CHRIS HOUCHIN
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Manager
Age: 28

If Chris Houchin’s at your company, it’s likely morale’s on its way up. The PricewaterhouseCoopers manager was part of a team that saved between 500 and 1,000 jobs at the National Institutes for Health and also worked on a project to improve officers clubs for the Marine Corps—with the primary goal of making military officials happy. “A lot of the things we’re doing are rewarding,” says Houchin, who has been at the firm for more than two years. Currently, he’s working with the Department of Defense. “That’s one of the accounts that we’re really starting to get traction in,” says the University of Kentucky graduate. He attributes his educational background in engineering to some of the success he’s seen in the field and hopes to make partner at PwC in the future.

Houchin’s not only making positive changes for essential personnel, he’s also making changes for those studying English as a second language. The Washington, D.C., resident says he been staying in contact ESL program participants. “It was actually a really cool experience,” he says.

The week he was interviewed, Houchin says he was in full self-examination mode, as he was participating in a management training course at the firm. The personality assessment he took was “right on,” he says. “It showed I like to juggle a lot of balls.”

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CHARLIE DEAN
PA Consulting Group
Principal Consultant
Age: 29

“Charlie Dean’s approach to clients has frequently been called the epitome of PA,” says Dale Robinson, the colleague who nominated Dean. Those clients have primarily been in the medical device and pharmaceutical sector, Dean says, adding his job is simply to do what his clients want to do—whether it’s changing the design process, buying new equipment or writing new software—but don’t have the resources to do. “So they use us an as external engineering resource,” he says.

Dean was originally based in the U.K. when he started with the firm in 2002, but came to the U.S. in 2004 when PA wanted to grow its stateside operations. “[I thought] I would love to live somewhere else, and America had a big draw so I was like, ‘Yup! I’m going.’” He immediately went to work at a medical device company in Puerto Rico, where he developed a project structure system. “That was really interesting because as an engineer I’d always been involved in actually developing and designing products myself... but never really that actively involved in actually setting up the governance for how to run a project like that.”

Dean, who lives in New York, doesn’t have any plans to return to the U.K., but he’s considering helping PA expand its next frontier: the West Coast. “I very much love what I do. At the moment, I’m at the perfect place where I can do everything I want.”

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ADAM JONES
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Senior Associate
Age: 26

Adam Jones wanted a job in sports—but one where he could use his advisory skills. Thankfully, it wasn’t that tall of an order, since PricewaterhouseCooper’s Hospitality and Leisure practice is based in Florida, where Jones attended school. “I obviously hoped there was something out there where you could take sports and take the aptitude of business and turn it into a career. I always thought that it would have had to have been working with a team or a league or an organization. Finding out there is this niche on the consulting side has been a great fit for me,” says Jones, who interned at PwC while at the University of Florida. He has been full time with the firm for nearly four years.

Now Jones helps other enjoy sports as well as he plays a role in the development of new stadiums. “My work,” Jones says, “is primarily related to our sports practice and working on both the professional and collegiate levels, and helping investment groups evaluate and understand the economics of professional sports teams in new or existing markets.” Jones is currently working on a project in Las Vegas, the city, he says, is considering adding sports to its play-friendly atmosphere. “It’s such a dynamic market. There are so many unique circumstances that are evaluated there.”

When Jones isn’t imparting the value of a local sports team, he’s giving guest lectures at the University of Tampa and speaking at industry conferences. Since the practice he’s in is so targeted to his interest, he says he thinks he’ll stay at the firm. “I really value our practice here. I think long-term my goal would be to be considered one of the widely respected thought leaders within the sports industry, whether that’s with an executive of a team or an organization. I would love to continue to grow our practice here at PwC and truly feel there is a value that we bring within the industry and [would] love to continue to strengthen our position of serving as the industry’s consultant.”