The 2023 Women Leaders in Consulting: Jennifer Nourollahi

Raised in Atlanta, Jennifer Nourollahi attended the University of Georgia where she graduated with a BBA in Management. She started her career in IT consulting at Capgemini where she focused on large-scale telecoms. After deciding to shift her focus to local-model management consulting, Jennifer joined Jabian, and over the past 12 years has risen to become one Jabian's top leaders.

Jennifer is a management consulting leader with 15+ years of experience with large-sized clients across the telecommunications, hospitality and retail industries. Her experience includes large program change management, change design / execution, strategic planning, process improvement, vendor selection and program management. Jen's recent clients have included a $24 billion+ national-icon retail company, an $18 billion privately owned fuel company, and a $750 million global food service brands company.

Jennifer focuses on driving value for clients by partnering closely to understand their culture and operations to define future state improvements that truly meet the organization's needs. She combines process improvement and project management with a human capital lens to solve complex problems for her clients.

In her personal life Jen enjoys spending time with her family and she is a board member of the Dunwoody Nature Center, where she is actively involved in leading several initiatives.

What do you consider your greatest personal or professional achievement?

As an Account Director at Jabian, my primary focus is sales and delivery and I have been fortunate to be successful in both. In the last two years I have sold $5 million+ in revenue across 5 accounts and have consistently grown and managed a team of 5-10 consultants.

The hardest client project that I have faced was leading a team of 8 Jabian consultants on a project for a $24 billion+ All-American retail company. As part of that project we partnered with the HR, Talent Acquisition, Procurement, and Technology teams to transform the company's resourcing, hiring, and IT outsourcing strategies in order that the company could hire and onboard 300 FTEs and 900 contractors to the technology division in a matter of months, which represented a massive scaling and acceleration of the organization.

Throughout this initiative, I made a point to set aside time to mentor junior team members focusing not only on their skills and capabilities but their goals, interests while keeping a focus on their balance and priorities. To do so I take the time to get to know my team members early on in the project which sets the stage for ongoing growth and development opportunities.

What's the best advice—consulting or otherwise—you've ever received?

Know which things in your life are glass balls and which are rubber. It's simple but an easy way to remember that there are a lot of things that need your attention but only some things that will break without you.

Glass: For me that means family first, (my husband and my children), health (exercising, getting outside and being active – walks, hiking, etc.)

Glass: Balance is something I've come to find over the years as an extremely high priority and it if ever gets too far out of range for too long I find it difficult to be effective in anything I do – work, personal life, caring for my children.

Glass: My team. Finding ways to help my team be successful is how I find my purpose at work. Seeing junior team members grow and learn new things. Although this helps others, it also fulfills me.

Rubber: Healthy eating for myself and my family is also something important to me. I always make an effort to have healthy home cooked meals. I generally focus on this, think it's important, and overall it makes me feel better but I also realize that sometimes it's OK to go out to dinner/ order in or indulge. This ball can occasionally bounce and everything will be OK. Know which are glass and which are rubber.

So I would suggest that someone, especially a female early on her career step back and really think hard about which things in her life are glass and which are rubber.

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

Find your purpose – not an objective, not goals, but an overarching guiding direction, a purpose. It's not something to be accomplished, it's your north star and always points you in the right direction.

The more you know who you are and what you want the more grounded, even keeled, and easier it is to manage stress and mitigate challenges or difficult experiences. Keeping your eyes on the horizon makes it more difficult for things to knock you off course. This will ultimately boost your confidence and engagement in your work.

Your purpose is forward looking, broad and typically not time bound. There may be goals you meet along the way that are related to your purpose, but they are something you look backward on and measure your success against.

Finding your purpose is something you don't just discover it's something you work toward cultivating. You can't look externally for others to tell you your purpose based on their perception of who you are, you must look internally at what drives you. This will give you a framework by which to approach any challenge, obstacle or situation.

I've found that growing my team is my purpose at work and my family is my purpose at home. It all comes down to people, relationships and nurturing those people important to me. This isn't something I realized immediately in work or, in life, but it's something I've come to discover fulfills me and that I always find myself coming back to.

What does this recognition mean to you?

I've always had a heads-down, get-it-done mentality that focuses on results. I've been deliberate throughout my career in keeping that narrow focus. I've felt that if I align everything I do to those 3 things – the work, the clients, and the outcomes then the rest will fall into place. What I thought was a common mindset, turns out to be less common than I expected. This recognition is validation that hard work and a dedicated, focused mindset and commitment to 'doing it to your best' really do payoff. And that is a lesson that I'd like to be able to share with those who have supported me in my career and those that I mentor.