Leadership
Donna Campbell
Principal
EY
Ask EY's Donna Campbell what advice she would you give to a female consultant just beginning her career and she'll answer: "Trust yourself." She'll go on to say that they should try new things and take opportunities that are outside of their comfort zone. "You find out so much about who you are as a person when you're in unfamiliar territory," Campbell says. "Take the long view, because that's what good leaders do. You have the chance to be a leader at every point in your career. Explore and understand your leadership style and give it a try, learn what works and what doesn't. Let yourself grow."
Sound advice, for sure. And proven, since it's already worked for Campbell. She has been leading consulting operations for many years, and she was the first direct admit partner into EY's emerging Advisory practice charged with building the Performance Improvement business for EY.
Starting from scratch, she was responsible for hiring over 175 partners and building
a team of over 2,000 consultants. The result? Revenue of $35 million turned into $1 billion. "I am passionate about the business of consulting. I enjoy helping clients with their challenges, always keeping us on our toes. I love working with global clients and the resultant diversity of building teams to serve them," Campbell says. "Consulting is a career that offers us the chance to learn about and demonstrate leadership every day, and to continually learn something new about ourselves and the world around us."
In addition, Campbell is also a champion of diversity and women's initiatives, both within EY and externally. She is currently leading Advisory for one of EY's largest global accounts, General Electric Company, responsible for working with GE senior executives to understand business issues and to provide relevant services to them. "I love working with people, learning from them and sharing my knowledge with them in the dialogue that occurs when we are solving problems together," she says.
As for being recognized as a Women Leader in Consulting, Campbell says it's an incredible honor and an unexpected affirmation that means so much. "I hope that our women colleagues will see through me receiving this honor that they, too, can have a joyful and successful career in this consulting business," Campbell says. "I'm grateful to Consulting magazine for its willingness to profile successful women in consulting as it demonstrates the success that other women who want this career can achieve."
What is your greatest professional achievement?
"Professionally, I am most pleased to be a founding leader of our Performance Improvement Practice at EY. We have achieved all we set out to do in rebuilding the consulting practice for the firm—and more. I see partners and professionals every day who are enjoying great careers with EY, who have been true leaders with me in building this practice—and I hired many of them, saw their potential and their passion for being a part of something new and innovative. They have found their place, just as I did, and it pleases me greatly to see their success along with my own."
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