This summer, Steve Payne was appointed EY Americas Vice Chair—Consulting, a position that oversees more than 20,000 consultants focused on creating long-term value for clients through sustainable, inclusive growth. The role is also responsible for cultivating talent and building high-performing teams to deliver exceptional experiences for EY people. Payne previously served as the Global Leader for the EY-Parthenon strategy consultancy as well as the Transaction Strategy and Execution Global Leader. He succeeds Hank Prybylski, who was named EY Global Vice Chair—Transformation. "I thrive on helping people and businesses achieve their full potential, and I'm thrilled to lead this dynamic practice of talented consultants as they collaborate with our clients to reframe their future," says Payne. Payne has been advising top-tier institutions on operations management for more than 30 years. Drawing from extensive international experience in Europe and emerging markets in the Americas and Asia-Pacific, he has delivered working capital improvement programs for Fortune 100 clients. Prior to joining the firm in 2008, he was the CEO of a global boutique consulting firm that focused on helping companies improve cash flow from working capital via operational improvement. Consulting caught up with Payne a few weeks after his appointment to discuss his new role, the new normal for clients and a new outlook for the profession.
Consulting: So, first of all, congratulations on the new role! I'm sure this is not how you planned to take over Consulting. Why don't you talk a little bit about the transition from Hank to you, sort of where you are in that process and how the handoff took place?
Payne: So, the good news is, I'm not new to EY. Coming into the role, I was the Transaction Strategy and Execution Global Leader and one of the things about EY is even if you sit in different service lines, when you go to a client you go as EY. So, in the 12 years I've been at EY, I've engaged a lot with the consulting side of the business; we did a lot together. I knew a lot of the partners, especially around the engagements in the market side. And I also knew Hank. He and I are different people and will have different styles, but I feel fortunate taking this baton from Hank. He's been a great partner and friend going through this. I admire what both Hank and Bob Patton have been able to do bringing the Consulting business to where it is today—$6.5 billion in 10 years. It's a pretty amazing story. So, given the opportunity to take that on and take it to the next level has been great. And Hank has been tremendous in terms of giving me support, allowing me to sit in meetings as we go through the transition. He's been extraordinary generous with his time. That's been very helpful.
Consulting: Are there obvious differences in terms of leadership styles between you and Hank, and what do you bring to the new role?
Payne: I think it's mostly how we engage with people. Hank is a very smart person, he's a very thoughtful person I'm not saying that I'm not, but our personalities, in that way, are a bit different. I don't think I have as much formal education as others in EY, but that's OK. I come at leading a different way: I encourage everyone to come to the table. Be honest; be frank. They should feel absolutely comfortable in saying anything to me; I want straight talk.
Consulting: So, you come at this from the Strategy & Transaction business, which is a different service line all together. Do you see that as a challenge? Or maybe an advantage?
Payne: I see it as an advantage. The advantage I've got coming into this new is that I'm not invested in what's been done previously, I'm not invested in the decisions that have been made before. And because of my different background—coming from the Strategy & Transactions business, being an Ops person, being in consulting since the early '90s and having run a boutique firm—I think I have a slightly different lens on things. Plus, I come in with a clean slate. One of the beauties of jumping service lines is that the expectations of people were slightly different. I haven't grown up in the consulting service line. It's given me a clean slate, a different opportunity with the people, and I see that as an advantage.
Consulting: So, what's the status of the consulting business?
Payne: So, the good news is we're very fortunate that the portfolio of services within the consulting business, and broadly within EY, are very diverse. You know some of the big bets we've been making for the last number of years are around the transformation agenda but also technology and cybersecurity and systems integration. That hasn't changed… maybe the pace has changed, but we came into the year with a very good backlog. That diversity in the portfolio has been very good so there's no need for us to panic over anything, the business has been stable and continues to be even in this COVID environment. So, our financial performance remains very strong.
Consulting: What are some of your goals as you begin this new role?
Payne: I'm getting to know the business more and getting a chance to meet many people so I've been a bit of a sponge; I'm speaking to our clients, I'm speaking to our markets organization, I'm speaking to our coordinating partners on the accounts, I'm speaking to our leaders inside the consulting business to get their feedback. Asking lots of questions: What do you like? What do you think we could be doing differently? How can we serve you? How can I serve you differently? What guidance can I give you? What do you think are the things we need to do? Tell me anything and everything that you want to tell me; don't be shy, put it all out on the table. But I'm also making sure that supporting everything we're doing as a firm is first and foremost, again, spending time with our people to make sure that our people are healthy. Physically, sure. Butt also mentally—COVID, and all that's come with it has brought about big changes. If you're used to being on the road and in front of your client you know, 10, 11, 12 hours a day, sometimes seven days a week, this is a very difficult transition to make.
Consulting: Yeah, that's an under-appreciated aspect to all of this. How are you handling that as a firm?
Payne: Well, it's also a great opportunity for us to have a dialogue with our people in terms of how they work, as well as future business models. It's also changing the way we work with our clients, but from a people perspective, it's very important that we're making sure we're doing everything we can to encourage people to take their time off, encourage people to go do physical activities, encourage people to take care of themselves. We're all going through a lot of angst, right now. And it's impacting everyone in many different ways.
Consulting: How about from a client service perspective? How do you maintain the level of client service that you had previously in this new environment that we all hope is, is temporary, but right now it really doesn't feel temporary?
Payne: No, it doesn't, does it? It's gone on longer than I think any of us originally thought, and I think we could be sitting here for a number of months longer. Actually, I look at this a bit differently in some ways. Whenever you go into a new role, right there's always challenges, always. And the idea that in three years when I retire, I think I'll be able to look back in awe of we've been able to accomplish. EY has moved 300,000 people from work to working from home, and our clients have done the very same thing. But at the end of the day, this is an opportunity. There's clearly some winners and losers in this environment right from a sector perspective, but now going to the next level is: What do we do next? I think when we all shut down in March, we all hoped we'd be back to normal by July. So now it's a case of this is going to be a bit longer so how do we now start changing our business models in a more structured way? You see that with Google, Twitter and other people saying: we're never going to ask people to come back to the office again. So, the future operating model of our clients is going to change.
So, where do we go from here? That's really the big question. Because we know that with every recession that's taken place, the companies who take the time to reshape their portfolios come out ahead. The people who invest more capital expenditure into their business, especially around innovation, products and solutions, come out stronger post-recession than those who didn't do anything. So, we're telling clients there will be winners and losers, and you should be a winner. I think when all is said and done, we'll look back on this and say this time was a pivotal moment in many different dimensions.
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