The 2017 Women Leaders in Consulting: Nancy Pechloff

This was 1973 and the beginning of a 44 year—and counting—consulting career. Pechloff became one of Andersen's first women partners. She subsequently held several global leadership positions, including leading the Enterprise Group's IPO segment that specialized in serving entrepreneurial middle market companies and initial public offerings in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, with revenues of $500 million.

While with Andersen, Pechloff served on the Global Chairman's Advisory Council from 1988-1989; was a founding member of Andersen's 'Growth and Retention of Women' initiative; and led its 'Growth and Retention of Everyone' initiative.

After winding down Andersen in 2002, Pechloff accepted an invitation from Washington University to teach auditing at the Olin School of Business. Shortly thereafter, she developed a new course for the business school to cover recent financial scandals such as Enron and World Com.

"After I taught for a couple of months, I realized that the students had a distorted view of management and auditors and believed that most were dishonest scoundrels," she says. "I took the idea and instead designed a course called 'Financial Reporting from the CFO's Perspective' where students were asked to research and present solutions for real financial reporting."

After several years of teaching at Washington University, Protiviti approached Pechloff to lead its St. Louis office, which had only eight employees. "I am proud to say that today we have a vibrant St. Louis practice with 70 professionals," she says.

"And, Protiviti delivered on its promise to expand my role beyond St. Louis to run the firm's Central Region, reporting to the CEO."

Today, Pechloff is responsible for more than 750 professionals. "My role is very entrepreneurial and includes participating in setting the firm's strategy, recruiting talent, developing new business and leading client projects, she says. "I am so fortunate to work with extremely talented and engaging people who come to work every day ready to help our clients manage risk and solve business problems."

Pechloff says it has always been especially fascinating to her to meet with her clients' CEOs and CFOs, adding that "once you earn their respect and trust, they open up and share their 'stay awake' issues. They always appreciate insights into what other executive teams are doing to address similar challenges, and they also appreciate the candid views I'm able to offer about where they may need to shift priorities."

Ask Pechloff about her greatest achievement and she'll say, without hesitation, her daughters. "I am so proud of them. They have grown up to be everything I could have ever hoped for."

Professionally, she says she's proud of founding the St. Louis Small Business Awards Program. Never taking no for an answer, she was able to convince the Dean of the Business School at St. Louis University, the Director of the SLU Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and the St. Louis Business Journal to co-sponsor this annual program, which recognized the Top 25 small businesses in St Louis.

"I had recently transferred to St. Louis from Chicago, and this was something not previously done in St. Louis, so it was a risk," she says. "It was a huge success for nearly 10 years and had a significant positive impact on the companies that received the recognition." Today, Pechloff serves on the board of the first company that was a winner of that awards program, Phoenix Textile.

At Protiviti, Pechloff is known for spouting one-line "Nancy-isms," such as "A first impression is a lasting impression" and, "The sun will come up tomorrow" to colleagues. But ask her about the best advice she's ever received and she'll tell the story about having to deal with an extremely difficult, and risky, client situation.

She did not have control over the outcome or the ramifications and the resulting stress actually led her to take some time off work.

After several weeks, one of the firm's partners called and said to her: "Nancy, I can't say I know how you are feeling, but I think you need to get back up on the horse. You love your work and you're so good at it." She listened to his advice and never looked back. "I am still riding the horse," she says.

In terms of broader advice for those just starting their consulting careers, Pechloff says she turns to inspirational quotes that have served her, and others, well. They are from Maya Angelou: "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel," and Theodore Roosevelt: "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

Pechloff adds her own twist on it. "If clients don't know that you care, they don't care what you know. Show this by going the extra mile in every aspect of what you do."

Consulting: What does winning the Women Leaders in Consulting award mean to you?

Pechloff: "I am extremely honored to be nominated for this prestigious award by Protiviti, and I am so grateful to have been chosen for this Lifetime Achievement recognition by Consulting magazine. It's the "frosting on the cake" for a rewarding career spanning 44 years—and still counting—during which I've traveled and met business people all over the world and worked every day with brilliant colleagues and fascinating client executives on challenging business problems."