The 2022 Women Leaders In Consulting: Tanya Sukhu

The health care industry continues to transform, and Tanya is right in the middle – guiding positive change every day. Her work involves some of the most complex and high-risk projects that health plan organizations undertake. She helped a large national health care payer consolidate and modernize five large commercial administrative processing platforms into one, unlocking nearly $500 million in annual SG&A cost savings and reduced IT spend over three years. She also helped build an innovation center for a large national health care payer, enabling the organization to advance its consumer centricity and innovation objectives.

Her blend of expertise in operations, innovation strategy, and technology makes her a trusted advisor to medical, dental and ancillary payers. An enthusiastic, engaging leader, she likes to work closely with her team, practice, and colleagues to build consensus and collaboratively deliver tangible impact.

Prior to joining West Monroe in 2021, she spent nearly 16 years with Deloitte Consulting. She earned a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, a master's degree in health care policy from the Yale School of Epidemiology and Public Health, and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

What do you consider your greatest personal or professional achievement?

I always knew I'd work in the healthcare field. My family is full of healthcare providers—both my parents and one grandparent were physicians. Now as a consultant in the healthcare space, I love advising on pressing issues and challenges. In the healthcare sector, change takes a long time and cost is one of the barriers to innovation. Over two decades of working in this field, I am proud to see progress but believe there is more to be made.

My work involves some of the most complex and high-risk projects that health plan organizations undertake—driving change, helping them become digital, and increasing access to and quality of care for members. Many of our healthcare clients are focused on redefining their business models and building new ways to engage with their members/patients and others in the healthcare ecosystem. For example, one of my current efforts is working with a regional health plan to help them build new clinical models targeted at helping members proactively manage their health in a new and differentiated way. It has the potential to redefine how members in this market access and use care.

It is fulfilling work with a broad impact on society, not only on my clients' organizations. I am proud of the progress made in the healthcare field and I am motivated to do more.

What advice would you give to a female consultant just beginning her career?

A career in consulting is a very rewarding experience -regardless of whether you plan to build a long-term career in the field or plan to gain skills early on and transition into industry.

As a female consultant just beginning your career, I recommend jumping in with a growth mindset to focus on learning the ropes of consulting. One of the best things about consulting is the many client-facing roles, which will enable you to learn how to work with different types of people (both client and within your consulting firm). It also allows you to build a number of core consulting capabilities such as helping manage large programs, effectively communicating the message to your client, and learning other key business skills like case modeling and bringing together multi-disciplinary teams.

As you begin your journey, I recommend being open to the various client projects in front of you and trying different types of projects across industries and disciplines.

Ultimately, consulting is a fast-paced career – but you can build the career you want.

What do you enjoy most about your consulting career?

The best part about being a consultant is the people aspect and team-oriented nature. I thoroughly enjoy getting to know the different personalities, both with my clients and my internal teams. Learning how to work with people and really understanding how to add value to the relationship and grow the relationship is pivotal to be successful in consulting and something I really enjoy. We spend a lot of time together and a great result of that is helping my clients and more junior team members grow.

Every day, we get to work with the smartest people in the room. The intelligence and thoughtfulness in every interaction is highly important – I need to bring the right proof points and deep knowledge that is going to help the people around me engage with me in a meaningful way. It's challenging, especially using my brain in this way — it takes a different type of skillset — but I love it and it's very rewarding.

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

Like many women, I became a mother while in working in consulting, a profession notorious for extensive travel and work/life balance challenges. While I have seen many women consultants move into roles that don't require extensive travel, I was determined to be a successful consultant and mother.

I was just a senior consultant when I had my first child and was eager to continue growing my career. During that time, a female colleague and partner pulled me aside and gave me great advice that has stuck with me: Make your career work for you by setting your own guardrails for what is important to you, personally and professionally, and that careers are a marathon and not a race.

I took this advice to heart and made it a priority to balance my personal and professional life. Even though I am now the mentor, I take pride in sharing this same advice and other lessons learned with women colleagues inside and outside of West Monroe as they navigate similar challenges—and in helping them develop the confidence in their ability to make balance work.

What does being honored as a Woman Leader in Consulting mean to you?

I couldn't believe I was named a Women Leader in Consulting by Consulting Magazine! This award validates my career in the consulting field and also supports that I made the right choice by joining West Monroe a year and a half ago. One of the reasons I left big consulting and came to West Monroe was to spend more time mentoring and developing people as it's a big priority here and something leadership truly cares about. Here, I can do the thing that I love the most about my job. At the end of the day, this is a people job and if we don't spend time with people to help them grow, then why are we in the business? I am glad I've chosen to focus my career on and prioritize mentorship and the development of people. This award, by the prestigious Consulting Magazine, is a validation of that and I couldn't be prouder!