One-on-One with AArete's Loren Trimble

Trimble: AArete was founded in 2008 and it has been an exciting growth journey. We set out to build long-term client partnerships and named the firm AArete to embody the Greek word "arete," signifying excellence, goodness and virtue. Excellence is truly in our firm's DNA. I founded AArete with other industry veterans with experience from Arthur Andersen and Huron Consulting. We launched as a strategic cost-reduction company and have stayed true to our mission to increase client profitability.

In 2014, we expanded our focus to offer clients the three service lines in place today –Profitability Improvement, Digital & Technology and Strategy & Change. We also launched our Data Science & Analytics practice, which, along with our Knowledge Management Center having intellectual property across thousands of projects, has solidified our position in the data-intensive and highly regulated industries of health care, financial services and the public sector.

Over the past five years, we've accelerated our growth by increasingly embedding digital and technology solutions in all that we do to address our clients' top business performance issues. Our team is comprised of world-class consulting professionals and technology experts who bring cutting-edge solutions and delivery expertise to clients. AArete is now 400 team members strong globally and a trusted business advisor for top health plans and providers in the U.S., some of the world's largest financial institutions, and the public sector including higher education institutions and government agencies.

Consulting: What changes have you seen in the global consulting industry during the past 15 years?

Trimble: AArete has always worked to stay ahead of changes in the global consulting industry by investing in both data science and analytics, and digital and technology solutions. For example, in health care, AArete Payment Intelligence® combines modern technology with industry expertise to find and fix the root cause of costly medical claims challenges for health plans. Unlike competition in this area, we fix the system so there are no repeat charges from AArete. Our firm also works with health plans to modernize and improve the quality of members' experience throughout their health journey.

In financial services, AArete's first-to-market SnoCast™ data connector and Snowflake consulting services, coupled with AArete/Hazelcast real-time data streaming solutions, enable financial services firms to optimize banking customer experiences, create internally managed and centralized market data systems, and future-proof operations from open banking to high-speed payment processing.

Consulting: Tell us about AArete's journey through COVID to today. What impact has it had on your operations, clients and strategy? What are the "lessons learned, both good and bad?

Trimble: AArete was one of the first firms in the industry to go remote in early March 2020. We continued to serve our clients remotely, keeping our full team in place and paying year-end bonuses. Additionally, AArete played a leadership role in the COVID-19 pandemic by consulting with a state agency to create and implement a mass vaccination system to assist millions. Throughout the pandemic, AArete stayed true to its culture of care, and guiding principles of excellence, loyalty to clients and stewardship – to support our team and keep our clients' goals at the forefront.

Coming out of the pandemic, we have embraced a hybrid work environment. This flexibility for our team is essential to both productivity and work-life balance. However, we've also learned that it can be challenging to accelerate the learning curve for new hires in a hybrid work environment. So, we've invested in employee experience and professional development for our teams, providing mentorship and zone-development programs, technical and specialty training, and global and regional team-building events.

Consulting: What are clients wanting from a consulting partner in 2023 and into 2024?

Trimble: Clients are facing increased cost and margin pressures and a heightened risk environment and want help with minimizing risk and maximizing impact. AArete has always guaranteed results for clients. Clients are looking for a trusted partner from ideation to execution. At AArete, we develop and implement strategies – start to finish – which sets us apart from other consultancies that may focus solely on assessments and strategy.

Consulting: What is your perspective on the overall state of the consulting market?

Trimble: The state of the consulting market is strong and poised for growth. There has never been a greater need for cost management and business transformation across all industries. The global market for management consulting services will reach more than $800 billion by 2031, almost three times the market size in 2021.

Consulting: With that in mind, what are some of the opportunities you're seeing that you're most excited to capitalize on?

Trimble: There are powerful shifts in the health care industry landscape that AArete is well-positioned to address. In the U.S., an aging population accelerates demand for government-sponsored health plans – Medicaid, Medicare and Marketplace – where AArete's breadth and depth of market intelligence and experience is unrivaled. Commercial industry medical benefit plans can no longer simply pass on increasing costs to their employees; they must bend the trend line, and streamline their operating efficiency and costs while modernizing their plan member experience.

Consulting: AArete has established itself as a leader in the health care payer sector. What impact have you had in that space?

Trimble: In 15 years, AArete's Healthcare Payer consulting practice has served more than 120 health plans in all U.S. markets and lines of business, with innovative solutions to improve profitability, operational efficiency and quality of care.

Our impact extends across every aspect of a health payer's operation. For example, our initial work for a health plan client might be a medical or administrative cost-management project where we identify significant cost-saving opportunities. Health plans also rely on AArete to improve the data accuracy of provider directories and information, while automating operations. Furthermore, AArete strengthens provider networks, helps stand up new markets, modernizes member experiences, boosts Medicare Stars ratings, and improves revenue optimization through encounters and risk adjustments, in addition to supporting clients with systems migration assurance.

Consulting: Are there other sectors/industries AArete is looking to expand in? Have you grown or plan to grow those verticals strategically or organically?

Trimble: Our Financial Services practice has grown organically, and we expect this to continue. We see similarities with the Healthcare Payer industry, as this vertical also has high transaction volume and complex regulations, and data security is critical. Today, we work with some of the world's largest banks, capital markets, wealth advisors and fintechs. Financial services clients trust AArete to identify operational cost savings, navigate M&A complexities from due diligence to systems migration, provide real-time data processing to power capital markets and payments processing, and provide risk-management solutions including cybersecurity.

Consulting: AArete has a strong client base in data analytics. What are your clients' biggest concerns about data? What should they be focused on relating to that data?

Trimble: Across industries, we are seeing increased concerns around data quality to ensure informed business decisions. Clients experience data integration challenges and are seeking efficient data connectors and data management to enable processes and new products or services. Many organizations are assessing the AI landscape and adopting practical AI applications. Developing sophisticated diagnostic and predictive analytics solutions is the key to effectively competing in the age of AI.

Health care payers have an ocean full of claims and clinical data available for their use in decision making. Until recent years, most payers had been drowning in data, without transparent ways to get the right data into the hands of their team members for analysis due to security concerns. Today, increasingly tech-savvy payers are on a mission to build a data analytics strategy, aligned with KPIs, that will enable action and progress tracking while minimizing distractions.

Consulting: AArete was founded in the U.S. What was your pathway to establishing a foothold in the global market? What were the successes and challenges along the way?

Trimble: In 2019, AArete completed a technology-focused acquisition of Third I to establish global delivery capability with an office in India. In 2020, we acquired the digital consultancy Dsquaredi to accelerate expansion in financial services with an office in London. We've also assembled digital and technology industry liaisons for health care, financial services and the public sector to ensure we successfully tailor solutions for unique industry and client needs. This approach is facilitating our successful expansion into data engineering, digital transformation and other solutions that clients demand for modernization and risk management.

Consulting: AArete has an employee stock ownership plan. Being an employee-owned company, what impact has that had on your company culture and what you offer clients?

Trimble: AArete became an employee-owned company (ESOP) in 2018, ensuring that every team member has a positive financial stake in the future success of the firm. ESOP shares are granted to all team members after one year of tenure. This has been a game-changer and has fostered our welcoming, inclusive culture of care and our long-term partnership with clients. We're not just focused on the current project. Every AArete team member is working to help implement sustainable solutions for our clients while building long-term relationships internally and externally. Consulting: What are the biggest lessons you've learned – as a company or personally – over the past 15 years?

Trimble: I've learned that it takes a diverse, global team and a blend of industry, management, and technical consulting expertise to deliver best-in-class solutions to our clients. I've also learned that having a culture where team members care about each other, while being creative and agile, has been the key to our success and will help us navigate the next 15 years of business evolution and continual innovation.

Consulting: What's next for AArete?

Trimble: We are relentlessly committed to our clients, innovative leadership and future-focused curiosity. For example, we are focused on bringing proprietary solutions, such as next-generation Payment Intelligence®, to the health care industry. In financial services, AArete's first-to-market SnoCast™ connector and consulting are enabling real-time customer experiences, open banking and high-speed payment processing. We recently launched AAchieve.ESG, an AI-powered solution to help organizations reduce their environmental footprint on the road to Net Zero. We work with clients across all industries to identify practical AI applications. We see nothing but growth ahead for our people and clients.

Consulting: Thank you for taking the time to share your insights with our readers. Here's to continued success for the next 15 years and beyond.