2022 Global Leaders in Consulting: Xavier Tang

Xavier has more than 9 years experience in strategy consulting, digital transformation, and technology – currently employed at Blackdot Consulting, and having previously worked for McKinsey and Lyft. He has served clients in large scale transformation programs across a variety of industries in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Europe and the UK. Xavier is passionate about hands-on client relationships and embedding new ways of working both internally and externally.

What do you consider your greatest personal or professional achievement?

Establishing and scaling our North American presence at Blackdot is a true career highlight and one of my greatest professional achievements. Over a short period of under a year, we have built a strong team that is delivering client impact at pace – and I couldn't be prouder of what we've achieved.

What advice would you give a professional just beginning a career in consulting?

Explore! Consulting is a unique opportunity to experience a diversity of companies, geographies, and business challenges. Make the most of it and really ask yourself if you feel you have been doing the same thing for too long. Are you really getting the full diversity of experience you can from consulting?

What have you loved most about your consulting career?

The locations I've served in. I have had the privilege of working with clients across the globe and have learned immensely from the experience of crossing cultural and language divides. Engagements in Latin America, Southern Europe, and many other places have really shown me the similarities that exist in core business challenges. While the local context may vary, many companies are struggling with the same roadblocks of digital transformation and pivoting to be more customer-centric. These experiences have helped me understand the broad applicability of our consulting toolkit and provided me with the confidence to tackle problems in any market.

What's the best advice – personal or professional – you've ever received?

Work with people you like. Although it doesn't always feel like it, we have a choice as to who we work with and what projects we take on. Ultimately, you will enjoy yourself much more if you are part of a supportive and fun team. On the client side, there is no shortage of genuinely good people with problems to solve and we create the greatest impact together when we form a symbiotic, collaborative relationship.

What does being honored as a Global Leader mean to you?

At Blackdot, we have used this time of disruption to challenge some of the long-held conventions around the consultant-client relationship and improve how we engage with our customers. Being recognized as a global leader in consulting, alongside other executives who have changed and adapted to fit a new world of remote working, would reaffirm that the internal and external shifts we have made have been successful. For our clients, it would mean that we have successfully used Agile principles to create distinctive engagements and fulfilling employee experiences. It would also indicate that we must fundamentally continue to embrace this new way of collaborating on transformational change – one that focuses on real-world value creation, over predetermined deliverables or rigid plans. From a personal standpoint, it would be an honor to receive this award – as I have always endeavored to ensure that the principles of Agility are applied across a wide array of engagements.