Despite the firestorm of industry change that has surrounded him during his first two years as chairman and CEO of Booz-Allen & Hamilton, Ralph Shrader has kept the 87-year-old institution on a decidedly steady course. While other consulting firms rushed to emulate the e-consulting firms that were stealing business, hemorrhaged employees, and then tried to make sense of the market fallout, Booz-Allen has kept to its unique game plan — one that involves striking a strategic balance between the firm's two unique businesses: management consulting and IT consulting.
It's a balance that has garnered the $2 billion consultancy a client portfolio unlike that of any other strategy or IT consulting firm — one that could now pay Shrader and Booz additional dividends as strategy consulting revenues drop across the sector.
Boasting close to 20 percent growth annually for the last five years, Booz's Worldwide Technology Business has long feasted on government contracts, a cadre of complex enterprise engagements that promise to multiply even as the commercial sector cools off. It's a strategic advantage Shrader is uniquely qualified to leverage, given that today he also wears the hat of president of Booz's WTB and can trace his career's roots to deep within government and telecommunications practices.
It was also in his telecommunications role for U.S. companies that he rose quickly to a leadership position. Shrader was instrumental in divestiture proceedings of AT&T in the early 1980s.
"Talk about a difficult client!" Shrader recalls. "We were actually working for eight clients [AT&T and the seven regional companies that were carved out of the telecom giant]. Everyone had a vested interest in the outcome. This was not a paper exercise. It was like trying to work with the United Nations." But the experience provided Shrader with a valuable lesson about working with people and surviving "tough scrapes" in the consulting business.
Shrader began his consulting career in 1974 after two brief stints as national director of advanced systems planning for Western Union, and as a senior member of the technical staff with RCA's Government Communications System Division.
His search brought him to Booz-Allen, where he found the right fit. "There has been no point in my Booz-Allen career where I ever felt that I wasn't on the right track," he recalls.
Though he has no plans to leave Booz-Allen anytime soon, Shrader's secret ambition is to own or manage a sports team. The admitted sports fanatic says the astronomical price tags of sports franchises would keep him from owning a team, but "I would be willing to take a position where I could help shape the destiny of the team."
In the meantime, Shrader will continue to shape Booz-Allen's destiny by bringing together its technology and strategy powerhouses. It's a feat that will require selling more margin-rich strategy offerings to government clients and more technology solutions to Booz's commercial customers.
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