight Risk in M&A Transactions: The Art and Science of Retaining Talent (2017) and Mitigating Culture Risk to Drive Deal Value (2018). He co-authored the chapter on Portfolio Benefit Purchasing in the book The Operating Partner in Private Equity published by Private Equity International, PEI (2011).
Jeff is on the board of the San Miguel School of Chicago and is a Director of the Western Golf Association – Evans Scholars Foundation. He and his wife Leslie have four grown children.
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