Cari Bunch’s first experience with Kurt Salmon Associates was as a client. During an engagement with her then-employer, a large catalogue retailer, she decided she “wanted to do something different and started talking to KSA.”

For the last 10 years now, she’s been working with retailers like her former employer, “which has just been amazingly rewarding and  a lot of fun,” she says. “The whole retail thing is absolutely in my blood.”

One of the biggest adjustments Bunch says she’s had to make since making the change from an industry position to a consulting one is her level of involvement when it comes to implementing ideas.

“When I was on the business side, I had a chance to just do it. It was very operational focused, and we just did a lot of great stuff.” But she’s now embracing her role as an adviser to others. “On the consulting side, I need to get things done through other people and in a different way.”

Even though Bunch says she’s had to take a step back and let her clients shine, she’s happy with her role. “Consulting’s been interesting and great for me. Part of it is working with clients, and part it is working internally, and you can say it’s about the retail business or [another] business, but at the end of the day, it’s all about people.”

Bunch says she still has a real desire to get in the trenches, and to that end has helped fuel a KSA initiative called Act Vertical, which is a business model that encourages companies to work together and embrace concurrent—as opposed to linear—decision making. Firm management has been embracing the idea more and more as of late, because, as Bunch says, “they’re seeing clients get it and seeing the impact that it makes.”

Bunch is also making an impact with her colleagues, too. About five years ago, she helped develop a professional advancement program at her firm, and in the past few months, she’s helped the firm really grow its women’s initiative.

“We really haven’t put a lot of energy and effort around it like some firms have had a chance to do. And we decided to change that game,” Bunch says.

While Bunch continues to advise her co-workers and clients in the Northeast, she says she longs for home in Naples, Fla.—a place she only sees on weekends. “I just kind of love it down there,” she says. On her weekend trips to Naples, she can walk on the beach, one of her favorite things to do.

Looking forward, Bunch says, she is open to a variety of opportunities that may come her way, including, possibly opening her own retail store sometime down the road.

“There’s something about being able to make a difference and give back to the community that I haven’t had a chance to truly give back to,” she says.

But Bunch admits she doesn’t have any sort of firm plan in mind. “I don’t know what that looks like, but I will figure it out.”