Background: Clay Stites was one of the firm’s founders and is its most experienced member. He has completed over 100 successful head searches and worked with another 30 schools on governance and planning issues.

He has done extensive work with elementary schools and with Friends schools, as well as searches, retreats, and long-range planning for PK-12 and boarding schools. Clay is particularly well-known for his keen sense of school culture, for his intimate knowledge of candidates, and for his work with Boards.

He taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, and is the former Chair of the NAIS Elementary and Middle Schools Committee. Clay was Head of School at Friends Academy (MA) and the Curtis School (CA), for 15 and five years respectively, and has served as a Board member of five independent schools and currently serves on the Buckingham, Brown & Nichols board. With his strong background in the arts, Clay founded Rabbit Ears Productions, a children’s video production company that won two Grammy Awards and a host of other honors for children’s programming.

Clay graduated from Haverford College and holds a MFA from the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU.