The 2024 Best Firms to Work For: Centric Consulting

CLIENT INDUSTRIES SERVED: Insurance, Financial Services, Healthcare, Energy & Utilities, Public Sector

CONSULTING SERVICE LINES: Strategy, Operations Management, HR, IT

Centric Consulting is an international management consulting firm committed to creating unmatched experiences and tailored solutions for your business. For 25 years, the company has solved its clients' toughest problems – from AI strategy and cyber risk management to cloud solutions and more. In every project, you get a trusted advisor averaging over 15 years of experience and the best talent from across the United States and India. The firm deliberately builds teams that can scale up or down quickly based on client needs, industry and desired outcomes.

CMAG: What characteristics and elements would you attribute to your firm's inclusion as the Best Firm to Work For?

At Centric, employee experience is rooted in what we refer to as the Three Cs of Centric: our Culture, our Core Purpose, and our Core Values.

Since our founding, we have consistently upheld our commitment to fostering an exceptional workplace culture that celebrates the individual, encourages a collaborative spirit, and enables the forging of lifelong friendships.

Our Core Purpose is simple yet powerful, and it's something we live every single day: To create unmatched experiences for our clients and our employees.

Our seven Core Values define our commitment to what is most important to our team members and clients. They range from living a balanced life and our sense of integrity to how we deliver value to our clients. Recently, we asked our employees to share how they define our core values and posted their responses on our website.

At Centric, the Three Cs are more than words, more than posters up on the wall. They are actions and behaviors that we challenge ourselves and one another to exhibit each day. They are what defines our collective experience and what keeps us connected as members of the Centric community.

CMAG: Are there any specific programs or initiatives that contributed to you being included as a Best Firm?

Centric Together is among several initiatives that set Centric Consulting apart as a Best Firm. Launched in 2020, Centric Together is our diversity, equity and inclusion imperative. With the full backing of our company's leadership, Centric Together encourages conversations on tough topics, helps employees connect meaningfully with their communities, and builds an organization where team members and prospective employees can see themselves represented at all levels.

One initiative that has grown alongside Centric Together is our network of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), which are identified and established by employees themselves. Centric employees have created ERGs that promote awareness and understanding of our rich and diverse communities while providing networking and support opportunities for employees.

For example, BlackEmployees@Centric provides career advancement and growth while creating a space for our Black employees to engage, empower and advocate for one another within Centric as whole.

EmpoweringWomen@Centric fosters inclusivity among our women team members while helping them advance their skills and leadership potential through connection, collaboration and community. Pride@Centric brings together members of the LGBTQIA+ community so they can thrive together, contribute to transforming policies and processes that are inclusive for all, and engage in a truly inclusive and diverse workplace. We also have ERGs for Hispanic and Latino/a/x employees, neurodiverse employees, and up-and-coming Centric professionals.

Centric encourages all employees to be part of their communities, both as volunteers and as professionals. In addition to back-to-school drives, food drives and volunteer initiatives, employees have used their skills and expertise to build technology solutions for nonprofits who work with the homeless, strive to end trauma worldwide, help people in crisis and more.

Together, these initiatives demonstrate our mission to deliver unmatched experiences for our communities, our clients, and each other. Intentionally integrating this mission for the benefit of all makes Centric a Great Firm.

CMAG: In describing your firm, what would you say sets it apart from other consulting firms?

At Centric, we realize that a sense of belonging is a fundamental human need, making it one of the most important aspects of the employee experience. We place great value in creating an environment where everyone both feels and knows that they belong.

The complicated part is that what makes a person feel like they belong varies by the individual. There is no blueprint for creating a sense of belonging, no silver bullet. It's not big things that make team members know they belong at Centric; rather, it's a series of smaller mindsets and behaviors. For example:

We see people for their individual personality traits and recognize the unique contributions and gifts they bring to our company.

We remember, in every interaction, that we are all human. We are all people with histories, perspectives, fears, triggers, hopes and wishes. These are not things to be minimized or disregarded. Instead, they are explored, understood and incorporated into our worldview.

We limit the transaction in favor of meaningful interactions.

We lead with empathy, and we follow with kindness. We eschew ego.

These things aren't always easy, and they take time, but they are worth it. Every interaction, every moment, is an opportunity to make another person understand that they belong and that they are valued.

Business cycles change over time, as do stress and engagement levels. Throughout these changes and throughout a person's career, we want people to perceive—and to know deep down—that they are loved at Centric, valued at Centric, and belong at Centric.

CMAG: Where your workforce is concerned, what would you say your priorities look like for the upcoming year and beyond?

Centric has seen significant growth in the last few years. We realize that what it takes to effectively manage team members in professional services—engaging employees, fostering loyalty, creating career growth opportunities for our team members, and setting them up to serve our clients in the best ways possible — continually changes as we grow and as our workforce becomes more diverse.

We are currently transforming many aspects of Centric: how we operate, how we go to market, and how we create life-long career opportunities for our team members. Specific to the employee experience, in 2025 we are prioritizing improvements to succession planning, the feedback management process, our employee listening strategy, and our learning and talent development structure and approach, among others. We also plan to make meaningful investments in areas where we see potential for future expansion, empowering our employees to develop new skills.

CMAG: What opportunities do you see as the most promising?

AI has become a dominant area of opportunity for almost every aspect of business, and it is likely to transform every industry. As a result, every organization will need to undergo a significant transformation over the next 5-10 years to prepare its operations, technology and data capabilities for the widespread adoption of AI. While this presents a major challenge for businesses, it also represents a huge opportunity—not only for consulting organizations who can help guide companies through this transition, but also for the businesses themselves to remain competitive.

The fundamentals underpinning the consulting industry's long-term prospects remain strong. If anything, technology is becoming even more pervasive and integral across all types of organizations—every company is now, in essence, a technology company. On top of this digital transformation, the rise of AI is poised to be a disruptive force that will reshape virtually every industry.

Given the talent of our teams, our commitment to innovation (a core value), and the partnerships we enjoy with others in the tech space, Centric is well-positioned to bring the power of AI to our clients…and to our employees.

CMAG: What market forces do you see as the most challenging?

The consulting industry has had to weather many challenges in recent years. The impacts of COVID-19 forced many firms to make sizable investments in technology to enable remote work. Combined with rising interest rates and tighter corporate budgets, this has led to a slowdown in the rapid growth to which consulting firms had been accustomed. While consulting firms may not see the same breakneck growth rates as in previous years, they can likely expect to return to more steady, standard levels of expansion with the fundamental drivers of demand – incorporation of ever-changing technology and the imperative for businesses to adapt – remaining firmly in place.

CMAG: What impact do you think Best Firm to Work For honors will have on your employees? The firm overall? Clients?

Building and scaling such an employee-centric and client-centric culture is both rewarding and challenging. Having achieved this on a significant scale validates our Culture, Core Purpose, and Core Values, and it demonstrates that we are realizing each in tangible ways.

The true reward is not the accolades themselves but seeing the profoundly positive impact our culture has had on the lives of both team members and clients. This was the original inspiration and motivation for starting Centric in the first place—to create something truly special by keeping happiness as the guiding principle. This honor simply confirms what those within Centric have always known to be true.