1Why did you join Berkeley?

I joined Berkeley first and foremost for the culture. From being structured as a true partnership, to the high levels of trust and autonomy, to the focus on always doing the right thing for the client, Berkeley’s culture is the foundation that allows people to do great work here and enjoy themselves doing it.

Secondly, I joined Berkeley because of the strong focus on relationships. People here truly care about each other and want their colleagues to have fulfilling lives at and away from work. We also pride ourselves on developing deep and enduring relationships with clients.

Lastly, I was excited to join Berkeley to help build out our New York office and US business.
 

2What’s been your favourite assignment and why?

One of my favourite engagements involved working with an American medical non-profit. Berkeley had a broad remit – we were asked to develop a product strategy and transformation roadmap for a major unit of the organisation, which contributed the vast majority of the revenue. These were largely digital products supported by the IT group, so we also worked closely with IT, which was itself undergoing a massive multi-year transformation and move to the cloud.

This all occurred as our client supported the medical community in its response to COVID-19, and developed a new strategic plan under a new President. All told, we worked with roughly half of the President’s leadership team and our engagement included strategy formulation, digital transformation, team coaching, operating model design, roadmapping (70 projects over a five-year horizon), and programme mobilisation. It was very rewarding to work with 40+ mission-driven stakeholders from our client, as well as four Berkeley colleagues, on this nine-month project. 
 

3Why did you become a management consultant?

I went into consulting because it combined three things I was looking for – significant intellectual challenge, an opportunity to make an impact on large private and public organisations, and an emphasis on relationships and close team collaboration. People think of consulting as an ideas business, but it really is a people business, and I derive great joy from helping clients succeed and working with them over the course of many years. My father and brother are also consultants, so maybe there was something in the water growing up.