The 2025 Best Firms to Work For: Clarkston Consulting

CONSULTING SERVICE LINES: Life Sciences, Consumer Products and Retail

Businesses across the life sciences, consumer products, and retail industries partner with Clarkston Consulting to enhance strategic decision-making, improve operational efficiency, implement new technologies, and promote business growth and market diversification. Leveraging deep functional and industry expertise, our people discover, design, and deliver solutions that fit your business, your goals and your future. At Clarkston Consulting, your purpose is our purpose. Learn more at clarkstonconsulting.com.

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

As it relates to culture, Clarkston is committed to providing employee health and wellness programs, consistent and equitable career experiences, and ongoing training and education. We have several ERGs that offer a safe space for individuals who share a common identity, background, or experience as well as allies who desire to join in support. These groups are leveraged as a place for individuals to connect, interact, network and build an authentic community. Additionally, Clarkston support networks contribute to knowledge sharing and expand diversity of thought, promoting education and awareness.

In alignment with Clarkston’s core value of maintaining an entrepreneurial spirit, the firm also enables stewards to quickly and effectively pursue areas of opportunity that align with their personal interests as well as the firm's business objectives. This includes creating and launching new services and practices, entering new markets or industries, and/or launching new business units. We’re also dedicated to creating policies and programs that support our stewards’ efforts to positively influence the communities they live in in ways that are important to them. Furthermore, as a firm, we are committed to promoting philanthropic service in our communities, and we even offer pro bono consulting services for community-based nonprofit organizations and small businesses that are either minority owned or share in the firm's vertical focus areas.

It would also be remiss if we did not mention Clarkston’s bi-annual Company Meetings. Clarkston selects a unique location twice a year to gather as a firm, and these events allow us to celebrate recent personal and firm accomplishments, to reconnect with colleagues, and to refocus on the path forward. This semiannual event is a fundamental building block of our culture and provides stewards with the opportunity to connect in unique locations.

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

Clarkston offers several firmwide programs and initiatives catered to employee health, wellness and development, and a key aspect of the Clarkston culture relates to support networks. Some of these networks include The Black Stewards Network, The Pride Network and The Peer Network. These networks serve as a safe space for individuals who share a common identity, background, or experience as well as allies who desire to join in support. As it relates to health and wellness, for example, StayWell is a Clarkston community that focuses on the health and wellness of stewards. This community organizes monthly challenges and events around a common theme, like “Rethink Your Drink” for July, and links steward participation via a point system to their individual HR/UMR portals.

Above all, Clarkston’s efforts toward promoting DEI are most notable. In 2023, Clarkston announced a wide-ranging set of 10-year DEI goals. Developed in partnership with the Diversity Council and senior leaders in the firm, the goals set robust objectives around the core areas of the business including leadership, recruiting, employee engagement, marketing and more. Within each of the 10-year DEI goals, there are three- and five-year short-term goals to ensure accountability and progress toward achieving these long-term goals. These various short-term goals tie into specific objectives within the larger 10-year goals, and they will be carried out by each individual partner and volunteer stewards within the firm, demonstrating Clarkston’s firmwide commitment. The goals have also been designed with flexibility to allow for future incorporation of other dimensions of DEI, as applicable. In February 2024, we announced the launch of our DEI webpage, which will track the firm’s progress toward our goals. The site will serve as both a reporting and accountability resource to provide greater transparency into Clarkston’s DEI journey.

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

From the early days of Clarkston Consulting, we quickly realized that our industry knowledge of mission-critical business processes and depth of technology expertise would be what differentiated us. These capabilities, coupled with our eternal pursuit of brilliant client service, have allowed us to thrive through multiple economic cycles and changing industry dynamics for global life sciences, consumer products and retail companies. Leveraging deep functional and industry expertise, our people discover, design, and deliver solutions that fit our clients’ business, goals and future. With strategic investments and the constant evolution of our service offerings, we have been able to help our clients drive organizational strategy, achieve operational excellence, and build out and leverage enabling technologies. This focus, and willingness to continually adapt, is what helps set us apart from our competitors.

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

In the upcoming year and beyond, Clarkston plans to continue to evolve and embrace market changes with a learning mindset. As a firm, we’ve always prioritized professional development and training, and we have no plans for this to change. Professional development especially is becoming increasingly important as our clients expect more on-site interaction and hold higher expectations for their consulting partners.

That said, our top workforce priority is ensuring that our people are empowered to meet these evolving needs. As expectations shift and the business landscape remains uncertain, we’re committed to keeping our employees equipped and agile.

Furthermore, we're investing in ongoing training and upskilling to ensure our teams can confidently navigate emerging technologies, changing delivery models, new service demands and more. Whether it’s technical certifications or cross-functional capabilities, we want our workforce to feel confident in their capabilities and supported in the career development journey.

Beyond skills development, we’re also focusing on employee engagement and retention by fostering a culture where people feel connected and supported. We’re building flexibility into how we work, encouraging collaboration across teams and geographies, and reinforcing a shared sense of purpose.

Ultimately, our goal is to enable our workforce to deliver consistently brilliant client service no matter how the market evolves. That takes both a long-term investment in people and the agility to respond quickly to change, which is why we’re focused on both.

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

We are continuing our journey to expand our AI capabilities and enhance the AI services we deliver to our clients. We anticipate that AI technology, and related process changes, will have a significant impact on knowledge workers, especially consultants. Our business leaders and Professional Development team are continuing to offer various modes of training for all stewards so that we can build skills in our core areas of expertise, consulting skills, emerging skills, and specialty topics such as AI.

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

One of the most significant challenges we’re seeing is the way companies are cutting costs and reprioritizing their spending. Many organizations are being more selective about where they invest, which means we need to be laser-focused on demonstrating value and ensuring our services align with their evolving priorities.

This shift is pushing us to be more agile in our approach by adapting offerings and identifying ways to help clients do more with less. This shows that we understand their constraints and can still drive impact.

At the same time, there’s increased pressure on speed, flexibility, agility and measurable outcomes. Clients want faster results, higher quality deliverables, tighter alignment to business goals, and partners who can help them navigate uncertainty. That’s driving us to continuously refine how we work and what we offer.

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

Being recognized as a Best Firm to Work For is incredibly meaningful, not just as a point of pride, but as validation of the work our people do every day. For our employees, it reinforces that their efforts are seen and celebrated. It boosts morale and reminds our team that they’re part of something exceptional.

For the firm overall, it solidifies our position in the market. It shows that we’re not just talking about delivering value, but rather, we’re consistently doing it. It helps build credibility with partners and prospects, and it sets a standard for what we continue to strive toward.

For our clients, this kind of recognition offers reassurance and deepens their confidence in our ability to deliver. It affirms that they’ve chosen a partner who’s not only capable but trusted and respected in the industry.