Peter DeMarco, Founder & President

Peter C. DeMarco is the founder and President of Priority Thinking®, where he supports his clients as an executive coach, organizational consultant, ethics facilitator and strategy advisor, helping leaders and their teams achieve significant performance improvements while reducing risks and embedding ethical power into decision making at all levels. Peter also facilitates leadership and ethics education programs for organizations and business schools around the country. He was designated a “Top Thought Leader” in 2014 and 2015 by Trust Across America – Trust Around the World.

Prior to founding Priority Thinking® in 2003, Peter gained extensive leadership experience over a career of thirty-plus (30+) years including general management and senior level executive assignments as a CEO, COO and division president in the U.S. and Mexico. During that time, Peter led two ground-up designs/builds and three lean transformations. Now, Peter’s work through the Institute 4 Priority Thinking helps leaders and their teams to achieve significant performance improvements while reducing risks and embedding ethical power into decision making at every level.

Peter’s career of thirty-plus (30+) years includes extensive leadership experience in general management, and senior level executive assignments in the U.S. and Mexico with Xerox, Bausch & Lomb and Latex Foam International. During these assignments, Peter served as chief operating officer, division president, managing director, general manager, plant manager, manager of information technology, and quality engineer. He has designed, built and led two large-scale production facilities—one in Mexico—from the ground up and led three lean transformations that yielded significant sales, throughput and gross margin improvements. Peter has also conducted turn-around assignments as a President & CEO. Periodically, Peter enjoys teaching as an adjunct professor of business ethics at St. John Fisher College, and for nine years he was a visiting educator on ethical leadership and crisis leadership at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Prior to his business career, Peter DeMarco served in the United States Army. He enlisted after high school and later served as an infantry officer in airborne and mechanized infantry assignments, including seven years as citizen soldier and company commander in the NY National Guard.

Peter holds a B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point; an M.S. from the University of Southern California; an M.S. from the College of Engineering at the Rochester (NY) Institute of Technology; and an M.B.A. from the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester. He is certified as a Lean-Six Sigma Master Black Belt (MBB) through Villanova University. When he is not busy serving his clients, Peter can be found pursuing his life-long passion for philosophy through part-time graduate studies at Holy Apostles College.