The 2023 Women Leaders in Consulting: Rachel Clare

Rachel Clare, a Partner with SciVida, has spent over a decade serving as a valuable thought leader and advisor to senior executives and commercial leaders of pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device companies across the U.S. and Europe.

Rachel has focused her delivery on engagements in the areas of product/portfolio strategy and optimization, competitive strategy and planning, commercial and market access customer engagement strategy, forecasting and business development. She brings in-depth therapeutic area experience to bear on her projects having worked across a wide array of disease states.

Prior to joining SciVida, Rachel was Senior Engagement Manager at Triangle Insights Group, a life sciences consulting firm. Before entering consulting, Rachel was a chemical engineer with Eastern Research Group, Inc. Rachel holds a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from University of South Carolina-Columbia, a Master of Science in chemical engineering from University of Virginia, and a Master of Business Administration degree from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.

What do you consider your greatest personal or professional achievement?

As a highly ambitious mother of two young boys, my greatest achievement has been the ability to advance my career, do interesting and meaningful work, and support the growth of my team and organization all while continuing to be active within my children's lives. I knew this was going to be important for me to strive for and balance from my early days in business school.

Entering Fuqua business school with a 6-month-old and having my second child during my second year helped me to understand the need to prioritize and be intentional in all aspects of my life. I developed strong goals and systems to support me and my family so I could achieve my academic objectives. I learned how to select what was most important and how to let go of things that weren't as critical to achieving my intended outcomes without sacrificing my relationships. This has been instrumental to my success within consulting and as a mother. I'm proud that I've been able to share this with other women seeking to balance family and career.

Being able to balance competing priorities means I can be involved in meaningful work beyond my everyday client responsibilities. For example, I'm honored to be leading a pro-bono consulting project for Level the Playing Field (LTPF), a minority development program that bridges the opportunity gap by training and placing undergraduate students into influential internships and careers, as well as overseeing the mentorship and placement of LTPF students in our firm's internship program.

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

One of the best pieces of advice I've incorporated in both my personal and professional lives is to be intentional. Be intentional with your time, your focus and your career. When you approach those aspects of your life with purpose, you will be able to achieve greater dividends. It all starts with first taking the time to self-reflect to understand your goals, passions and ambitions. It is important to understand what it is exactly that you want to achieve—or, in other words, where is it that you want to head? What is the impact you want to have in your career experience? At the end of the day, what do you want to have accomplished?

Then, identify clear and actionable approaches and timelines to achieving each of those goals. Most people stop there. But, what I've learned is that the secret sauce to ensuring you can achieve what you've set forth is setting realistic boundaries. There will always be one more ask, one more thing to do on your list. Sometimes this means saying no. Sometimes this means having a difficult conversation. Many times it just means having the personal discipline to deliver on my own promises to myself. Being intentional and setting boundaries will help to ensure your consulting career is sustainable and your goals are achievable. This is what living and working with intentionality is all about.

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

For a female consultant just beginning her career, I would offer her the advice that she should not be afraid to ask for the opportunities that will support her personal and professional growth goals. I sometimes see new consultants hesitant to speak up because of a lack of confidence or fear of having the wrong answer. It is important to ask for what we need and want because who else knows better or is a stronger advocate for those things than ourselves? In asking for what we want, we model the behavior for all team members that our voice matters. We may not always have the right answer, but this is how we learn and grow. This is a critical aspect of the SciVida culture we are establishing.

I also encourage early career stage female consultants to approach their careers with alacrity, flexibility and intentionality. Being a management consultant is the best job in the world and, at SciVida, we have the opportunity to solve some of the most pressing life sciences challenges facing the industry and to develop trusted advisor relationships with senior executives. The sky is the limit for those consultants ready to make a difference. I'm proud that we're a firm that rewards top talent and the investments made in growing the business, as my own path to Partner attests.

What does this recognition mean to you?

Being recognized by ALM Consulting Magazine among the Women Leaders in Consulting for Client Service would be a great honor to me. I became a life sciences management consultant because I wanted to partner with clients and to have a significant and measurable impact on advancing health care and supporting patients' access to lifesaving therapies. As a Partner at SciVida, client service is always top of mind for me, as client delight is one of our chief strategic objectives as an organization, alongside building a world-class team.

Over the past 10 years, I have enjoyed partnering with life sciences organizations and consulting teams to create strategies and plans that have enabled the success and growth of my clients. This award is incredibly meaningful to me, as it is a testament to the efforts we, as a team, have made to deliver outstanding client service and develop strong trusted advisor relationships in this early stage of SciVida's growth and evolution within the industry. It also allows me to honor the efforts of all those strong female and male leaders who mentored me over the years in consulting. It has been a privilege to partner with so many amazing individuals and teams over the years and this award would be a recognition of having played a role in growing the profession through the mentorship of our future female (and male) leaders, specifically within life sciences consulting client service.