2024 Top Consultants: Jen Pavelec

Jennifer (Jen) Pavelec brings over 25 years of combined industry and consulting experience to her role on Huron's Education & Research team. Jen leads teams aligning institutional strategy, mission and vision with people, processes and systems. Jen currently serves as the sales and client excellence leader for Huron's Education & Research industry and has generated a consistently strong net promoter score for client satisfaction and delivery excellence.

Throughout her career, Jen has leveraged her industry expertise and background in strategic leadership planning, technology, and operational excellence to support client delivery and improve overall customer and employee satisfaction. She is recognized for delivering high-quality large program implementations, strategic planning efforts, and business process analyses workshops to universities, hospitals, academic medical centers and research institutes.

Jen is committed to developing Huron's next generation of leaders, sponsoring a program to develop sales and delivery talent to enhance diversity in leadership roles, and mentoring several individuals on their sales, engagement delivery and client relationship goals. Jen is also an ambassador for the American Cancer Society's ResearcHERS campaign, funding women-led cancer research initiatives and introducing high school students to multiple cancer-related career opportunities through the Summer Healthcare Experience (SHE) in Oncology program.

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

Throughout my life and my career, I have had the opportunity to work with amazing teams. The teams that I have been part of were supportive in their growth of others, and their enthusiasm and ambition both inspired and encouraged everyone around them. I enjoy being involved in my industry and contributing to its success.

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

The incredible people that I have had the privilege to work with and the exceptional teams that I have been a part of along the way. I have had the good fortune to have some great mentors.

I also enjoy meeting new people and understanding what their passions are and how to enable that passion through the work that we are doing. If you can connect and build a strong partnership there is a high probability that you will be successful.

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

So much perspective!!!! You have the opportunity to work with such a diverse group of leaders who will push you to think differently about how to do the work and solve the problem. It is important to remember that the challenges that many of our clients face are very complex and of course require you to build trust. That trust is really what I appreciate the most – building that trust that they have in you to be a great partner is why I love this industry.

What is your proudest achievement to date?

I take great pride in helping aspiring leaders grow and embrace their own leadership journey. I admire how they establish trust with clients, influence the growth of our people and lead change at many of the organizations. I am so proud of the impact of our teams.

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

Early in my career in consulting I received great advice around managing your time — the advice was twofold: 1. get to know who you are working with and 2. understand their motivation and passions. Also, never say no to an assignment.

That advice served me well and helped me understand the power of relationships and what it means to really focus on our clients' success. Ultimately, it's helped generate both team success and clients for life.

What does this recognition mean to you?

This award reinforces the importance of people in the equation of all that we do. I am grateful for the long term partnerships and relationships I have made in this industry. We work in a small world and having your firm share the same values of delivering quality service to clients is why this award means a lot to me.