Repositioning Booz Allen:

The strategy and technology consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton had lagged competitively in talent attraction, client development, and revenue growth, against such established competitors as McKinsey & Co. and Boston Consulting Group, as well as a rising cohort of boutique strategy consultancies.

First as Senior Director of Intellectual Capital and subsequently as Chief Marketing Officer, I led a global team that insourced and redesigned the staid quarterly publication strategy+business as a vibrant, contemporary, multiplatform journal of business and economic thought leadership; created a special double-issue on e-commerce released at the 2000 World Economic Forum in Davos; began distribution of the quarterly on major urban and airport newsstands globally; commissioned research on e-commerce and other hot topics that attracted media attention and moved financial markets; inaugurated regular research projects such as the firm’s annual study on global CEO succession trends; built a beachhead as a founding partner of the Aspen Ideas Festival; developed a single corporate identity to supplant dozens of regional and practice identities; and contributed to new service offerings, including Enterprise Resilience and Organizational DNA.

In 2008, the Carlyle Group acquired Booz Allen’s Worldwide Technology Business and led it to a successful 2010 IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. In 2013, the firm’s Worldwide Commercial Business was acquired by PwC, in its largest acquisition ever. PwC changed Booz & Co.’s name to Strategyand, in recognition of the equity that had been created by the strategy+business brand.