The 2023 Rising Stars of the Profession: Jaime Woltjen

Jaime serves as a director in the Strategy + Operations practice at HBR Consulting (HBR). She has provided management consulting services to the legal industry for over nine years. Her work with law firms and corporate law departments is focused on advancing strategic initiatives related to organizational design, service delivery, process, and technology.

She has particular expertise in the use of data analytics and benchmarking to identify improvement opportunities and helps lead the team responsible for conducting the annual HBR Law Department Survey – a leading source of benchmarking information for in-house leadership teams.

Jaime spent the first four years of her legal consulting career with Huron Consulting, followed by time with Stout in their legal management consulting practice.

She received her Project Management Professional certification from Northwestern University and her bachelor's degree in economics and political science from the University of Illinois.

What would you say has been the biggest factor in your success so far?

I consider the leaders and mentors I have worked with throughout my career to be one of the biggest factors in my success to date. Since the start of my consulting career as a campus hire, I have had the opportunity to work with highly regarded subject matter experts and industry thought leaders in the legal management consulting space, many of whom have helped shaped the modern legal operations profession. In addition to learning from them directly about the industry and the solutions we can bring to clients, I have been able to observe these best-in-the-industry experts as they have demonstrated other skills that make a great consultant (e.g., how to engage and manage an internal team, set high service delivery standards, and operate as an effective client relationship manager).

Additionally, early in my consulting career, I was privileged to work as the primary consultant directly interfacing with these leaders, without intermediate manager oversight, on the majority of my projects. This unique opportunity, which carried forward to my consulting work at other firms, has contributed to my drive to take a deep sense of personal ownership and accountability for the work product we put in front of clients. It has also given me confidence and a self-starter attitude, knowing I can challenge myself to learn new skills and methodologies. I believe that to this day I am well positioned to "jump into" new areas of work as our industry and practice evolves.

What do you enjoy most about your career in the consulting industry?

I have a deep appreciation for the breadth and depth of experiences that can be gained so quickly in comparison to many other professions. The opportunity to work with many household name Fortune 500 companies and leading law firms continues to drive my intellectual curiosity, as each new client presents a unique opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the inner workings of a new organization while tackling the project objective at hand.

In addition to this exposure, one of my favorite aspects of strategy consulting is the "white space" it affords to solve business challenges that often to do not have a clear right or wrong answer. While there are often best practices and precedents to lean on, I enjoy the challenge of being presented with business problems tailored to the unique situation or culture of a particular client and working with them to strategize what is the right solution for them. Some of the most interesting and rewarding projects I have worked on throughout my career have included projects where we reimagined or developed net-new methodologies and work product to solve unique client/industry challenges. The variety of work and flexibility to create and innovate keeps me engaged and has been one of the primary reasons for choosing to become a career consultant.

What is your proudest achievement to date?

Throughout my career there have been a number of client projects where my team was asked to solve unique, complex business problems falling outside of our typical scope. I have been most of proud how I have leveraged these challenges as opportunities to grow my industry knowledge and consulting expertise – stitching together past experiences and applying critical thinking to develop new solutions and innovative approaches to assist our clients. These experiences have positioned me to be a versatile player, able to help meet the needs of clients across the full spectrum of strategy and operations consulting needs.

What's the best advice you've ever been given?

A former client provided one of the most helpful pieces of advice I have received. We were discussing the realities of being a strategy consultant in the legal industry, where your primary client contact is often a senior executive with significantly more years of working experience than you may have early in your career. Their advice was to not let the client's seniority be a distraction; focus on presenting with confidence and demonstrating your command of the facts and you will have no problem getting the respect and attention you need to help achieve your objectives. It was very impactful for me to hear this from a client's point of view at a critical point in my career, helping provide perspective as I was taking on new and challenging projects.

What does this recognition mean to you?

In addition to the acknowledgment of my personal contributions to the profession, I believe this recognition speaks more broadly to the innovative, industry-leading consulting services that the HBR Consulting team as a whole brings to the legal market. It is a nod and thank you to a group of individuals I am proud to call my colleagues. They have been important to my success through mentorship, advocacy, and being model subject matter experts. Many of these individuals have also partnered with me on client projects to help co-deliver some of the innovative strategy projects mentioned in the nomination that have left an important mark on the industry.

I also hope this would serve as an example for our junior consulting staff, who are vital to our delivery in the market and our success as a firm, of how they could be recognized and acknowledged for their own accomplishments in the consulting industry. I am very thankful for the experiences I have been afforded to date in this profession and hope to inspire others to pursue consulting as a long-term career path. I believe it offers a truly unique opportunity to make an impact at a strategic level, very early in your career, on the industry and many different companies.