2023 Top Consultants: Evelyn Tee

Evelyn Tee is a Vice President at Kx Advisors and is based in Washington, DC. Evelyn has extensive experience in building growth strategies for global MedTech and biopharmaceutical clients through a broad range of services, including portfolio and strategic planning, competitive assessments, global market expansion, product optimization and commercial transformation. Evelyn's expertise spans a range of disease areas, including cardiology, congenital disorders, nephrology and vascular diseases.

Prior to Kx Advisors, Evelyn held strategy consulting roles with the Boston Consulting Group and the Life Sciences Advisory Practice of EY. Evelyn earned an MBA in Operations and Marketing from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and is a Joseph Wharton Fellow. She also earned a BA in Mathematical Methods in Social Sciences (MMSS), Economics, and International Studies from Northwestern University.

What has motivated you to excel over the course of your career?

I have always been motivated by personal growth, and that led me to gravitate naturally to consulting, where the variety of challenges means I'm always learning and growing! I excel because I enjoy problem-solving and being in consulting has allowed me to really lean into that. I characterize consulting as the business of good decision-making: I help my clients make better decisions because of the data, the analysis and the real-world experience my teams bring to them. Consulting is an industry where I've had to be both creative in coming up with innovative solutions and disciplined in being guided by data and analysis – it really has used all of my brain.

I am also motivated by my choice of industry specialization. Being able to guide health care industry clients through complex decision-making and coming up with better solutions to solve pressing health care problems is very meaningful. I take great pride in knowing that the work I and my teams do has resulted in better health care outcomes for people, particularly people from underrepresented backgrounds and those suffering from rare health conditions. In an industry that has historically struggled with the topic, I take great pride and motivation from being able to work with my clients to help them understand health equity and why it matters for their business.

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

The biggest factor in my personal life has been my spouse, who has supported me through all the initial years of being a road warrior. I came into consulting post-MBA and was already married with a child. I was traveling 80% (Monday-Thursday) of the time for the first four years of my career when my son was 4 years old. It was difficult to leave him every week, and I would not have been able to travel every week and be able to focus on the job, if not for the fact that I knew my child was being looked after and taken care of by my spouse.

At work, the biggest factor has been having supportive leaders who invested their time and resources coaching and guiding me to become better at my craft. I have been stretched to my potential by their strong belief in my capabilities, and I have appreciated their support for initiatives such as when I founded the Women@Kx initiative at my firm. I have used their leadership as models for how I lead my teams, and that has in turn led to team success.

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

What I enjoy most about consulting is 100% the people development aspect. Consulting is an industry that attracts bright, intellectually curious people that are a joy to work with. I am constantly working with different consulting teams on all my projects. These teams are often staffed with associate consultants or consultants who are fresh or only a few years out of college or graduate school. As a VP at Kx, I work very closely with my consulting teams and we do lots of brainstorming and team discussions throughout the entirety of the project, and in so doing, I develop close relationships with many of the associate consultants and consultants.

Kx is filled with extremely capable people, and being able to coach and guide them and watching my teams grow and learn throughout the process is very rewarding. I love seeing my teams get promoted through the ranks or go on to pursue graduate degrees at top MBA or medical school programs. Having team dinners and relaxing together after a project wraps up is one of the highlights of my work.

What is your proudest achievement to date?

My proudest achievement to date is being able to successfully navigate a consulting career while still being a mother to three children. I now have an 11-year-old and a pair of 3-year-old twins. I pivoted to a more business-development-focused aspect of my career right when Covid first hit and had to navigate the new world of selling and delivering work remotely even as my then-babies clambered into my chair and popped up on countless Teams calls. Being able to succeed and help my company achieve success through expanding our client base and developing new consulting offerings while juggling family responsibilities is definitely my proudest achievement. It made my work with pediatric health care especially meaningful – for example, when I developed the first-ever pediatric patient pathway solution for my client company's Congenital Heart Disease and Patient Team, by understanding the mindset and treatment pathway for patients with congenital heart disease. This solution enabled my client to better provide support to these patients from birth through adulthood.