Client Service Award
Beck Roof
Managing Director
AllixPartners
Becky Roof had always said she wanted to be a management consultant, without knowing what that really meant, she says. In her "second career"—following a stint in audit-type accounting—she was CFO of an oilfield services company in Houston in 1986. Crude oil prices crashed to below $10 per barrel and an involuntary bankruptcy followed.
"I learned firsthand about restructuring, building consensus among competing interests, and being in the proverbial 'hot seat,'" she says. "An offer to join the rapidly growing financial advisory services group at Ernst & Young soon followed, and my consulting career was off to the races."
After five years at E&Y, she moved to PricewaterhouseCoopers, and then to AlixPartners in 1998.
"I love a complex, time-sensitive challenge. When AlixPartners is engaged by a client, it is usually to address an issue that requires big change, and usually urgently," she says. "It is immensely rewarding to provide the independent view to help client teams come together collaboratively to address problems or broken processes, and then come up with new and better ways to fix things and make them better."
It's the ultimate blend of strategic and technical expertise, combining the best of both, while being surrounded by interesting, intelligent people, she says. "And it's such a rush to see it all happen so quickly. "
One such example, she says, is being part of the executive leadership team that brought Kodak out of bankruptcy and on its way to transformation into a B2B technology business. That has been "an amazing experience," she says.
Today, Kodak's materials-science capabilities are seen as being among the best in the world. "I am very proud to have played a major role in helping Kodak eliminate its legacy liabilities and transfer its non-core businesses in order to allow it to capitalize on these exciting technologies and related commercial opportunities going forward," Roof says. "And we helped preserve thousands of jobs in the process."
Roof says the best advice she's ever received was from her parents: Always treat others as you would prefer to be treated. "The Golden Rule really is golden, she says. "To me professionally with my clients, this means be honest, be transparent, and communicate pro-actively and often."
As for advice she'd give a female consultant just beginning a career, Roof says to find a mentor and be a mentor… and develop a presence. "Speak at least once during meetings, even if you are the most junior person." And finally, "find time to exercise and stay healthy," she says. " You can't take care of clients without taking care of yourself first."
What does winning the Women Leaders in Consulting award mean to you?
"It is an extreme honor to join the other outstanding women who are also winners this year, and in previous years. I am humbled and proud to be considered a peer, and I am grateful to all the other women for their innovation, dedication, and service in support of women's advancement in senior consulting roles—it certainly has helped blaze a trail. I intend to use this recognition as an additional opportunity to set an example, and a high bar for my younger colleagues at AlixPartners."
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