2023 Global Leaders in Consulting: Tobias Koesters

Tobias Koesters is a Partner at L.E.K. Consulting and heads the German & Polish offices. In addition, Tobias is a member of L.E.K.'s European Regional Management Committee and a senior member of the European Healthcare Services and Life Sciences practices. Since joining L.E.K. in 2007, his career has encompassed a wide array of sectors, focused primarily on health care Services and MedTech. Tobias has particular expertise in the outpatient market and has advised leading players in the medical device arena across a broad set of geographies. Other areas of experience include nursing homes, specialist hospitals and M&A and corporate strategies for medical device, health care and industrial companies. Tobias has extensive experience in delivering high-impact projects addressing corporate growth strategy, business design and transaction support, covering a wide variety of issues including strategic planning, market entry strategies and transaction due diligence. Prior to joining L.E.K., he worked for Porsche Motorsports in the United States. Tobias studied business administration and health economics at the University of Bayreuth and earned a graduate degree (Diplom-Kaufmann) in International Management, Finance & Banking.

What do you consider your greatest personal or professional achievement?

I consider my greatest personal achievement to see current and former team members grow and succeed. I am continuously proud of their individual & collective accomplishments in addition to being thrilled at what we have achieved at L.E.K. in Germany and Poland over the past decade. On the other hand, I consider my greatest professional achievements the positive societal implications as a result of our health care clients' work. I am always particularly thrilled about observing benefits for care givers, patients and consumers as an imperative side-effect of our clients' work.

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

Personally, I discovered at an early stage that the synergetic interplay between individual inquisitiveness and teamwork is essential to a successful, insightful and sustainable consulting career. If you are a thoughtful individual that is open to unexpected opportunities with the goal of maximizing value creation for future clients, you will have a great career ahead of you. Stay curious and enjoy what you are doing!

What have you loved most about your consulting career?

The foundation of my consulting career has always been centralized around maintaining the enjoyment of working in a team to maximize client value. Even after the multiplicity of projects, the numerous client challenges, and several years in the consulting industry, I still have joy and excitement about solving problems with diverse, creative and high-performing teams, which is essentially what I love the most about my job.

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

To never stop learning. While this is a rather generic piece of advice, I have noticed the high relevance and broad applicability of this maxim throughout my career in consulting. As an advisor in a dynamic/high-growth environment, it remains paramount to stay abreast of trends and emerging issues, to adapt to a quickly evolving ecosystem, and to master the unprecedented technological innovations.

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

Being recognized as a Global Leader in Consulting is an affirmation of the trusted relationships I have built over the years with health care executives across Europe, and in Germany in particular. It is also confirmation of my ability to help L.E.K.'s health care clients navigate the enormous challenges that have arisen since 2020, most notably the disruptions COVID-19 has caused for health care services and MedTech providers. Severe capacity shortages in hospitals, legally enforced closures of outpatient practices, a lack of trained medical staff and, more recently, rising inflation levels have been forcing our clients to reevaluate both their position in the market and what they can and should offer employees. It is times like these when they need our strategic advice the most.

For L.E.K., this award is a recognition of the high-caliber sector insights we deliver by leveraging our deep, extensive health care expertise and global network to help executives increase their certainty around vital business decisions. It is also an acknowledgement of the hard work our team members apply on a day-to-day basis in order to solve complex problems for our clients, whether through in-depth research and analytical rigor, by critically challenging the status quo, or simply by going the extra mile to ensure success.

As to our clients, ideally this award will further strengthen our relationships with them, as well as increase their trust and confidence in our research, analysis, and our recommendations. My ultimate goal is to help health care services and MedTech providers further improve their patient outcomes by leveraging technological advancements, engaging in targeted digitalization and increasing their operational efficiencies, and to help both communities and payors save costs while helping providers expand their respective footprints.