The 2010 Women Leaders in Consulting: Sandy Moose

She, of course, accepted and what she thought was going to be a two-year stint turned out to be a 35-year career. "It was serendipitous," Moose says. She became a Director in 1975, a Senior Vice President in 1989 and "retired" from BCG in December 2003. She also founded, and later led, BCG's Global Women's Initiative. Today, she remains a Senior Advisor with the firm.

Over the course of her career at BCG, she held numerous leadership roles within the firm. She led the New York office from 1988 to 1998 and served as Chair of the East Coast region from 1994 to 1998. "I probably feel most proud of helping build the New York office, from its fledgling beginning to the success it has achieved today, through the people I recruited and mentored some years ago," she says.

Moose has consulted to CEOs and top management teams in a broad range of industries—particularly financial services, telephony and consumer goods—advising them on an array of strategic, organizational and financial issues. She was a principal founder of the firm's Financial Services practice and a key contributor in the development of BCG's early management concepts.

"When I was younger, I couldn't wait for Monday morning to arrive. I used to pinch myself at the start of every week to make sure my job was for real," she says. "Who thought you could get paid for doing the type of problem solving you had always wanted to do? Where else but BCG could you work in a place of such high-quality standards with such extraordinary people to solve some of most important business issues of the day, and in so doing, make a difference for our clients and the communities in which we live?"

Over the course of four decades at BCG, Moose says her client relationships are some of her most treasured memories, and she still maintains contact with many of them—including her very first one. "The CEO and CFO are now in their late eighties," she says. "I ended up hiring the CEO's grandson many years ago, and now he's a Senior Partner at BCG. The grandson wanted to be a consultant from the time he was young because he was fascinated by listening to his grandfather tell stories about the work he and his company were doing with BCG."

But those early days weren't always easy. One of the early embarrassments in the 1970s, she says, was being taken to lunch and then not allowed admission into a private club. "Ladies were only allowed to come for dinner and typically had to go through a side entrance," Moose says. Ultimately, this proved more embarrassing for her male clients, who most quickly changed the rules in their respective clubs. "We've sure come a long way," Moose says.

But at early client meetings, Moose says her biggest challenge was being young, more than being a woman. "There really weren't any women before me in the field, so there were no negative stereotypes to overcome," Moose says. "I probably benefited by having a PhD degree, which is still uncommon in business. That gave me some time and space to prove myself to new clients."

And today, she's still proving herself to clients. Moose is President of her own firm, Strategic Advisory Services, and serves on a number of boards. An active participant in women's organizations, she also is a member of the Committee of 200, a nationwide organization of women business leaders, and the International Women's Forum, which advances women's leadership across careers, cultures and continents. In 1999, she received the American Economic Association's Carolyn Shaw Bell award, presented annually to an individual who has furthered the status of women in the economics profession.

—Joseph Kornik

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To read the transcript of Sandy Moose acceptance speech, please click here .

To see video of the speech, please visit this link.