Bill Pace manages a company that's rapidly progressing in two different directions—health services and consumer products. Atlanta-based Kurt Salmon Associates, which very recently became a part of the Management Consulting Group family, currently employs 500 consultants and works with large retail clients such as Macy's. Here, the CEO talks about the type of consultant who is an ideal fit for KSA as well as where the company's headed. (Since the deal has not yet closed, Pace was not at liberty to discuss the acquisition.) Consulting: With such specialized fields, what role does retention play at the firm?
Pace: When we lose somebody who's been here for two or three years, we lose a ton of knowledge and a ton of contacts and networking in our industry—even though they may be relatively junior because they've only focused on consumer, or they've only focused on health. Whereas at another firm for your first two or three years, you might have done an oil and gas project, you might have done a consumer project, you might have done a financial services project, and while you've accumulated a ton of knowledge, it's not directed in a particular area yet.
Consulting: How does that tie into work-life balance?
Pace: We should be managing the firm and we should be assisting people and supporting people and managing their careers in a way that they can create a high degree of work-life balance over time. And if that's not happening—I think one of the reasons people like it here—is that we're pretty responsive to changing the assignment, changing the practice area, changing the conditions, whatever it might be so that people can achieve and can sustain that work-life balance.
Consulting: What happens when a consultant needs to push back and say "no" to a project?
Pace: We tell people to push back a lot. I was just in a staff meeting here yesterday where somebody's on too many projects and he said so, and we're going to respond and find a way to transition him off of a couple and make sure he doesn't get overloaded again. If we didn't, he'd just flame out, and that doesn't do us any good.
Consulting: What kind of potential hire is the best fit at KSA?
Pace: First, they have to love the verticals we play in. If you want to get exposed to a lot of different industries, this is not the place, because we're not going to be in oil and gas next week. The second thing is you really have to be more pragmatic than many other consultants out there. And very focused on the outcomes we create with our clients and making sure they're measurable and meaningful and highly impactful. And not that other consultants don't care about that, of course they do. I think we on that scale, we're two notches over than most of the other firms out there. The third is if you don't think you want a longer-term career in consulting, there may be better places.
Consulting: So what's next for KSA?Pace: We still have quite a bit of geographic white space to fill in Asia and in parts of Europe. We don't see ourselves being everywhere. But filling out parts of Asia, parts of Europe, is definitely something that's very high on our list. We also have a very active presence in health products—pharma, medical devices, biotech—but we have not really established a focus there. We definitely will be putting more focus and effort on health products going forward as a third vertical, along with consumer products and health services.
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