The 2022 Top Consultants: Shari Dunn

Shari Dunn is a Managing Director with Gallagher's Human Resources and Compensation Consulting practice. Upon receiving her B.A. degree in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley, Shari headed to New York City to take a position in the human resources department of the Marine Midland Bank, and later worked at Nabisco in operations research. Returning to the San Francisco Bay Area, she became a research associate for McKinsey & Co.

Next, she moved to Deloitte (then Touche Ross) as a consultant. It was at these two prominent consulting firms that she became knowledgeable about the challenges of paying employees effectively and gained high-level strategic consulting experience. Recognizing the additional value of applied corporate experience, she then spent the next 10 years in compensation management positions with Fibreboard Corporation, Boise Cascade, Bank of America and Castle & Cooke, where she worked both domestically and internationally.

In 1980, she established Comp Analysis, a consultancy dedicated to helping employers make successful compensation decisions. In December 2010, the firm, having grown to become a leading independent San Francisco Bay Area compensation management consulting firm specializing in broad-based pay plans, was acquired by Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (NYSE: AJG).

In addition to her management and consulting activities, Shari is a well-known speaker and regularly leads seminars and workshops on employee compensation and related issues for a variety of audiences. She has published a number of articles and white papers, and serves as an expert witness in connection with wage and hour litigation and other compensation matters.

What do you consider your greatest personal or professional achievement?

Personal: raising a wonderful daughter as a single mom; Professional: positively influencing the pay competitiveness and fairness of large numbers of employees over many years

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

Remember that you are in the service business, and that is more important than being the expert.

What have you loved most about your consulting career?

Ability to have an impact and also to work with a broad range of different types of employers in terms of size, industry and location, which is endlessly interesting.

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

Always listen more than you speak What does being honored as a Top Consultant mean to you? Recognition that all those years of very hard work actually meant something