Interviews
- »Consulting One on One with Romil Bahl
In the January/February edition of Consulting, we examined how American Express is formalizing a consulting business around the data mining and analytics it is performing based on its unique access to aggregated consumer credit card usage information. In a similar vain, PRGX (formerly PRGX-Schultz) is looking to expand its consulting offerings by data mining the aggregated data it has collected on the business-to-business transactions in the retail and healthcare markets as part of its profit recovery audit business. To learn more, Consulting’s One on One sat down with PRGX CEO Romil Bahl. Bahl joined the firm a year ago. He previously co- founded Infosys and was recognized by Consulting as one of the Top 25 consultants in 2007.
- »One on One with OMNI's Frank Bernhard
The merger and acquisition market is way down from its peak a few years ago, but there are still significant consulting opportunities for well-positioned firms. To better understand the upside to the down M&A market, Consulting’s One-on-One sat down with Frank Bernhard, OMNI Consulting Group’s managing principal for its telecommunications, media and technology practice. His 20 year-old M&A firm grew by 7.8 percent in 2009, far outpacing the sluggish market.
- »Out of Office: Roz Savage
After 11 years as an IT consultant, Roz Savage knew she wanted to take her life in a new direction. But little did she realize she’d be charting a new course in a kayak.
- »Ingenix CEO Says He’s Bullish On Healthcare Opportunities
In November, John Nackel was named CEO and executive vice president of Ingenix Consulting, a 1,000-person firm providing services focused on hospitals, health plans, physicians, employers, government agencies and pharmaceutical companies. Consulting sat down with him to discuss the healthcare marketplace.
» View all
|
Home
Client Industry
Energy
6
1
2009
»Top 25 Consultants, 2009: Laurie Oppel
 Laurie Oppel
Managing Director
Navigant Consulting
Excellence in Energy
What does an energy company have in common with a consulting firm? Success in both industries is intrinsically linked to a company’s ability to attract, train and maintain the next generation of leaders.
“It’s always much more difficult to attract good people than it is to keep good people,” explains Laurie Oppel, managing director of Navigant’s Energy- Power Systems, Markets & Pricing practice. While few would disagree with that adage, few consultants have the ability to translate it into working solutions for clients and their firm.
Across the energy space, linemen and power plant workers are retiring faster than they can be replaced, leading to a severe shortage of experience. Oppel is leading client engagements aimed at recording the knowledge of the soon-to-retire and capturing it in searchable computer systems. “Currently, a lot of the crucial information is kept in paper form, in notebooks whose pages fall apart because they are so old,” Oppel says. “We’re spending a lot of time training people to use the new technology and creating training tools to get junior staff up to speed.”
What really makes Oppel stand out to her peers is her ability to use her “knowledge transfer” skills internally. About five years ago, voluntary attrition in Navigant’s energy practice was about on par with the rest of the firm. But after a series of changes she designed to encourage greater collaboration among the team’s consultants, “attrition rates have decreased dramatically,” says Oppel.
Part of the slowdown in attrition can be attributed to her informal process of taking junior staff “to sales meetings, to learn how we budget and forecast how we price projects. They don’t just watch; they are involved in those discussions.”
She adds, “We learn from each other. The team is made up of individuals with different backgrounds. We’ve developed the kind of environment in which everyone can ask questions, seek help, and be peer reviewed. Anyone can learn from anyone, even managing directors can learn from senior consultants.”
—Jess Scheer
>> Full list of Top 25 Consultants 2009
|
advertisement
|
