The 2012 Women Leaders in Consulting: Phyllis Yale

For these, and many other reasons, she is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award. "This award is very gratifying," she says. "It means that the choices I've made over time have added up to a career that others find noteworthy. Offering a model for what is possible in this career means a lot to me."

Yale, who recently transitioned from a full-time Senior Partner role with Bain to a part-time role as Senior Advisor supporting other Bain partners, says she chose the profession right out of business school for the same reasons most people do: "the intellectual challenge of solving difficult business problems, the pleasure of working with clients collaboratively, and the enjoyment and fun of working with terrific colleagues," she says.

"I have actively rethought my career every five years, since this job is too demanding to stay in it through inertia. And every time I did, I decided that it remained the best place for me—for the same reasons: intellectual challenge, client service, great colleagues and flexible working models."

Yale also says she thought consulting would be a great career for a working mother. It turns out, it was, especially since Bain supported part-time work "which was impossible to find in most other high-powered executive roles, particularly at that early point in my career."

Yale has led work with clients on issues including competitive strategy development, marketing strategy implementation, cost/ quality management, and mergers and acquisitions. She currently works with healthcare organizations, including providers of the full continuum of care from academic medical centers to home healthcare.

"It is very satisfying that at this point in my career I can have influence across the healthcare sector. I have consulted across wide swaths of the landscape, from health plans to medical technology companies to providers across the healthcare continuum," she says. "It's exciting to see connections between the pieces that most people who work in an industry cannot. I take those perspectives and put them to use for my clients, the boards on which I sit, and some public policy initiatives that I am involved in."

And when she looks back on her career, she takes great pride in helping start Bain's N.Y. office and The Bridgespan Group, but she is also quick to point out
that "the colleagues I have trained and mentored are my greatest legacy."

To that end, she said she would offer woman consultants embarking on a career two important pieces of advice.

"First, decide what success means for you, at different points in your career," Yale says. For her, that came in, more or less, four chapters: In the first few years: Observe, learn, and add value. Over the next ten years: Successfully combine having children with doing satisfying work. "For me, that meant part-time work for 10 years, and not obsessing over whether I was progressing as fast as the next person," she says.

The next ten years: Have an impact on the firm. Have a number of leadership roles, helping to build the institution. Finally, now: Have an impact on your sector. In Yale's case, this meant reducing her hours at Bain so she could serve on several healthcare boards and participate in healthcare public policy initiatives in Massachusetts.

"Secondly," she says, "know that your power comes from asking the right questions."

Yale also will gladly sneak in a third piece of advice: Marry well. "I have had a wonderful career, have raised two daughters who are off pursuing their own passions, and have maintained a circle of friends who mean a lot to me," she says. "None of that would have been possible without the support of my husband. He has been an equal parent all of these years, and while he has always had his own career, he has been the one who has been home every night."

When asked to reflect on what it means to be a woman in consulting, Yale says: "We tend to memorable." One of Yale's more memorable moments from her illustrious career was when she was the only managerial-level woman on a client's campus of 5,000 workers.

But, in typical Yale fashion, she found a way to work that to her advantage. "I find I can deliver difficult messages to clients in a way that they can hear it," she says. "On the other hand, I do believe that women in general have challenges around communicating in powerful and influential ways, and I've made it a personal priority at Bain to help train our young women consultants on effective communications."

Something Yale knows a thing or two about, for sure.