Bill Mateikis

Bill is a Partner at Odgers Berndtson, a full-service HR consulting firm offering established and start-up/emerging organizations around the globe retained executive search and other talent solutions, including interim executive placements, leadership assessment & coaching, general organizational development support and compliance risk mitigation. Bill focuses on the human resources and legal/compliance functional practices and is also a member of Odgers Berndtson’s global industrial practice team.

Bill has 25+ years of general industry experience with particular expertise in the human resources and legal/compliance functions, having served most recently as Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) and labor & employment counsel for PE-backed Harvest Sherwood Food Distributors, the largest independent protein distributor in the U.S., formed by the acquisition of two family-owned businesses. 

Prior to Harvest Sherwood, Bill was CHRO and General Counsel/Chief Legal Officer (CLO) at Daikin Applied Americas, Inc., a leading design, manufacture and service provider of applied commercial HVAC products and solutions, and wholly owned subsidiary of Daikin Industries, Ltd., the global leader in air-related technology (based in Osaka Japan), well known for its differentiating focus on people centered leadership.  In these capacities Bill led the human resources and legal/compliance functions for Daikin in the Americas, played a key role in facilitating growth through M&A, and drove significant post-acquisition culture shifts which involved initiating organizational design changes and leadership upgrades, and making strategic human capital investments in growth areas.

Earlier in his career Bill held various executive positions at General Mills, PepsiCo (Pepsi-Cola Company), Gateway Computers and Honeywell.  He has also been a full-time visiting professor of law at the Wayne State University Law School and a labor & employment law associate attorney at a major law firm, Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz (now Troutman Pepper).

Bill earned his law degree from New York University School of Law in 1994 and has an undergraduate degree in economics from SUNY College at Fredonia and graduate degrees in industrial relations and international relations from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.  While in school, he was a student intern at the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, a co-op student at the National Labor Relations Board, and a summer associate at Ross & Hardies (now McGuire Woods), Kilpatrick & Cody (now Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton) and Bond, Schoeneck & King.  He is licensed to practice law in Minnesota and Pennsylvania (inactive) and is a qualified mediator under Minnesota Supreme Court Rule 114.

Bill is also the sole proprietor of Essential Services South, Inc., a Florida corporation organized for the purpose of providing consulting and dispute resolution services to clients seeking to identify mutual interests to resolve disputes, while maintaining or repairing win-win relationships - when possible - or - when necessary - ending them amicably without resorting to the costly, win-lose, destructive process of litigation.

He is on the Board of Trustees at Dunwoody College of Technology (formerly Chair of the Governance Committee) and a member of the Advisory Board of Florida International University’s Center for Leadership.