Rising Stars of the Profession: Michelle Bebrin

Michelle works with utilities and government agencies on innovation, business strategy, and program delivery related to renewable energy and distributed energy resources (DER). Michelle distinguishes herself as a catalyst for change and her innovative, pragmatic approach drives industry transformation through realistic strategies and practical approaches to client challenges. Michelle specializes in orchestrating cross-functional engagement across teams, organizations, and industries.

Michelle has led successful consulting engagements that have yielded meaningful impact, including:

REV Connect: Michelle works tirelessly across New York's industry landscape to help early-stage and mature companies establish compelling and innovative partnerships with utilities. Michelle's work has helped REV Connect engage with ~2000 companies on 530+ ideas and oversee 14 active partnerships with ~$23M in committed investment. Her efforts have been recognized by clients and industry, and REV Connect was named Utility Dive's 2018 project of the year.

PSEG Long Island's Utility 2.0 Program: Michelle started managing delivery of the utility's annual plan in 2018 and has continually asked for more responsibility. In 2020-2021, Michelle led delivery of a Program Management Office and executive-level performance dashboards. She now leads the team helping the utility successfully propose and implement over 30 projects in their program portfolio.

What do you consider your greatest personal or professional achievement?

My proudest personal achievement to date has been to witness and support the people I mentor and manage. I currently manage four junior women, and in the last year they have all made significant performance jumps in terms of delivery of client work as well as coming into their own personal brand and finding ways to apply their interests to enhance Guidehouse capabilities and client value– and that is saying something for a year of record turnover in our sector. Their work has been recognized through internal recognitions, awards, and promotions.

I am most proud of this because, in consulting, I believe you are only as good as the team that can replicate and scale the solutions that you've designed and built. Each of these women took on a part of something I had initially developed and made it even better; this has helped me to advance and take on new opportunities as well.

To me, while the client value and outcomes of their work was impressive, it is most rewarding to me that I've helped the next class of consultants find their passions and that I've helped them succeed.

This was also a big maturity leap for me. As I look to the next phase of my career, I can't rely on the tactics of "throw this project on my back and carry it across the finish line." I will need teams of people supporting me and the skills to manage them and get the best performance from them.

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

Focus on where you can make an impact. I see many young professionals enter their career in consulting to get a broad exposure to a lot of different areas and topics. And it is true that, as one of my colleagues says, consulting is an intellectual buffet for those that are interested in the industry. However, that approach can have downsides, including burnout.

Where I have seen people be most successful in a career in consulting has been when they have been able to focus their time and do so in an area that can make a significant impact to their organization and their industry. Doing fewer things well will almost always yield better outcomes, personally and professionally, than spreading yourself thin across too many things, even if they are all interesting.

What have you loved most about your consulting career?

The two things I love most about consulting are the people and the mission.

Everyone I interact with, whether that be a client or peer, is genuinely interested in improving and evolving. Clients are eager to learn and address challenges – otherwise they wouldn't hire a consultant! Often, the challenges clients face come down to communication, and, while these organizations are doing or planning great initiatives, they struggle to communicate the "why." I enjoy approaching these challenges at the human level – anxiety over change, pride in programs, confusion over options, frustration with status quo – with a compassionate, emotionally intelligent approach.

What keeps me engaged and excited, despite these challenges, is my passion for the mission at hand. My personal "why" is very clear to me: I feel strongly that the only way to overcome the big problems of our world, such as climate change, is to find solutions, including programs and business models, that work for all and then see those ideas from concept through completion.

Consulting offers me the opportunity to advance this mission at the human level every day. I pride myself on being a systems thinker and that uses strengths in analytical thinking, persuasion, and executive presence to share her ideas and achieve a consensus. I love facilitating agreement across multiple stakeholders by looking at all perspectives, biases, and preferences and charting a new course that satisfies all, or at least most, stakeholders.

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

There are a few pieces of advice that stick with me to this day and that, taken together, help guide me in how I spend my time and how I mentor others:

• See opportunity and take it – not everyone sees opportunity and not everyone takes the opportunity even if they see it
• The problem for smart, capable people, like yourself, is that you can do too many things
• Give opportunity away, especially when you are stretched too thin I use these guiding principles to remind myself to stretch beyond my comfort zone, but not so far that I stretch myself too thin.

With respect to finding and seeing opportunities, there may be no better example or career for that than consulting. I feel like in consulting you have constantly see the unspoken: those needs that are underlying the immediate ask by the client. Looking for and raising those has brought me a lot of success in selling additional work or providing additional client value.

In those (admittedly often) times when I do have too much on my plate, I should give away work to others. Sometimes those can be little things that aren't very high value to me but could be a great opportunity for someone else. I am constantly looking for those situations so that I can make the biggest impact with the time I do have which has allowed me to advance into bigger roles.

What does being honored as a Rising Star mean to you?

Recognition, as a Rising Star in Consulting, is validation that I am making a difference. To me, industry impact is my end game and my passion that keeps me showing up every day. While I can measure impact in the context of my current projects and internal metrics, it is challenging to measure overall career impact, so I am honored to have recognition from leaders of our industry.

Additionally, I easily get caught up in the day-to-day and meeting marathons of consulting, which has been especially challenging in the pandemic while working from home, with kids, and with each task blending one into the other. Even just the opportunity to apply for this award has given me the chance to reflect on my work and what it means to me.

On a personal note, I expect a lot of myself. As a kid, my mom would say "always do your best," but that advice can sometimes be a double-edged sword to me where I ask myself, "am I doing my best? What more could I be doing?" By no means does this recognition mean I "made it," but it helps reassure me that my current best is putting me on the right track and that I am setting a meaningful example, including for my kids.