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Feb 15, 2023 (The Expresswire) -- "HR Transformation Consulting Market" Research Report 2023 Provides a Basic overview of the Industry including definitions, Company profiles of the Important thing individuals working within the international market, Key players profiled in the report are [Ernst and Young, Deloitte, KPMG, PwC, McKinsey and Company, Bain and Company, BCG, BearingPoint, Accenture, Hackett Group, Veran Performance, IBM, Rolling Arrays, Sia Partners, Cognizant Company, HCM Consultant Group, PA Consulting, Longevity Consulting, ScottMadden, Nicheton Consulting LLP] and others. The HR Transformation Consulting market report provides information regarding market size, classifications, applications, growth, industry chain structure, share, trends, competition, cost structure, global market landscape, market drivers, challenges and opportunities, capacity, revenue and forecast for 2028.

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• Management consultancies offer some of the most sought-after jobs for graduates.
• Companies like McKinsey, BCG, and Bain are notorious for their challenging interviews.
• An ex-McKinsey consultant listed five common myths about management-consulting interviews.

This is an edited, translated version of an article that originally appeared on January 12, 2023.

Top management-consulting firms such as McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company, known collectively as MBB, are notorious for their challenging interviews.

Sidi Koné is a careers coach who helps candidates apply to the MBB firms. He previously worked as a consultant for McKinsey, BCG, and the German football league.

He told Insider that many candidates come to him with misconceptions about the interview process. He shared the five most common ones with Insider — and the things to prepare for instead.

1. You have to have studied economics or business

Koné said that your college major isn't a big concern for consulting recruiters. 

"Consultancies don't need professionals in specific disciplines. They're looking for a combination of skills and abilities," he said. 

The key things they look for are analytical thinking, communication skills, and the ability to solve problems for which there are no standardized solutions, he said.

But academic performance is still "a strong signal of whether someone is dedicated and results-oriented," Koné added.

2. You'll be asked brainteasers

Koné said he frequently reads that interviewers try to surprise candidates with brainteasers — things like "How many golf balls can you fit in an airplane?" or "How much does the Empire State building weigh?"

"You won't get those questions at the big consultancies like McKinsey or BCG. Interviewers are trained to refrain from asking such things," Koné said.

Instead, you'll face a series of case-study interviews where the interviewer will give you a problem from a previous project, he continued.

"The applicant then has to present how they would approach the problem and how they would find a solution for it," he added.

3. You need to prove you're an expert

The opposite tends to be true, Koné said: "Expert knowledge is irrelevant when applying for a generalist consultant position."

The interviewer just wants to find out how well you analyze things and if you can think through problems that are outside of your area of expertise, he continued.

"If you depend on specific knowledge to solve problems, you'll struggle when you have to tackle problems that take you out of your comfort zone. And that's exactly what you have to do in management consulting," Koné said.

4. Case-interview frameworks are a good way to prepare

Case-interview frameworks are templates that help you organize and solve the problems you may face. 

They provide you with various case studies and the correct solutions, which often makes people think that they simply have to memorize the solutions to pass the interview, Koné said, adding that this makes it "enormously difficult for us interviewers to see how good an applicant actually is."

Koné said books that offer these are "highly problematic," and he advised candidates to avoid them "like the Devil avoids holy water." 

Case studies are designed to show the interviewer how you think when you're faced with a problem, he said.

5. Your mental arithmetic needs to be fast

Interviewers aren't going to be too thinking if you can't do a calculation within a few seconds, Koné said.

What the interviewer is actually interested in is whether you're able to quantify a problem and then perform the necessary calculations confidently and clearly, he added.

Koné also advised using a pen and paper to write down your work, rather than simply conjuring up a final figure.

"That's exactly how consultants work with clients: with a pen and paper or a marker and a flip chart. Someone who completes a load of complex calculations very quickly in their head and then just throws out a final figure at me is not a suitable candidate," Koné said.

It's more important to show that you can act confidently in difficult situations, he said. Communicate your thoughts, ask questions, and discuss the problem with the interviewers, he added.

Idea in Brief

Psychological targeting, the practice of influencing behavior through interventions customized to personality traits, burst onto the world stage in 2018, when Cambridge Analytica’s involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election made international headlines. The company had allegedly created psychological profiles of millions of Facebook users without their knowledge and then hit them with fearmongering political ads tailored to their psychological vulnerabilities.

Since then, there has been a lot of speculation about what psychological targeting can and cannot do. Some have declared it the next frontier of psychological warfare, while others have brushed it off as marketing swamp water.

I was one of the first scientists to study this practice and helped break the Cambridge Analytica story. Over the past 10 years I’ve examined how we can turn people’s digital footprints—their social media profiles, search queries, spending records, browsing histories, blog posts, and smartphone data, including GPS records—into intimate predictions about their inner lives using machine learning. I’ve explored how such insights can be used to sway opinions and change behavior. And I’ve suggested ways we can implement psychological targeting ethically.

Cambridge Analytica folded amid the controversy over its data-collection and persuasion tactics, but psychological targeting as a service is very much alive and thriving. I know because I regularly get consulting requests from companies that want to implement psychological targeting and from start-ups trying to enter the space. They come to me with slightly different narratives, but typically their goals are similar: to create value for businesses and their stakeholders by tapping into people’s psychological needs and motivations.

In this article I’ll clarify what psychological targeting is actually capable of and then offer guidance on how to use it in a way that both upholds basic ethical principles and maximizes the benefits that companies and their customers realize.

What Exactly Is Psychological Targeting?

Let’s start by debunking a persistent myth: Psychological targeting isn’t the brainwashing machine Cambridge Analytica made it out to be. Even with the most accurate understanding of a person’s psychological profile, you are unlikely to turn a sworn Hillary Clinton voter into a Donald Trump supporter or convert an iOS fanatic into an Android lover. But that doesn’t mean it has no influence on people, either. My research (and that of others in the field) all points in the same direction: Psychological targeting is an effective marketing tool. It can be used to shift opinions and attitudes, create demand that wasn’t there initially, and engage with consumers on a much more personal level than ever before.

Psychological targeting is qualitatively different from the psychographic targeting that was hyped in the late 1970s but failed to deliver on its promise. Traditional psychographic targeting built on the intuition of marketing professionals to define personas representing segments of customers that were based on consumers’ opinions, attitudes, and lifestyle choices. In contrast, psychological targeting builds on validated psychological constructs that capture fundamental differences in how people think, feel, and behave. The most popular of such constructs is the Big Five model of personality, also known as the OCEAN model for the dimensions it measures: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Although there are many other dimensions that could prove valuable for psychological targeting (say, people’s personal values, motivational orientation, or moral foundations), the Big Five model dominates both research and practice.

The Big Five are a valuable starting point because they can predict people’s preferences for products and brands. A project my colleagues and I worked on demonstrates how. In 2016 we teamed up with a large international bank in the United Kingdom to study the spending habits of some of its customers. We had access to their self-reported personality profiles and information on every transaction they had made over the previous six months. As expected, we found that spending was clustered by personality dimension. Extroverts, for example, were more likely to spend money in restaurants and bars, while introverts were more likely to buy home appliances and books. Conscientious people invested their money in savings and children’s clothes, while their more disorganized counterparts spent it on takeout and mobile phones. Not only that, but customers whose spending patterns were more aligned with those typical of their personality profiles reported more satisfaction with their lives.

Personality types predict people’s preferences for marketing messages and communication styles too. Conscientious individuals, for example, love numbers and details, while less conscientious people might be more easily swayed by compelling stories. While you might impress open-minded people with eye-catching visuals and flowery language, you’d probably be better off sticking to conservative graphics and basic, respectful language with more-conventional individuals.

The large-scale application of psychological targeting was made possible by the explosion in cheap and accessible consumer data. Consider that in just one minute, Amazon customers spend $283,000, Facebook receives 44 million views, YouTube streams 694,000 hours of video content, Instagram users share 65,000 photos, and Venmo facilitates transactions worth $304,000, according to Domo.com. While many businesses were quick to find ways to use such data to predict consumer behavior and preferences (“People who bought product X also bought product Y”), their ability to truly understand consumers’ needs and motivations remained rather limited. For example, they didn’t understand why customers who bought product X also bought product Y, or what might motivate them to buy product Z.

Psychological targeting promises to change that by allowing companies to translate behavioral data into personality profiles for individual customers. What might that look like in practice? One of my first industry partners was Hilton Hotels & Resorts, which wanted to use psychological targeting to create richer and more-personalized customer journeys. Working as paid consultants, my research team designed an application that allowed users to connect their Facebook profiles to one of our predictive algorithms and receive a personality-based traveler profile with customized vacation recommendations. For instance, if our algorithm suggested that a customer was introverted, that person would get a “soloist” profile with recommendations for quiet and relaxing destinations. If the algorithm indicated that someone was neurotic, we’d offer an “all-inclusive” traveler package with recommendations for worry-free vacations with nothing left to chance. The campaign, which reached 60,000 users in three months, was a success. Hilton won an award for the most innovative travel marketing campaign from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and higher click-through and social-engagement rates meant a higher return on investment and brand visibility for the company.

In another study we teamed up with a beauty retailer to optimize its Facebook ad campaigns and increase purchases in its online store. Though Facebook doesn’t allow marketers to target personality traits directly, its interest-based targeting option lets them do so indirectly. If liking manga is linked to introversion, then targeting people who follow manga on Facebook effectively enables you to target introverts (and perhaps a few misunderstood extroverts). We decided to tailor messages to women’s psychological needs and motivations. One set of ads spoke to extroverts’ craving for stimulation, excitement, and attention, and another set played into introverts’ desire for quiet, high-quality “me time.” The extroverted ads were colorful, featuring women in highly social settings (say, in the middle of the dance floor) and alluding to their need to be seen (“Dance like no one’s watching, but they totally are”). The introverted ads were subtle, showing a single woman in a peaceful context (using a cosmetic face mask to relax) and hinting at her reserved nature in the copy (“Beauty doesn’t have to shout”). The ads that were customized by personality were 50% more effective at attracting purchases and generating revenue than those that were not.

How to Get It Right

Over the years my team and I have tried many variations of psychological targeting, experiencing both successes and failures and learning from both. Here’s our advice for launching a psychological targeting program.

Ask, Do we really need psychological targeting?

It’s possible you’d be better off using other approaches. If you simply want to predict what a customer is going to buy, for instance, you don’t need to know his or her psychological profile. In fact, incorporating it into your predictions could reduce their accuracy by adding noise in two areas: the translation of digital footprints into psychological insights (no model is perfect), and the translation of those insights into purchase intentions. If you take the simpler approach of trying to link past behavior to future preferences (people who buy X also buy Y), there’s only one place to make mistakes.

However, there are two situations in which a psychological understanding of people is invaluable. The first is when a company sells to new customers. In that situation it essentially has no information about the customers. It can’t rely on past behavior to predict future preferences. We call this the “cold-start problem.” The beauty of psychological traits is that they’re independent of the context they’re assessed in. It doesn’t matter if a company predicts a customer’s extroversion level from Facebook or Twitter posts, credit-card spending patterns, purchase history, or GPS records. Putting aside measurement errors, the customer’s personality assessment, from which purchasing preferences can be inferred, should always be roughly the same. An online retailer, for example, could ask new customers to log in with Facebook, use their likes and statuses to predict which ones are extroverts, and recommend products that appeal to extroverts to them. Over time, as it collects more and more purchasing data, it could phase out the personality insights and shift toward purely behavioral predictions.

The second scenario is the design of personalized marketing materials. After all, marketing is as much about how we communicate the value of a product as it is about the product itself. The more marketers can understand why someone might be interested in a particular product, the better they can tailor their creative content to those interests. Imagine you’re selling flowers. Understanding whether someone might be interested in buying a bouquet as a surprise gift for someone else (a sign of agreeableness), to feel more calm and relaxed at home (introversion and neuroticism), or to add an aesthetically pleasing touch to an office space (openness) allows you to customize your messaging appropriately.

Create a holistic customer experience.

It’s true that digital technology allows you to collect more consumer data than ever before. But it’s also true that personalizing the customer experience is often far easier in person. A deft frontline employee can be given all sorts of discretion when it comes to meeting customer needs. Consider the hotel concierge who overhears a guest raving about a local bakery and then surprises that person with a box of pastries in her room. Most people are reasonably good at inferring the psychological traits of people they barely know and at integrating those insights into their interactions with them.

Both online personalization and offline personalization are valuable, but they often feel disconnected. Take department stores. These retailers collect behavioral customer data in order to make recommendations and send out personalized offers. Once you step into one of their locations, a retail associate will try to read your personality and mood and serve you accordingly. But the two touchpoints aren’t integrated: The associate and the email marketers never talk to each other.

Psychological targeting could join the two worlds. By providing consumer insights that can be understood by both algorithms and humans, it offers a consistent “concierge service” across all channels. Regardless of whether you connect with a customer through your online store or a staff member, the customer can always be treated the same way. A department store’s algorithm, for example, could figure out if a customer is extroverted or neurotic and adjust both recommendations and the content of promotional emails in response. It could also pass on that knowledge to the brick-and-mortar staff to Improve the same customer’s in-person experience (advising, “Don’t make small talk with this customer; she’s an introvert” or “Don’t overwhelm the customer with options, and remind him of the return policy; he is neurotic”).

Eventually, technology may even be able to decipher consumers’ needs and automatically create experiences to suit them. Over time a computer experimenting with thousands of ad variants or in-store experiences might well develop a higher level of “human intuition” than any real person could. AI is already astonishingly advanced. Consider the ad copy produced by GPT-3, an OpenAI algorithm, when I recently asked it to write an iPhone ad that appeals to an extrovert: “Looking for a phone that will keep you connected to your friends and always entertained? Look no further than the iPhone! With its built-in social media apps and endless games and streaming options, you’ll never be bored again.”

Help your customers discover new offerings.

Customers often face exploitation versus exploration trade-offs in their purchasing decisions. Should they go with the option that they know and love (“exploitation”) or choose something unknown that promises to be even more amazing (“exploration”)? Same haircut or new look? Favorite rooftop bar or new speakeasy? Tried-and-true seaside vacation or new adventure?

Personalized marketing is typically focused on helping consumers exploit, serving up more of the things they already know and love. If you’ve searched online for a Sony Alpha DSLR camera, predictive algorithms will try to sell you not only that camera but also all the related equipment and accessories. This approach can help customers find what they need in the vast sea of internet content. And often all consumers want is to find what they’re looking for in a convenient way.

But focusing exclusively on exploitation can be limiting. Customers will sometimes prefer recommendations for products that are outside their comfort zone and allow them to try something new. Psychological targeting lets companies offer them. Instead of taking the search for the Sony Alpha DSLR camera as a direct targeting input, for example, an algorithm might interpret it as a sign of openness to experience and suggest a range of novel products that are still relevant. Instead of a set of spare batteries or a tripod, how about acrylic paint or a book on philosophy?

Put ethics front and center.

The bankruptcy of Cambridge Analytica—which took a “Trojan horse” approach, accessing the Facebook profiles of millions of unwitting users through their friends’ accounts and building psychological profiles without their knowledge—is a cautionary tale for companies that might engage in psychological targeting without consent. But using it ethically is not just the right thing to do and a way to avoid backlash. With changing regulatory landscapes and major players such as Apple restricting access to third-party data, it might soon also be the most promising business model and the only way to get at consumer data.

As scientists, my colleagues and I are expected to follow basic ethical principles in our research. The same principles should be foundational for corporate practitioners too.

Respect for people: Protect and uphold the autonomy of consumers and treat them with courtesy.

Beneficence: Abide by the philosophy of “Do no harm” while maximizing the benefits to consumers and society and minimizing the risks to all.

Justice: Follow reasonable and nonexploitative procedures that are administered fairly (for instance, that ensure all customers benefit equally).

These principles are broad enough to allow companies to adapt them to their own day-to-day business dealings. Now let’s look at how they can be translated into guidelines for action, using our project with Hilton as an example.

Keep your consumers in the loop.

Hilton involved its customers at every step of the way. They were told—in plain language—exactly what data would be gathered from their Facebook profiles (for example, their likes) and, more important, how it would be used. Hilton also told them what predictions it would make based on that data and assured them that no data would ever be passed on to third parties. This kind of transparency should be standard practice. Taking it a step further, companies could also give their customers the chance to interact with and revise their personality profiles. Why? First, it creates trust that will promote engagement and long-term loyalty. But equally important, predictions are never perfect. When you turn the profiling process into a two-way conversation, you can have customers correct your mistakes—an easy way to boost the quality of your insights. Taken to the extreme, this could mean replacing the automated gathering of details on psychological traits with engaging questionnaires. Instead of making educated guesses, why not ask consumers how they like to think of themselves? Or maybe who they’d like to become with the help of your products and services? This approach typically isn’t possible with potential customers, but it certainly can work with existing ones.

Make personalization a key part of your value proposition.

If you ask people for their data, give them back as much value and insight as possible. The goal of the Hilton traveler app was to generate more customer engagement and thus more profits. But the product offered customers suggestions for genuinely more enjoyable and appealing stays, as well as interesting insights into their travel preferences. The goal should not be for your personalization efforts to go unnoticed—but rather for them to be recognized and appreciated by customers. This will be much easier to achieve if you abandon opt-out processes and switch to opt-in mechanisms that make privacy the default and require you to spell out the benefits consumers will get by sharing their data with you.

Collect only essential data.

Think of data as radioactive. Gather as little as needed and hold it only as long as needed. Hilton agreed from the very beginning that it would receive only the personality profiles of users and not the raw data that was extracted from Facebook with their consent. That data was handled by an application my lab had designed and was deleted immediately after it was no longer needed. Today many new technologies (for example, one called federated learning) can help a company get the insights it needs without collecting the genuine data that produces them.

Do a gut check.

Before we launched the Hilton traveler app, we held numerous focus groups with existing customers to gauge their reaction to it. But even if you can’t organize such groups, you can still ask yourself how you’d feel if your loved ones (your kids, partner, or closest friends) used the product or service you’re designing and shared their personal data to get it. If that thought makes you uncomfortable, something is off, and you should go back to the drawing board. Or you could take Warren Buffett’s front-page test: If your hometown paper were to write about your use of psychological targeting on its front page tomorrow, and your family, friends, and neighbors read the story, how would you react?

Don’t focus solely on selling.

Our research team has demonstrated that psychological targeting can do more than help sell consumer products—it can be a powerful “nudging” tool to help people Improve their lives. For example, in partnership with SaverLife—a U.S. nonprofit organization that has created a platform to help low-income people develop long-term saving habits—we identified each user’s most salient OCEAN personality trait and then tailored the messages we sent users about a challenge (such as “Save $100 over the course of four weeks”). Those with caring personalities (that is, high agreeableness) received messages such as “Save to build a better future for your loved ones!” Competitive personalities (low agreeableness) were given prompts such as “Every penny saved puts you one step ahead of the game!” In the control condition, which used SaverLife’s best-performing messaging to date, 7.4% of users managed to hit their goal. In the psychologically tailored condition, that number rose to 11.5%, a 55% increase.

Firms could even pair profit-generating and socially responsible endeavors. For instance, Hilton could use psychological profiles to nudge consumers to reduce water use or participate in local activities designed to boost ecotourism. Or a consumer-goods company could launch psychologically targeted campaigns to get people to recycle its packaging.

What is common to all these guidelines is that they don’t stop at asking, What is legal? Instead they ask, What is ethical? What is the right thing to do? You might not always be able to live up to your high standards, but if you don’t set them high in the first place, you certainly won’t.

. . .

When I first began studying psychological targeting, a decade ago, the only way to implement it was to do all the data wrangling and analysis yourself. You had to collect a data set combining digital footprints with self-reported personality scores, train and validate your own predictive models, and—in most cases—conduct your own research into how to talk to customers of a certain personality profile most effectively. Today you don’t have to do any of that. More and more services will do it all for you—or at least a substantial part of it. For most companies, partnering with an external vendor will make sense. But it’s important to be a savvy buyer—to understand what psychological targeting offers beyond traditional marketing tools, what it can and cannot do and, above all, how to use it ethically in a way that doesn’t alienate your customers.

Project descriptions were not released with Luzerne County’s list of 75 top-scoring outside entities slated to collectively receive $60 million in federal American Rescue Plan funding, raising questions about how the money would be used.

The county publicly posted the names of the applicants and the dollar amounts of their proposed awards because county council may vote on the awards Tuesday.

No project summaries were prepared for the released list. All the data submitted by applicants is housed in the consultant’s electronic portal that had been viewed by council members to complete their scoring, with each using a unique password. The consultant has not yet opened up portal access to the public and administration, which means contacting the applicants individually is the only way to find out more about the planned projects.

Parks project

Gary Bernstein, chief executive officer of the Jewish Community Alliance of Northeastern Pennsylvania, said the release of the list without a project description created issues because many concluded the alliance itself was receiving the highest allocation — $15.3 million.

At the request of state Rep. Aaron Kaufer, R-Kingston, the alliance agreed to serve as an applicant and pass-through entity to complete recreational enhancements along the west side of the Susquehanna River, including Nesbitt Park and Kirby Park.

Bernstein said the alliance would receive “zero funding” from the allocation.

Kaufer said the allocation, which may not end up reaching $15.3 million, would restore long-intended access to publicly-owned wooded areas, including a riverfront swath that was cut off from the rest of Kirby Park when a levee bisected the park in 1936.

Past county officials had expressed interest in tackling improvements at Kirby and Nesbitt parks and a proposed “Riverbend Park” once the east side River Common enhancement project was completed, but the plan fell off the radar as administrations changed and funding for discretionary projects dried up.

Designed to remain mostly natural, Riverbend Park would stretch from the Veterans Memorial (Pierce Street) Bridge to south of the Cross Valley Expressway.

Kaufer said Kingston, Forty Fort, Wilkes-Barre and the county Flood Protection are all on board with advancing the projects, but there was no regional entity equipped to seek the American Rescue funding on their behalf. He thanked the Jewish Community Alliance for serving as a conduit and said they should be commended for “stepping up.”

The county’s American Rescue allocation would allow those involved in the parks to update a past design plan and proceed with enhancements, Kaufer said.

“Those on the West Side were left behind when upgrades were completed at the River Common recreational area, and this will take advantage of a huge asset along the river for generations to come,” Kaufer said. “This is something that has been talked about close to 20 years, and we need to carry it out.”

Private businesses

County council opted to open up the America Rescue funding opportunity to all entities, which meant some private businesses applied, met eligibility requirements and made the cut through council scoring.

A council majority had rejected a proposal to carve out a pot of American Rescue funding specifically for small businesses with targeted outreach and defined parameters — an approach that had been used with a previous federal COVID-19 recovery funding source — the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

Amy Bezek Photography LLC made the list with a request for $300,000.

Bezek had appeared at county council meetings to discuss her application, but council members more recently told Bezek and a few others they cannot accept comments about specific pending applications because it could be perceived as lobbying.

Bezek said Friday she struggled to keep her decade-old, in-home photography studio functioning during the coronavirus pandemic because it is 104 square feet, which is too small to operate with social distancing. Working with the Small Business Development Center at Wilkes University, she developed a business plan to acquire a former autobody property on Wyoming Avenue in Forty Fort to house her business.

Bezek said she carefully planned the budget and funding for the project, but every expense has doubled or tripled due to supply chain issues and inflation. It resulted in a $330,000 overage, and Bezek said every penny of the American Rescue funding will go toward the infrastructure costs.

She said she painstakingly completed the American Rescue application when she determined she was eligible and believes the project is worthy because it will help a small business and rehabilitate a deteriorated structure in the community. Bezek also said she already holds frequent holiday photo shoots to raise money for local nonprofits, and the larger space will allow her to expand those fundraising efforts. She also plans to bring in interns to encourage more young adults to remain in this area after graduation.

Bezek said she has received mixed responses since the county list was made public Thursday night.

“I was negatively impacted by COVID on multiple levels, and I have every right to receive the funding as anyone else,” Bezek said.

Donna Cupinski, owner of DMC Graphics on Carey Avenue in Wilkes-Barre, was grateful to make the cut with her request for $8,075, saying she needs the funding to purchase a furnace.

Her existing furnace is 50 years old, and the amount she requested was based on the lowest quote for a basic model with no “bells or whistles.”

“Because of COVID, my business suffered drastically, and I don’t have money to get it myself. I’m just thinking it could go at any time,” said Cupinski, who serves as chair of the county’s volunteer Convention Center Authority Board, which oversees the Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre Township.

Cupinski has operated the printing business for more than 25 years.

Staggers Southern Cuisine on South Main Street in Wilkes-Barre is slated to receive $25,000 in American Rescue funding, according to the list.

Co-owner Darryl Mathis, who opened the eatery in November, said the funding will allow him to hold free community events to provide food and social interaction for veterans, the homeless and the LGBTQ community.

Mathis said he already makes sure leftover food is provided to those in need.

“I’m excited just to know we’re on the list,” Mathis said. “This would be a very nice thing to add to what we’d like to do here.”

ValentinXStudios, off Public Square on South Main Street in Wilkes-Barre, also made the list, with a request for $10,975.

Owner Daniel Valentin said his photography studio would use a portion of the funding to reduce the price of professional head shots of the owners of small businesses so they can use them to develop and promote their brand on websites and through social media.

“There are a lot of small businesses opening up in our area, and a lot of them cannot afford this service,” said Valentin, who opened his business in 2021 in Kingston and relocated to Wilkes-Barre last March. “This would definitely help those new businesses tremendously.”

Public project

Plymouth Borough Councilman Adam Morehart was elated his borough’s request for $2.5 million made the list due to its impact.

The borough sought the funding to repair 400 feet of retaining wall along Coal Creek because an engineering inspection found subsidence that may cause it to fail.

If that happens, traffic won’t be permitted on Coal Street, resulting in a 7-mile detour to the borough’s downtown, he said.

Wall failure also could damage a 36-inch Pennsylvania American Water Co. water main that crosses the stream, causing service disruption to 40,000 customers in the borough, Plymouth Township, Larksville, Courtdale, Wilkes-Barre, Ashley, Sugar Notch and Nanticoke.

It gets worse. Loss of that water line could cause 5 million gallons of water to drain from a tank at the top of Coal Street within minutes.

While he doesn’t want the public to panic, Morehart has described it as a “very serious matter” that must be addressed.

The channel was constructed decades ago and has been subjected to wear-and-tear from rocks and other debris flushing down the mountain, causing the walls to start caving in. Coal Creek has a history of flooding, including a serious flood in 2011 that caused millions of dollars in property damage, he said.

“I’m super stoked about it. This is something that desperately needs to happen,” he said of the county allocation to address the problem.

Council plans

While adoption of the 75 projects is slated for a council vote at Tuesday’s 6 p.m. meeting in the county courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre, it’s still unclear if a majority will seek to table a decision pending further review.

Instead of relying on a council or administrative committee recommendation, the 11 council members decided to screen the applications themselves so they would all have an opportunity to participate.

The county’s American Rescue consultant — Columbia, Maryland-based Booth Management Consulting — set up the online portal for council members to individually review and score the 139 outside applications based on uniform factors, such as a project’s impact on county priorities, community outcomes, racial equity and inclusion and a review of the overall project budget.

Because the list of awards is based on council’s independent scoring and parameters, council members are not supposed to alter it without cause because adding and deleting once the names are released would defeat the purpose of the evaluation system that had been set up, officials have said.

Council members have said this is an unusual situation because they did not collaboratively choose recipients through the typical discussion, debate and majority preference.

While this process was intended to prevent bias and outside intervention and lobbying, council members were uneasy having no idea which recipients would appear on the award list and how both council and the public would react to the end result.

Some council members are now questioning and reviewing the scoring to assess why some projects did and didn’t make the list.

Council Vice Chairman John Lombardo said Friday he and his colleagues have received additional information on the scores, and Booth is in the process of researching other inquiries.

Lombardo said some unsuccessful applicants are questioning why similar projects scored higher.

“I’ve been getting calls literally nonstop since yesterday,” Lombardo said. “As it stands right now, I don’t foresee us voting on it Tuesday.”

The list of recipients is posted on the main page of the county website at luzernecounty.org.

Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.

“I lost money because I wasn’t able to independently manage what I needed to manage,” said Albert J. Rizzi.

That was years ago, when Rizzi was still adjusting to losing his sight in 2006 as the result of a bout of fungal meningitis.

He’d requested key documents from his Morgan Stanley financial adviser in an electronic format so that his computer’s screen reader could translate it to audio. But the firm sent an unreadable PDF.

Rizzi sued and eventually settled.

Now, through My Blind Spot Inc., the advocacy and consulting nonprofit he founded and runs, Rizzi works with financial services companies to help ensure that they equalize access to materials for people with compromised vision.

“Everyone will join this club, whether by accident, illness or aging,” said Rizzi of the estimated 32.2 million adult Americans (about 13% of the population) who must rely on adaptations to see and understand printed material.

As a matter of law, not to mention operational risk, financial advisory firms must ensure that clients can read documents, said Jessica B. Weber, a partner with law firm Brown Goldstein & Levy. Complying with basic standards of visual accessibility is a start, but firms also elevate client service and minimize risk when they proactively design print and digital materials for varying levels of visual ability.

That’s especially important because visual acuity changes as people age. Eyesight often deteriorates but then is restored: Cataract surgery is one of the most common procedures in America. “As the population ages, they might not identify as people with disabilities, even though they have trouble seeing or walking,” Weber said. “It’s important to proactively plan and include tools.”

A common misconception is that simply offering digital versions of documents absolves a business of any further accommodation, said Timothy Springer, CEO of accessibility compliance consulting firm Level Access.

The truth is more complicated. Visual accessibility is an ongoing process. Digital design needs to be tested for all commonly used formats, including mobile screens, so that material organically “reflows” into a coherent format that allows clients to easily find, say, key links no matter how large the print is on their screen, Springer said. In addition, each legal and financial document, including client reports and spreadsheets, needs to be equitably available in several formats, from large print on paper to digital formats that interface smoothly with accessibility tools like screen readers. Footnotes and other supporting material must be equally readable.

“You can’t ask someone to sign a document they can’t read,” Springer said.

Risk is further complicated by privacy requirements, said Jason C. Taylor, chief innovation strategist and with accessibility consulting firm UsableNet. “If you create an environment that makes one of your clients say, ‘Can you read this for me?’ privacy and security is gone,” he said. “The risk is that either people if they can’t read a document but sign it anyway, or they get someone else to read it to them and there goes their privacy and security.”

Visual accessibility isn’t a “set it and forget it” process, either, said Springer, Rizzi and other consultants. Digital layouts and the technical underpinnings degrade as new functions and elements are added, potentially canceling out once-helpful designs and links. Testing for the experience of a visually compromised client (by a visually compromised or professional tester, not by a person with normal sight) should be integral for confirming good user experience ongoing, consultants said.

MULTIGENERATIONAL RELEVANCE

Vision ability intersects with personal preference, too, pointed out Parinay Malik, director of customer inclusion at Fidelity Investments, which outlines its visual accessibility tools for clients. Some people, accustomed to controlling font size through e-books, have come to prefer larger fonts, he said.  

“Captions work for almost everybody,” Malik said, especially as consumers become familiar with toggling through preferences offered by digital entertainment platforms. And older clients often rely on younger family members for visual work-arounds, which means that firm staff must customize visual access for two generations.

All of this means that ongoing visual accessibility compliance is achieved through workplace culture. Malik and others agree that staff need to be ever-aware that clients, especially long-time clients whose visual ability might have changed, are always offered visual options.

Taylor said that a good way to approach clients is with an open-ended question: How do they prefer to take in the information?

And it’s paramount, Weber said, to make sure that tools and options are always ready to be used, whether that’s in-office signage or digital documents that are confirmed to be compatible with screen readers.

“When you’re scheduling appointments, have a notation that asks clients if they need an accommodation, so you have advance notice,” she said. “Then have these arrangements set up so you are ready to go.”

[More: Visual accessibility serves clients more effectively, heads off potential risk]

Strategies by Students Consulting, a political consulting student organization at Northwestern, was founded in fall 2022 by Medill sophomore Sammy Dubin and Weinberg sophomore Oliver Goldman to create opportunities for students to build experience in political consulting.

“The central mission of the organization is to fill capacity and resource gaps for local campaigns while offering our members the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in political consulting,” Dubin said.

Dubin and Goldman noticed a lack of on-campus student groups that focused specifically on political consulting. They saw starting SBSC as a way to bridge the gap between consulting and political advocacy groups, Goldman said. 

Although SBSC is not yet officially a student organization, it hopes to apply and receive recognition by Spring Quarter to recruit more students with an interest in politics, according to its founders. 

Members collaborate to offer pro bono services to political candidates and create individualized partnerships with local campaigns in Evanston and the greater Chicago area, including races for aldermanships, mayorships, city council seats and school board seats. 

“We want to help meet the needs of campaigns, whatever they are, and elevate the campaign to the community,” Goldman said. 

SBSC also helps students without political consulting experience by facilitating educational conversations and skill-oriented workshops with professionals across the political landscape. 

Currently, the organization is working with two Chicago City Council candidates to help broaden their public presences: the first is Angela Clay, running in the 46th Ward, and the second is Oscar Sanchez, running in the 10th Ward. 

SBSC’s work with the campaigns focuses on strategic communications consisting of digital fundraising campaigns, graphic design for social media and email campaigns. 

Members of SBSC hold regular meetings with Clay’s campaign team and have organized two digital fundraising campaigns. According to Goldman, it has raised a total of $24,000, including a matching pledge of $10,000. They have also managed social media and email communications for Clay. 

“I’ve always been a fan of watching good speeches, and being able to write a speech and then have a candidate present it has been really cool for me,” said Medill sophomore Gideon Pardo, vice president of client development. “Working with candidates and seeing how a campaign is run has been my biggest takeaway from SBSC, and collaborating with people on a team to build experience has also been very valuable.”

SBSC hopes that both clients will move on from the municipal elections Feb. 28 to the runoff elections April 4. 

Goldman said that after seeing its initial partnerships through and recruiting more members, the group will assess its work. The leadership team plans to deliver a structured educational programming sequence, including a series where professional political consultants will describe their past projects. Eventually, SBSC aims to get involved with a higher volume of candidates and increase the potential of its impact on behalf of those campaigns, according to Goldman.

“As a student organization, we want to build skills and create a growing community of students at Northwestern who not only have an interest in the political consulting space but also have hard skills they can take into internship opportunities or even into their careers,” Goldman said. 

Email: [email protected]

Related Stories: 

— Reif: Students are burnt out. NU must embrace a culture of less

— The Daily Explains: The Organization of Women faculty letter

— Northwestern students get involved in upcoming midterm elections

The good times can only last so long. B-school grads are seeing rising MBA pay in consulting, along with enticing perks, and increased opportunities. In consulting, organizations are still racking up record revenue.  On the horizon, a reckoning is coming – a disruption that may favor undergraduates and specialists and leave MBAs behind and that may well impact MBA pay in consulting.

That was one finding from the annual 2023 Management Consulting Salaries Overview from Management Consulted. Covering consulting pay for 15 years, Management Consulted describes itself as the “only originally sourced data available in the industry.” In essence, the firm collects pay and benefit data through its interview prep and resume prep services (along with Tested website visitors and data furnished by consulting firms). In many cases, the data is derived from written job offers.

Most important: the data on MBA pay in consulting is current– derived from 2022 responses that aren’t averaged against past responses.

Management Consulted also stays close to the industry through services to consulting firms and higher education institutions, along with directories and research guides. Through their sources, Management Consulted can confidently say that the industry is healthy. In its overview of 2022 results, Management Consulted notes that MBA pay in consulting is soaring and travel is down. Couple that with increased investment in professional training and lucrative exit opportunities and you could say consulting is operating in a golden era. Problem is, the demand fueling consulting’s growth may also contribute to an industry correction.

Bain & Company. Bain photo

CHANGES ARE COMING TO MBA PAY IN CONSULTING

“This led to record revenue for many consulting firms and a continued wave of M&A activity, leading to double-digit industry growth,” Management Consulted explains. “However, this growth is not without potential peril. Future margins are at risk as firms continue to raise salaries without a commensurate rise in project rates. So far, margins have been protected by a decrease in operational costs (i.e., smaller office space, less travel). Still, there is only so much that firms can cut, and salaries keep rising.”

Story continues

In its analysis, Management Consulted believes that the next wave of cuts will involve either shrinking project team sizes or opting to hire less expensive non-MBA talent. At the same time, Management Consulted anticipates the continuation of M&A consolidation that has enhanced the capabilities of the large players, citing examples such as Bain & Company acquiring Proxima to bolster its supply chain portfolio. The result, they explain, is “a fragmented market of boutique players” – who will struggle to compete against the in-house groups that enjoy greater resources from their parent firms. Even more, as Management Consulted observes, industry hiring is expected to catch up to client demand.

“As the last two years of frenetic hiring catches up with the demand for services, overall consultant utilization has plateaued…Decreased utilization and a loosening labor market will lead to less open roles and slower salary growth this year. Why? 2021 and 2022 saw an unprecedented wave of exits from the industry – these exits should stabilize as utilization comes back to historical norms. Combine this with the fact that consulting’s biggest competitors for talent – Wall Street and Silicon Valley – are conducting layoffs and slowing hiring because of the rising cost of capital, and these factors will put downward pressure on salary raises headed into the 2024 cycle. With more eager candidates than ever before chasing the prestige, pay, and relative stability of a consulting job, the consulting job market will be even more competitive this year.”

McKinsey Office

MBB IS KIND TO MBAs

It may be more competitive, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be any less lucrative. That’s why Management Consulted also provides firm-by-firm breakdowns of MBA pay in consulting. That starts with compensation – base pay and benefits – for MBA and PhD full-time new hires (who are traditionally paid the same). By the same token, Management Consulted does the same for new hires who hold bachelor’s and master’s degrees (who, again, are historically paid the same). In addition, you’ll find 2022 internship pay data and potential career earnings for both segments over time.

How do latest graduates fare when it comes to pay? Let’s start with the MBB…for MBAs. In terms of base pay, Bain and McKinsey both start at $192K, with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) trailing close behind at $190K. That’s a near 10% increase over last year, where MBB bases averaged $175K. For sign-on bonus, new MBA hires collect $30K at each firm. That reflects a long-time trend at these firms according to Management Consulted.

“At McKinsey, Bain, and BCG, management consulting salaries are relatively flat across all offices within a country. This has two important implications. First, there is often little room for salary negotiation unless you are an experienced hire. Second, you can increase your take-home income by choosing an office location where the cost of living is lower (e.g. choosing Atlanta over San Francisco).”

When it comes to perks, McKinsey and Bain stand out in several areas. As a first-year at Bain, new hires enjoy 25 days of PTO, compared to McKinsey (19) and BCG (15). McKinsey also offers a 50% reimbursement to second years according to Management Consulted, while Bain includes profit sharing. For MBAs and PhDs seeking to relocate, Bain and McKinsey reimburse anywhere from $8,000 to $16,000 in expenses, while BCG provides an interest-free loan. In terms of retirement, McKinsey matches 7.5% of base – or nearly double Bain’s contribution.

Consulting Meeting

A GOOD START FOR BACHELOR’S AND MASTER’S GRADS

You’ll see a similar pattern with compensation for the bachelor’s and master’s segment with the MBB. Bain and McKinsey pay $112K in base, followed closely by BCG at $110K. That’s roughly 58% of MBB and PhD starting pay. Each MBB firm also furnishes a $5K signing bonus. Beyond that, you’ll find major differences. McKinsey tops its peers in this segment with a $30K sign on bonus (compared to $25K at BCG and $22.5K at Bain). Bainies receive the most PTO at 20 days, in contrast to McKinsey (19) and BCG (15). In a reversal of the MBA segment, McKinsey pays more than Bain for relocation for new hires in the bachelor’s and master’s set, while Bain is the only MBB firm offering a housing allowance. In terms of retirement, McKinsey deposits 7.5% of pay into a 401K, while BCG pledges $4,400.

You’ll also find standouts beyond the MBB for the bachelor’s and master’s degree holders who entered consulting in 2022. Deloitte and Strategy& hires generally start around $100K. At Alvarez & Marsal, new hires can make up to $129K in base and up to $100K in bonus. Between base and bonus, EY Parthenon hires collect $122K to start. Cornerstone Research, Kearney, and Avencore sign their first-years to $15,000 bonuses, better than either Deloitte or Accenture. In terms of vacation, Arthur D. Little provides unlimited time off. KPMG starts at 30 vacation days, with 27 days being the norm at CEL Management Consultants. Another four firms offer 25 days of PTO.

Those aren’t the only perks for consultants who haven’t yet pursued an MBA or PhD. At Cornerstone Research, they handle 100% of moving expenses, including broker fees and even lodging (for four days). Kearney covers profit sharing up to $8,500, with Accenture’s package includes a 15% discount on stock. At Kepler Associates, they match 8% of base pay, while Investor Group Services promises that its hires will enjoy a $15K rise in base after the first year.

Next Page: Internship Pay and Compensation Over 10 Years

BOUTIQUES OPEN THEIR WALLETS FOR MBA GRADS

The pay and benefits are equally enticing outside the MBB for MBAs and PhDs. Just look at the top firms. When you add base and potential bonus, EY Parthenon hires can pull in $227,500. That doesn’t include the firm’s unlimited vacation – on top of an extra $10K bonus (tacked on to a $30K bonus) for early signing. Ernst & Young’s $175K starting base is closer to the MBB than most firms, while the 30 and 25 vacation days dangled by KPMG and Deloitte respectively are equally competitive. At PwC, MBA and PhD hires can collect $30K on their first day. Some firms even compete directly with the MBB. At Strategy&, first-years can make up to $250K or more, when you factor in a $190K base, a $30K sign-on bonus, and up to $60K in performance bonus. Accenture Strategy dangles a similar package, one that also covers up to $80K in tuition reimbursement.

The boutique firms are equally competitive for MBAs and PhDs in some spots. At Alvarez & Marsal, grads can make up to $262,500 in their first year between pay, sign-on bonus, and performance incentive. Those totals are $260K at OC&C Strategy Consultants and $253,800 at Kearney. For returning interns, ZS Associates reimburses second-year tuition. The Analysis Group ups the ante on sigh-on bonuses by paying out $45K, while Oliver Wyman tacks a $15K early signing bonus to the $30K it already bonuses new hires. AlixPartners matches that total in its hiring package: a $35K sign on bonus supplemented by a $10K payout for returning interns. At the same time, AlixPartners offers an uncapped performance bonus that reaches $60K or higher – a bonus structure that is also employed by Galt & Associates. If you’re looking for extra time, Maine Pointe accommodates employees with 29 paid vacation days. And similar vacation time is baked into offers from Charles River Associates, IQVIA, Putnam, Vizient, and Xynteo.

Of course, these numbers come with strings attached. Take performance bonuses. Just 5%-10% of consultants, company-wide, max their bonus. The rest receive a check somewhere in the middle. In some cases, signing bonuses are paid out across the first year rather than deposited in a lump sum. In most firms, relocation bonuses are based on the distance between a company office and the university – not the home residence.

Bain consultants in the New York City home office. Courtesy photo

INTERNSHIP PAY IN CONSULTING

Another form of MBA pay in consulting: summer internships. Lasting 8-12 weeks, the experience – resources, networking, access, training, and impact – really differentiate consulting firms. However, it is hard to argue that some firms perform better here than others.

At the undergraduate level, you could safely say consulting internships pay students way more than their campus jobs. Among the MBB, summer internship pay ranges from $21,154 (BCG) to $22,500 (Bain). Over 10 weeks, Accenture Strategy pays $32 an hour – or $12,800. In contrast, Deloitte and PwC kick in $41 an hour – which equates to $16,400 over the same period. Strategy& boasts the highest pay at $48 an hour, with Ernst & Young being the runner up on hourly compensation at $45 per hour according to Management Consulted. Overall, the biggest spender is Oliver Wyman, where bachelor’s and master’s degree holders collect $19,038 over just nine weeks, just ahead of Kearney interns at $19,230. And this segment doesn’t reap weekly paychecks. In total, there were 11 firms divvying out sign-on bonuses, topped by PwC paying $3,000.

Not surprisingly, the numbers are even gaudier for MBAs and PhDs. True to form, the MBB follow each other closely on MBA pay: led by McKinsey ($36,923). Those numbers are closely followed by Kearney ($36,153), Ernst & Young ($35,000), and EY Parthenon ($35,000). In terms of signing bonus, Accenture Strategy, Ernst & Young, ZS Associates each paid their summer interns $5K to join. Accenture Strategy even doled out $5K for internship relocation, while KPMG offered $99 an hour for overtime.

BCGers have enjoyed getting back together this summer through fun office, case team, and diversity affinity network events

A LOOK AT 10 YEARS OF MBA PAY IN CONSULTING

In announcing its findings for the 2023 Management Consulting Salaries, Management Consulted noted that this year represented the 14th year where pay increased for consultants – with just one year reporting lower compensation that the previous year since 2008. To provide historical context, Management Consulted points to a 10% pay increase over the past year – a far cry from the usual growth rate, which spans 2%-4%.  Those percentages only get bigger as consultants build their career. Over years of collecting data, Management Consulted has found that consultants can expect their base and performance bonuses to increase by 10% to 20% annually. Using average pay growth, they are able to plot out compensation from associate to senior partner using numbers from an MBB firm.

Here, a first-year will likely net a $190K base along with a performance bonus up to $60K. Within two years, that base should rise to $220K-$240K once an MBA or PhD transitions from associate to manager (with a performance bonus that nearly doubles). By the time an MBA makes associate principle or senior project leader, the base and bonus climb to $275K-$305K and $150K-$250K respectively. Within eight years of starting, high-performing MBB consultants should be reaching the rarified air of partners and principles, where bases range from $375K-$450K – and performance bonuses start at $500K. When they reach the pinnacle of senior partner and director – a decade or more after they start – MBAs should be averaging, at minimum, $500K in both bas and bonus.

That’s a big difference from bachelor’s and master’s degree holders in the first year. At the MBB level, they earn $80K less than MBAs in base, not counting half the performance bonus and a seventh of the signing bonus. This trajectory also reflects the importance of landing the biggest base to start. While the gap is smaller at the MBA level, the difference grows increasingly pronounced.

Just compare an MBB ($190K) to start against a Big 4 firm ($175K). After three years, with an average pay increase of 10% each, the pay difference is $628,000 vs. $579,000 – or $49,000. That’s not overly troubling…until you look at average performance bonus. That comes in at $60K in year 1 and $100K-$120K in years 2-3 at the MBB level and roughly $40K in year 1 $67K-$81K over years 2-3 for the Big 4 (assuming Big 4 firms continue to bonus out at two-thirds of the MBB). If the MBB and Big 4 consultants each attain a 90% of their performance bonus in this scenario (at the top end) over three years, the MBB consultant will more than double their Big 4 counterpart ($365,110 vs. $181,000).

McKinsey at ROMBA 2019

STILL THE ONE

These dual gaps only widen over time in consulting – though time and patience can be in short supply here. “Most full-time hires will not make it to Partner” Management Consulted admits. “Many consulting firms have an “up-or-out” promotion structure – and many consultants choose to leave. Those who perform exceptionally are given the chance to be promoted, while poor performers are encouraged to seek employment elsewhere. Because of the up-or-out structure and the attractive exit opportunities, only a small percentage of consulting recruits make it all the way to Senior Partner.”

Sounds cruel, but don’t shed too many tears for consultants, adds Management Consulted. “You typically receive a pay increase when leaving, as well as a bump in lifestyle. In the U.S., the average consultant who accepts an industry position receives a 12-20% increase in pay and a better work-life balance.”

Indeed, generalists face a trying time in consulting. As Management Consulted observes, firms are increasingly turning to specialists – with MBAs making up less than 20% of McKinsey’s latest hiring batch. While consulting may contract in the coming years, it is still faring better than its competitors in finance and technology. With finance, the benefits of compensation – up to 30% higher than consulting – is offset by long hours and heavier demands that undermine work-life balance. In technology, hires endure longer promotion cycles and more “siloed” assignments. Hence, consulting remains the industry to join for forward-thinking business school talent.

“Outside of finance, post-MBA compensation packages are the highest in consulting out of any industry,” Management Consulting adds. “Not only are finance and tech slowing hiring, but consulting continues to offer faster promotion cycles, broader industry exposure, and a better path to business leadership.”

To read the full Management Consulting salary report, with details on compensation packages for over 100 firms, click here.

The post Consulting Pay: What MBAs Earned In 2022 appeared first on Poets&Quants.

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb 8, 2023--

DeciBio Consulting, a strategy consulting firm dedicated to accelerating the adoption and impact of precision medicine technologies, received recognition as a top consulting firm to work for in North America. DeciBio received first place in Innovation, achieving its first #1 ranking since its founding one decade ago.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230208005751/en/

DeciBio Consulting Ranks #1 in Innovation in the Vault Consulting 50 Best Firms to Work For (Graphic: Business Wire)

In awarding DeciBio with this innovator status, Vault described DeciBio as an “agile life sciences consultancy” with an “entrepreneurial spirit” that “offers employees the excitement and challenge of a startup environment” despite being “far into its growth stage.”

DeciBio Partner, Andrew Aijian, echoed, “Innovation is so forefront at our firm that it’s in our mission statement. We have been fortunate to count among our clients some of the most innovative companies in the world, and we are honored to be recognized for this trait ourselves.”

For the third year in a row, Vault also recognized DeciBio on its Vault Consulting 50 and Best Boutique Consulting Firms lists. DeciBio is one of the youngest firms on either list.

In its summary of the survey results, Vault championed DeciBio’s casework, culture, opportunities, deep content knowledge, “true team ethos,” and “single-minded determination to deliver solutions.” In addition to its recognition for Innovation, DeciBio placed #2 in the Firm Leadership category and received additional top-10 rankings in other categories such as Business Outlook, Selectivity, Diversity for LGBTQ+, and Informal Training & Mentoring.

Dr. Stephane Budel, DeciBio’s Co-Founder, added, “To achieve our goal of making a meaningful and game-changing impact in the life sciences industry, we continuously seek to push the boundaries of the traditional consulting model, and create a culture where our employees’ entrepreneurial spirit can fuel our innovation. This culture has led us down exciting paths in SaaS, venture capital, proprietary syndicated data, and novel partnership models.”

According to Dr. Carl Schoellhammer, Managing Director of DeciBio’s venture capital fund that focuses on seed and Series A investments in innovative research tools, diagnostics, and therapeutics technologies, “DeciBio's innovative spirit is demonstrated not only in the way we develop differentiated strategies for clients but also in our broader role in the life science startup ecosystem. Startups are the lifeblood of innovation in our industry, and we nurture them through various stages of growth via our strategic support and venture investments.”

DeciBio’s Head of Product, Pranay Madan, explained that, “At DeciBio, the culture of innovation and the drive for impact have enabled us to develop products that create value for our clients beyond traditional consulting. The result is solutions like Dexter, our precision medicine-focused life science expert marketplace, which reimagines the expert network service model and customer experience in a way that is custom-built for the life sciences.”

After surveying Tested consulting employees and interns in North America, Vault calculated the 2023 Vault Consulting 50 rankings based on the following factors: Prestige, Firm Culture, Satisfaction, Compensation, Work/Life Balance, Level of Challenge, Business Outlook, and Promotion Policies. See FirstHand’s website for results and methodology. See DeciBio’s full profile on FirstHand | Vault here.

About DeciBio

DeciBio Consulting ( www.decibio.com ) is the leading strategy consulting, market intelligence, and SaaS firm dedicated to accelerating the adoption and impact of technologies enabling precision medicine.

DeciBio advises companies and organizations in the life science research tools, diagnostics, and precision therapeutics markets, including emerging markets such as liquid biopsy for early cancer detection, multiplex spatial tissue analysis, and cell and gene therapy manufacturing, among others.

Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, DeciBio serves a global base of clients and customers, ranging from startups to Fortune 500 healthcare corporations. DeciBio offers advisory services for growth planning, market and opportunity assessment, product and portfolio strategy, voice-of-customer feedback, technology assessment, and commercial due diligence.

View source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230208005751/en/

CONTACT: DeciBio Consulting

Elle Nouveau

careers@decibio.com

310.451.4510

KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA CALIFORNIA

INDUSTRY KEYWORD: SOFTWARE BIOTECHNOLOGY HEALTH CONSULTING SMALL BUSINESS HEALTH TECHNOLOGY PROFESSIONAL SERVICES TECHNOLOGY

SOURCE: DeciBio Consulting

Copyright Business Wire 2023.

PUB: 02/08/2023 12:02 PM/DISC: 02/08/2023 12:02 PM

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230208005751/en

Prime Video has dropped the full trailer for its forthcoming thriller drama The Consultant, which will be available for streaming on February 24.

The video features Christoph Waltz’s Regus Patoff as he becomes a consultant for a top gaming company after the death of its CEO. The workplace environment suddenly becomes uncomfortable for the employees as Regus begins to implement harsh changes including unreasonably firing people.

Check out the official The Consultant trailer below:

Described as a twisted, comedic thriller, The Consultant is based on the 2015 novel written by Bentley Little. It is created and executive produced by Tony Basgallop, who is also serving as the showrunner. The series is being led by Christoph Waltz as Regus Patoff, Nat Wolff as Craig, Brittany O’Grady as Elaine, and Aimee Carrero as Patti.

It is set to explore the sinister relationship between boss and employee, as the characters and story unfold in new and unexpected ways. “When a new consultant, Regus Patoff (Christoph Waltz), is hired to Improve the business at the App-based gaming company CompWare, employees experience new demands and challenges that put everything into question … including their lives,” reads the synopsis.

The series is executive produced by Waltz, Matt Shakman, Steve Stark, and Andrew Mittman, with Kai Dolbashian producing. Shakman also directed the show’s pilot. It hails from MGM Television and Amazon Studios.

The post The Consultant Trailer Shows Christoph Waltz as a Terrifying Boss appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More.