The Top 25 Consultants of 2008: Stephen Brant of Hitachi Consulting

I'm a change agent by nature and by business background," says Stephen Brant, group managing vice president of Hitachi Consulting's Products Industry Group. "Most of the work I've done in my career has been associated with coming into a situation where a business was growing or needed to be built. That was certainly the case here at Hitachi Consulting."

Brant joined Hitachi in December 2005 to do just that. Over a 33-year career that included 17 years with Andersen Consulting, Brant gained a reputation as a business strategist and IT innovator. "My opportunity here was to influence the strategic direction, the growth and the market approach of the products group," he says. "I came to Hitachi because I was intrigued by the opportunity to be a change agent in a fast-growing consultancy. My boss, [chief operating officer] Phil Parr, asked me to start with consumer products, and then move on to industrial and high tech."

All three segments—consumer products, industrial and high tech—fall under Brant's jurisdiction in his current role as managing vice president of the products group, which currently has about 500 billable consultants and accounts for almost half of Hitachi Consulting's business. But that wasn't always the case.