• President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs have had American consumers bracing for price increases.
• Kristin Bohl, PwC's tariff lead, told BI that businesses have other options besides raising prices.
• Her advice includes getting tariff refunds, as well as delaying and reducing payments.

Businesses facing President Donald Trump's aggressive tariffs have a key question to answer — do we pass the cost onto customers?

Doing this doesn't solve every problem for businesses and, in some cases, can alienate cost-conscious shoppers.

Kristin Bohl, a PwC partner for customs and international trade who is leading the Big Four firm's tariff advisory work, told Business Insider that there are many options to mitigate tariffs while avoiding price increases.

While there are numerous options, three of Bohl's top tips for surviving tariffs can be summarized as: refund, defer, and reduce.

Get a refund

Bohl said that one option was to pay the tariffs but get a refund.

"If you import your products here in the US and you subsequently export or destroy those products, you can claim duty drawback, which is up to a 99% refund of the duties paid at import," she said.

Bohl said this was an extremely effective strategy for companies that had the requisite fact pattern during the China tariffs implemented during Trump's first term.

For businesses that are net importers, this option would be more challenging, she added.

Bohl also cautioned that not all tariffs are subject to duty drawback — the tariffs introduced in February, the 10% that got amped up to 20% on China and Hong Kong, as well as the 25% on Canada and Mexico wouldn't be eligible.

The new universal and reciprocal tariffs are eligible, she said.

Delay payment of the tariffs

Businesses can look into how to defer paying tariffs.

Things like bonded warehousing or foreign trade zones allow businesses to bring products into the United States but defer the payment of duties and fees until a product gets withdrawn for consumption in the US, the PwC expert told BI.

"If it gets re-exported, you never pay the tariffs. But if it does get consumed here, you've at least deferred your payment, so there's a cash flow benefit."

Reduce the amount of tariffs

Bohl's final suggestion was that businesses look at how to reduce costs that incur fees under tariffs.

Consider things like transfer pricing or unbundling to determine whether adjustments can be made to ultimately pay lower tariffs, she said.

"When you import something today, and you declare your price, can you unbundle from that price things that are not considered dutiable and not part of your customs value?" Bohl said.

Reducing is a point of focus for a lot of companies because it requires a lot of different departments in a company to be a part of the discussion.

There's no 'one-size-fits-all' fix

Outside these three key areas, Bohl emphasized that there was a broad spectrum of potential solutions.

"There are myriad strategies ranging from short-term, no regrets, easy to unwind all the way up to pretty significant investments of both time and money to get those things up and running."

Leaders have to sit down and work out where on that spectrum they fall, she said.

"It is absolutely not a one-size-fits-all answer. There is huge variability depending on your products, your industry, and the size of your consumer base," she said.

One long-term option is to move manufacturing to countries with lower tariffs or even the US.

"Either move your production or sourcing to a country that doesn't have tariffs, which quickly just became nowhere, or you manufacture here in the US," said Bohl.

Businesses can also have conversations with their vendors about their ability to work together to absorb some of the tariff cost.

Right now, the PwC leader said most clients are focused on short-term solutions. They are thinking about long-term options but weren't making long-term moves "because of the uncertainty," she told BI.

As if to underline that uncertainty, on Wednesday, Trump announced a 90-day pause on the higher tariff rates he introduced for roughly 60 of the US's trading partners last week.

A blanket 10% tariff remains on most countries, and tariffs on goods for China have been raised to 125%.

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• The Trump administration is overhauling how much the government spends on consultants.
• BI trawled through the DOGE website to look at which services are being slashed.
• Some DEI and energy-related contracts have been cut, but IT and digital services are the stand-out themes.

DOGE is taking an ax to consulting, and the contracts being targeted show a major realignment in how the federal government wants to work with consultants under President Donald Trump.

Business Insider analyzed the data available on the White House DOGE office's website to work out two things: what services DOGE deems a waste of money and, more broadly, what the government has been paying consultants to do.

In the weeks following Trump's inauguration, contracts providing services related to DEIA and renewable energy were the first to be canceled.

IT and digital services have come under scrutiny and faced cuts in recent weeks.

Another trend in the data is cuts to blanket purchase agreements — an acquisition method that enables the government to easily purchase recurring products.

"You're looking at a complete re-architecting of the services at the federal level," Michael Mische, a former partner at KPMG and professor at USC's Marshall School, told BI.

10 of the federal government's highest-paid consultancies are under particular scrutiny in the consulting crackdown, and so BI's analysis focused on their contracts. The list includes Deloitte, Accenture, and Booz Allen Hamilton.

Here are five examples that help demonstrate what services are being targeted:

General Dynamics, computer systems design

The biggest estimated savings made from a single contract with one of the 10 consultancies so far comes from a General Dynamics IT contract.

DOGE claims to have saved $69.1 million from modifying a contract providing a "portfolio of integrated value-oriented technologies" to the Department of Education.

General Dynamics was "responsible for the technical management and integration of pivot IT infrastructure services," per a description on the federal procurement data system.

Leidos, IT support services

Leidos holds a contract to provide "professional support services" to the Department of Health and Human Services, which aims to improve the government's capabilities to "speed research that can improve the health of Americans."

Services include security requirements, service desk support, application development and maintenance, local area network infrastructure support, IT infrastructure support, and cloud services.

The requirement for IT support services for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) appears to have been modified, saving $58.9 million from the multi-year contract, according to DOGE's estimate.

Booz Allen Hamilton, business operations support

$308,469 of services have been cut from a Booz Allen Hamilton contract with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

According to DOGE, the contract was a blanket purchase agreement with a ceiling of $660,000. The contract's description said it aims to "support the planning for and improvements in business operations across the FDA."

Booz Allen Hamilton makes most of its $10 billion in annual revenue from the US government.

Guidehouse, DEI website support

DOGE estimates that $400,000 has been saved from a $1.2 million contract to provide "Diversity Equity Inclusion and Accessibility website and strategic planning" services to the Department of Commerce.

This contract was altered on 31 January 2025, soon after Trump signed executive orders targeting DEI initiatives for federal employees.

Similar examples include a contract for Booz Allen Hamilton to implement DEIA analytics on one of NASA's data platforms and a contract for Deloitte to provide DEIA training for the Department of Health and Human Services.

Deloitte, staffing support for financial reporting

Deloitte was contracted to provide "a temporary staff augmentation solution to support budget operations" at the Export-Import Bank of the US.

One of the federal government's common uses of contractors is to outsource to them for employees with technical expertise.

Deloitte contractors were directly involved in contributing to accurate financial reporting and ensuring transparency and compliance in budget matters.

$1.4 million has been saved from changes to the contract, roughly half of its maximum ceiling, according to DOGE.

According to BI's analysis, of the 10 firms, Deloitte has had the highest number of contracts cut or modified so far.

Why tech services?

Mische, who has been advising some of the affected firms in DC, told BI that these trends signal a shift toward a more commercial, value-driven approach employing consultants.

Mische said the government has been operating with a "patchwork" of systems, processes, and open-ended contracts. He said that the approach to improving and automating federal processes has been to follow the easiest path without addressing the underlying systems, known in business as "paving the cowpath."

"The process doesn't change, the organization doesn't change, the service outcomes don't change. But yet we've spent hundreds of billions of dollars doing it," said Mische.

The existing setup is not wholly the consultants' fault, he added. They suggest alternatives, but 99% of the time the answer is, "If you don't want to do the work, we'll give it to somebody else."

The Trump administration wants to overhaul how those services are delivered and prepare for more advanced technologies, eliminating the need for so many individual service contracts, he said.

Rather than "massive contracts for 300 or 400 million dollars and more, that take years and years to do," Mische predicts that there will be much more emphasis on outcomes.

The government's attitude will be, "Show me what you did and show me what I got," he said, adding that fee-for-performance arrangements and measurable metrics for consulting services will likely be introduced.

"What I think we're going to see under this administration is a much greater emphasis on design for business outcomes. Not automate the toll path that you're on, but create a new freeway," he said.

The five consultancies did not respond to BI's requests for comment.

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• The Trump administration is slashing federal spending on consultants.
• Business Insider pored over the DOGE receipts to calculate how many contracts had been cut.
• Deloitte has had at least 127 contracts cut or modified — about twice as many as No. 2 on the list.

Ten major firms are under the spotlight as the Trump administration continues its consulting crackdown — but one is taking the most heat.

At least 127 of Deloitte's government contracts have been cut or modified since January, about double the total for the second-hardest-hit consultancy on the Trump administration's list, a Business Insider analysis of data on the White House DOGE office's website found.

The Big Four firm is one of the federal government's 10 highest-paid consultancies, which have come under scrutiny amid the White House's push to cut waste and improve efficiency. The list includes Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton, IBM, and General Dynamics.

DOGE estimates the Deloitte cuts will save taxpayers about $371.8 million.

This includes $51.4 million in savings from a contract providing IT services to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and $1.1 million in savings from a contract for training on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility that has been running since 2020.

Deloitte US contracts with federal agencies were worth $3.3 billion a year, or almost 10% of its most recent annual revenues, the firm said in a recent earnings report.

Booz Allen Hamilton, which generates almost all of its $11 billion in annual revenue from the public sector, is the second most affected firm on the list, with 61 contracts cut, BI's analysis found.

At least 30 Accenture contracts have been cut, saving $240.2 million, per DOGE's data.

In an annual earnings call last month, Accenture CEO Julie Sweet said that DOGE's cost-cutting efforts had already hit the firm's revenues, and staffers have told BI they're worried about layoffs.

The companies did not respond to requests for comment about their government contracts.

The General Services Administration, the government's largest procurement arm, is leading the effort to reevaluate federal consulting spend.

The agency, which operates separately from DOGE, said that consulting contracts with the 10 firms were set to generate more than $65 billion in fees in 2025 and beyond.

In March, the GSA asked the consultancies to submit a scorecard containing a detailed breakdown of their pricing and suggestions for where they could reduce costs.

It told the firms to identify which contracts were "mission critical" and to use simple terms to do it: "A 15-year-old should be able to understand what service you provide and why it is important."

Responses were due by Monday.

A person at the agency told BI that the GSA and federal bodies were now reviewing the scorecards and would decide on further cuts. The goal was to cut waste and move toward a more outcome-based approach instead of open-ended contracts, they said.

CEOs and senior executives at the consultancies appeared aligned with the administration's priorities, the person added.

Here's the list of contracts cut and savings made, according to the DOGE website:

• Deloitte: 127 contracts, $371.8 million.
• Booz Allen Hamilton: 61 contracts, $207.1 million.
• Guidehouse: 49 contracts, $128.7 million.
• Accenture: 30 contracts, $240.2 million.
• General Dynamics: 16 contracts, $202.7 million.
• IBM: 10 contracts, $34.3 million.
• Leidos: seven contracts, $78.5 million.
• CGI Federal: seven contracts, $465,000.

Science Applications International Corp.: five contracts, $7.5 million.

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• EY is shaking things up under new CEO Janet Truncale, merging global regions and business areas.
• The shake-up follows the failure of "Project Everest," an attempt to split its audit and consulting wings.
• The Big Four firm is also trying to recover from a substantial slowdown in its annual growth.

EY's head, Janet Truncale, took over as CEO and global chair last July, promising to foster greater collaboration across the Big Four firm's international network.

Nine months into the role, EY is starting to see some big changes to its business lines and global structure.

An EY spokesperson confirmed to BI that the firm plans to merge its 18 existing geographical regions into 10 superregions.

Financial News first reported the plans.

In another change, EY announced in a press release this week that it is expanding its EY-Parthenon brand to represent the entire EY strategy and transactions service line.

EY-Parthenon, the firm's strategy consulting division, was previously part of the S&T service line and had around 9,000 workers at the start of this year. The newly expanded division now comprises 25,000 employees across 150 countries.

The move is designed to strengthen the full consulting transformation capabilities of the organization, EY said.

Andrea Guerzoni, EY-Parthenon's Global Vice Chair, added that client demand for strategic consulting had evolved amid geopolitical uncertainty and tech-driven transformational change. The expansion would help meet that changing demand, he said.

Last year, the firm's sector strategy also received a shake-up when EY streamlined its core industries from eight to six.

EY's key sectors are now:

• Financial services
• Private Equity
• Government
• Technology, media, and telecommunications
• Energy and industrials
• Consumer and health

During the process, health, science, and wellness were merged with the consumer industry, as were energy and resources, advanced manufacturing, and mobility.

The Big Four firm has laid off some workers as it implements the changes.

Last week, EY confirmed to Business Insider that it was restructuring its UK Law business by "focussing on strategic areas with greater alignment to the broader EY business." The firm said it would continue to strengthen capabilities in corporate law, company secretarial, tax litigation, and immigration but would be laying off workers across other areas of its UK Law division.

Partner numbers in the UK, where the global consulting and accountancy firm is headquartered, declined by 43 in 2024, according to publicly available data reviewed by BI.

The previous year, the firm had added 27 partners to its ranks.

The waves of change at EY come in the wake of the firm's failed bid to split its consulting and audit lines under the previous CEO, Carmine Di Sibio. Codenamed "Project Everest," the bid collapsed in April 2023 amid infighting and opposition from senior US partners.

Truncale took over as EY's global chair and CEO in July 2024.

In her first public statement as global CEO, she launched a new strategy called "All in," which emphasized collaboration and EY's unity as a single global operation — a clear break from the "Project Everest" mission.

"The All in strategy is about shaping EY's next $50b through purposeful growth," Truncale said. The goal was to "build an even stronger organization by creating new ways to collaborate across EY's vast geographical footprint."

Truncale is also tasked with helping EY recover from a dramatic slowdown in growth last year, a trend that also hit PwC and Deloitte amid an industry-wide drop in demand.

In the 2024 financial year, EY's annual revenue growth fell to 3% from 16% the previous year, its poorest performance since 2010. Partner payouts in the UK were down by 5% last year.

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• The General Services Administration has asked consulting firms to justify their government contracts.
• 10 companies have been asked to submit a spending breakdown that "a 15-year-old" could understand.
• The GSA told BI it has already cut $4.5 billion worth of consulting contracts under Trump.

The Trump administration has asked 10 of the federal government's highest-paid consulting firms to justify their spending on contracts using language stripped of "gobbledygook" that "a 15-year-old should be able to understand."

In a letter sent to executives at the 10 firms in recent days, the General Services Administration asked the consultancies to provide a detailed breakdown of the spending on contracts from fiscal years 2019 to 2024.

The letter, which Business Insider has seen, says they should then identify waste and spending reduction opportunities.

"We believe it is important to undertake this review in partnership with industry," Josh Gruenbaum, the GSA's Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner, wrote in the letter.

"To that end, we are now seeking your firm's detailed input on spending broken out by agency, project and category of service, as well as the pricing of such services."

Firms were warned not to use any "consultative jargon or gobbledygook" in their responses.

"A 15-year-old should be able to understand what service you provide and why it is important," Gruenbaum said.

The 10 consulting firms on the list are Deloitte, Accenture Federal Services, Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics, Leidos, Guidehouse, HII Mission Technologies, Science Applications International, CGI Federal, and IBM. They have until March 31 to respond.

The consultancies have three guidelines to follow: identify waste and savings opportunities; break down spending by agency, contract, and project; and detail and make recommendations on pricing "that would lead to savings for the US taxpayer."

"Scorecards that do not identify waste and spending reductions will not be deemed credible and your firm will be seen as unaligned with the Administration's cost cutting goals," the letter said.

The letter was accompanied by a slide deck template for the firms to use in their responses, which BI has seen. Details that the GSA wants to see include the rationale for any large increases in spend and a list of price reduction opportunities that the consultancies are "prepared to action immediately."

Gruenbaum told BI that the GSA's goal was to serve as "unrelenting fiduciaries to the American people" and deliver "the maximum return on investment for their taxpayer dollars."

"It's what these firms would do when analyzing their own budgets and we welcome them working with us to decrease our excessive government spending while continuing to provide the essential services the government needs," Gruenbaum said.

Federal contract cuts

The Trump administration has already started evaluating its spending on consultants as part of its DOGE-driven agenda to cut costs and boost efficiency.

In late February, the GSA asked federal agencies to provide a similar review of contracts with the same 10 consultancies.

A source at the GSA told BI that it was always the plan to request contract reviews from both agencies and consulting firms. In the letter, the GSA said it would compare the two responses.

Under the Trump administration, the GSA has canceled more than 1,700 contracts, resulting in $4.5 billion in savings, according to internal data the GSA provided to BI.

The GSA source added that the organization recognizes many of the services the consulting firms provide — particularly those relating to national security or involving technical skills — are critical to government operations.

They said that long-standing IT contracts, which DOGE has frequently targeted on social media, were more likely to be seen as an opportunity for the GSA to find value and savings.

Last Thursday, Trump signed an executive order consolidating all IT procurement activities under the GSA. Procurement of other common goods and services will also be centralized into the agency to return it "to its original purpose" as the government's central purchasing arm, a White House directive said.

The 10 firms collectively earn tens of billions of dollars annually from their contracts with the federal government, leaving some federal consulting departments shaken by the pressure to justify their value.

Workers at Deloitte and Accenture's federal advisory divisions previously told BI that there had been a flood of colleagues looking for projects to work on and that they were worried about layoffs.

During Accenture's earnings call last week, CEO Julie Sweet said that DOGE scrutiny had already hit the firm's sales and revenues and slowed procurement of new federal contracts.

"We anticipate ongoing uncertainty as the government's priorities evolve and these assessments unfold," Sweet said.

Some firms on the list have publicly embraced DOGE's agenda.

In an earnings call in February, Thomas Bell, CEO of Leidos Holdings, said that in light of the new administration's priorities, Leidos had developed "fast-paced initiatives in the spirit of DOGE."

"We strongly support the goal of creating a dramatically more efficient and effective federal government that costs taxpayers less money," a Leidos spokesperson told BI.

The nine other firms who received the GSA's letter did not respond to requests for comment from BI.

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• Consulting firm Accenture said that its business has slowed amid DOGE's cost-cutting agenda.
• Accenture stock fell 7% on Thursday following the release of earnings.
• An Accenture Federal Services employee told BI, "You can sense the fear" in the department.

Accenture CEO Julie Sweet has warned that DOGE's cost-cutting efforts have started to impact the consulting firm's revenues and slowed procurement of new projects with the federal government.

"The new administration has a clear goal to run the Federal government more efficiently. During this process, many new procurement actions have slowed, which is negatively impacting our sales and revenue," Sweet said in a Q2 earnings call with analysts on Thursday.

Accenture is one of 10 consulting firms whose contracts with the federal government are being assessed amid Elon Musk's DOGE spending-efficiency drive.

Employees told Business Insider this week that the review is causing uncertainty within Accenture Federal Services (AFS), the firm's federal arm.

"You can sense the fear," one told BI.

In February, employees told BI Accenture had announced in a town hall that it would reduce the amount of time employees were allowed between projects, known in the industry as being "on the bench." Workers who did not have a project lined up when their contract concluded would be let go.

This week, two AFS employees who spoke to BI said that since mid-February they had seen an increase in posts on Teams group chats from colleagues looking for projects.

"Every channel is filled with quite a few of these types of messages," said one senior AFS employee.

Some were looking to transfer from federal to the commercial side of Accenture — Accenture LLP — one senior employee said. But the person added that there were few opportunities to do so, and instead people on their team were being let go.

Accenture did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

Sweet's comments on the company's earnings call came less than a month after the General Services Administration, the US government's main procurement arm, told federal agencies to justify their contracts with the highest-paid consulting firms contracting with the government and determine which could be cut. The list includes firms like Deloitte, Booz Allen Hamilton, and IBM.

AFS generated 8% of Accenture's $16.7 billion global revenue in Q2, Sweet said on the call.

Accenture's global Q2 revenue rose 5% on the previous year, but shares fell by 7% on Thursday amid the uncertain outlook.

"While we continue to believe our work for federal clients is mission critical, we anticipate ongoing uncertainty as the government's priorities evolve and these assessments unfold," Sweet said.

According to data available on USAspending.gov, 26 new contracts were awarded to Accenture in the first half of this financial year, compared to 51 for the same period in 2024.

Sweet said that Accenture has been driving efficiency in the federal government for decades and could provide commercial solutions to help support the government's agenda.

"We see major opportunities over time for us to help consolidate, modernize, and reinvent the federal government to drive a whole new level of efficiency," she said.

The CEO also highlighted that tariffs and consumer sentiment had led to an "elevated level of what was already significant uncertainty in the global economic and geopolitical environment" compared to the previous quarter.

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• Steven Catudal moved to Saudi Arabia for six months to work on a consulting project.
• He said the heat was intense and there were subtle differences between the Dubai and Riyadh offices.
• Catudal noticed a key difference between decision-making in New York and Riyadh.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Steven Catudal, an associate in the people and organizational performance practice at the consulting firm Oliver Wyman. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Growing up, I had always traveled to other countries, so when I saw opportunities to work abroad with Oliver Wyman, I raised my hand.

In my four years at the firm, I had already worked on projects in Brazil, Germany, and Canada. I was interested in the Middle East, so I started networking with partners and managers at my firm in the region.

It took a couple of months, but a project came up in Saudi Arabia. Within two weeks I was on a flight to Riyadh.

The practical side of moving was pretty stress-free. My employer sorted out the visa. My company also had some preferred hotels and apartment buildings, and it was easy to set up a short-term rental.

The work

The biggest difference I noticed compared to working in New York was the diversity of the teams. There were managers and consultants from India, Singapore, Dubai, the UAE, and Russia.

The smartest talent from all around the world is coming to one place.

I worked at both the Dubai and Riyadh OW offices during this time. The Dubai office was definitely more expat-driven and international, but in the Saudi office, they try to staff locally when they can.

A big positive of working in the region is that the projects are grand in scale and impact. While working on the projects in Saudi I felt like we weren't just helping a company grow or make more money, but building something for the future.

I found it interesting and refreshing.

There was buy-in from everyone on the team to ensure projects were successful. A lot of the Saudis who I worked with said that they studied in the US, Canada, and Europe but chose to come back because they wanted to help build the country. The people I worked with had a ton of passion and pride toward Saudi Arabia.

The work was the same intensity of every consulting project. There are tight deadlines, and some weeks, it's a grind to get everything done. On weekends when colleagues had traveled to the region for work, we got our heads down and it could be intense.

There are some projects in the region that are remote, but I was always in the office.

Riyadh is a massive city and is very spread out. I took a cab to and from work, partly to stay in the air conditioning and avoid the heat. In the summer, it's close to 110 degrees. I found the heat challenging, especially trying to stay cool before client meetings.

The lifestyle

It's very easy to travel around the region on the weekends. There are loads of affordable flights — you can find a $100 return deal. I went to Oman, Turkey, Morocco, Cairo, the UAE, Qatar, and Georgia.

Riyadh itself is bustling and energetic. I loved the evening culture once it had cooled down a bit. Even at 11 p.m., thousands of people and kids would be out walking or playing soccer.

There are always new things to do, it was very fun and felt, to me, like safe place to be.

One of the things I enjoyed the most was how friendly the Saudis I met were to me and how welcomed I felt.

Coming to a country where all the signs were in a different language and I couldn't order in restaurants wasn't a problem. People were always pulling out their phones, trying to translate and figure out what I was saying.

It was the same with my colleagues and clients. People were always welcoming me into their home, asking to get meals or giving me recommendations. After work, I was often invited to join in scoccer games or invited to colleagues' houses for dinner. They'd even offer to drive me home rather than take a cab.

One of the toughest things was being away from friends and family and keeping in contact around the time difference.

These consulting projects vary in length, from one or two months to up to a year. While you're away, it can feel like your life is on pause. You miss friends getting engaged or cousins going to college.

Career growth

Working on a project abroad is absolutely worth it. I'll take this experience with me for the rest of my life.

One key difference I noticed in Saudi Arabia was the direct approach that individuals took to ensure that there was consensus among the group.

While working in New York, once a decision had been made, it was assumed everyone agreed and it wasn't questioned. However, while working in Saudi Arabia, there were many times when everyone's input was requested after a decision was made to ensure that everyone was onboard.

Working in such a diverse office culture made me think about how peoples' background impacts how they work and deal with problems.

In the future, if a team is working from one perspective, this kind of experience opens up your mind to say, "Oh, there are so many other ways you can tackle and solve this problem."

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• Deloitte principal Jillian Wanner said the firm is shifting to an engineering-first mindset.
• Wanner said consultants need to be using generative AI to automate tasks.
• Deloitte has unveiled several AI-powered tools over the past year as it makes a cultural shift.

The modern consulting playbook may be evolving from spreadsheets and Powerpoints.

In a Wednesday panel at Nvidia's GTC conference about empowering the federal workforce with AI, Deloitte principal Jillian Wanner said the consulting industry as a whole is being "disrupted" amid AI transformations.

"It is no longer acceptable at Deloitte to not take an engineering first mindset," Wanner, who helps lead AI staff development at Deloitte, said. As the industry shifts, Deloitte employees need to act as "technologists and engineers first," and "consultants second."

Deloitte is one among several big consulting firms that's invested billions into transforming itself — and its clients — with generative AI in recent years.

The firm is one of the main providers for the federal government, which spends billions each year on consulting services. It brings in about $3.3 billion annually in federal contracts — slightly under 10% of its annual revenue for the 2024 fiscal year.

Wanner said she's seen a significant acceleration and adoption of generative AI among Deloitte's federal clients within the past six to twelve months.

"There has been a wholehearted embrace of rethinking about what are the things we do today that require intensive, manual, rote steps," she said. Whether those are administrative tasks or ones that involve documentation, Wanner said, "we can start to immediately empower agents, or generative AI solutions, or platforms, that can start to automate a lot of these functions."

She added, "There's a significant amount of low-hanging fruit that could translate into some pretty significant value."

In recent years, Deloitte has introduced a suite of AI-powered tools to help workers make this shift.

In 2023, it introduced an internal chatbot called "DARTbot" capable of "generating intelligent responses and providing valuable insights" to assist the firm's nearly 18,000 Audit & Assurance professionals in the US. The company also said it was introducing "purpose-specific" large language models and chatbots to help support specialized teams. Last January, it also unveiled "NavigAite" a generative AI tool to help with tasks like document summarization and review.

That same month, for its 75,000 staff members in the Middle East, Europe, and UK, it also rolled out an internal AI chatbot to help staff automate tasks like writing emails and creating project plans.

The consultancy has partnered with Nvidia to deploy digital AI agents. It also announced on Tuesday it will be collaborating with the chipmaker on its new reasoning models and software.

Deloitte did not respond to a request for comment.

• Building relationships well is widely considered to be a desirable soft skill in the workplace.
• You might call it 'networking.' But Langni Zeng has been calling it 'biz rizz.'
• Zeng, who learned people skills at McKinsey, shared her top tips for developing 'biz rizz.'

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with 25-year-old Langni Zeng, based in LA. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

During my college years studying business at Queen's University in Canada a lot of my fellow students' parents were VPs at big organizations.

There's a certain culture to their backgrounds around the way you dress, how you speak, and what you talk about. One big culture shock for me was learning how to pick wine at dinner.

My dad is an engineer, and my mum is a former lecturer, so I wasn't very exposed to corporate America. I didn't grow up around corporate functions or know what investment banking or the consulting space was like.

At college, I learned more about consulting and saw it as a good field for someone like me who wanted to be a generalist and work on problem-solving. I took part in consulting extracurriculars and landed an internship at McKinsey for the summer of my third year.

After the internship, I joined McKinsey full-time as a business analyst in 2021.

I stayed at McKinsey for around two years and then left to take on a director of strategy and business operations role for a tech company. My tenure at McKinsey strengthened my ability to build relationships in professional environments, a skill that has helped me throughout my career. I've also been using a fun term to describe this skill: biz rizz.

Mentors helped me with relationship-building skills

When I started at McKinsey, I was linked up with a professional development manager who helped staff me on projects. In consulting, you don't really have a set manager and team — it's all project-based. Every few weeks or months, you're working with new people, clients, and often in new cities.

There are obviously hard skills consultants should have, like making Excel models and analysis, but also soft skills — the ability to build relationships with clients. Some of this was formally taught, such as in a training session about trust, but I also developed soft skills organically.

One of my biggest barriers to developing relationships in the workplace was confidence and comfort. At McKinsey, you can be 21 sitting in a room with C-Suite executives, which can be intimidating. You overthink in those situations about what's appropriate to say.

When my parents found out I had this job, they advised me to keep my head down, but I think professional relationship-building is important. I tried figuring out how to network and make small talk.

I was lucky to have great mentors on my first projects. One of my managers coached me to present to a C-suite executive. One of my mentors told me to think about the executive as my friend's uncle or someone I know in real life to make things feel more familiar.

At first, I struggled to relate during some conversations with my peers. Travel came up a lot; I didn't grow up skiing in the Alps or playing golf. Going to business school helped train me for these conversations, and my background wasn't as big of a constraint as I thought. I think the key is to be authentically yourself.

Having 'biz rizz' has helped me throughout my career so far

I used feedback from the teams I worked with to gauge how well I was developing my relationship-building skills.

On one project, I was tasked with preparing a celebration at the end of our off-site. It was a circle of appreciation. Everyone had to say what they appreciated about someone they were assigned, like a secret Santa.

I wrote a funny poem with silly rhymes about the person I was assigned, who was a client. I was more experienced at that point, so could confidently gauge what was appropriate. Earlier in my career, I wouldn't have done something like that. Afterward, the key stakeholder from that client referenced the poem for months after the off-site.

Soft skills like this can strengthen your reputation and relationships at work. They have been helpful beyond my time at McKinsey.

In a previous job, I was a director of strategy and business operations for a tech company. I was trying to facilitate change management and worked with leaders across different functions. You have to build trust-based relationships to get people to align with your vision. This can be hard when you're younger or new, but my time at McKinsey taught me how to engage with senior stakeholders.

At times when I've done coffee chats or mentorship sessions with students, a lot of their questions are about what grades they need or tactical skills they should build to get a certain job. That's all important, but another really important part is how you network and build a personal brand.

Here are some of my top tips for building 'biz rizz'

I've been casually using the term 'biz rizz' among friends for years. "Rizz" became a popular slang term used to refer to charisma, so we'd use 'biz rizz' to describe professional relationship-building. I posted a TikTok about this last year, which really took off.

One of my relationship-building tips is to end every interaction with the question, "How can I help?" or tell them, "If there's anything you need, let me know." This can be seen as strategic because people like it when you help them, but it's also a generally positive thing I'd do with people in my network.

Another big piece is communication. People really respond to a good speaker who is concise and eloquent. I was not naturally a good speaker, but being part of an international case competition team at college and doing presentations at McKinsey helped me with this.

Be authentically positive. Don't think of networking as a ploy to advance your interests, but think about how you can have the most fun working with people.

Many people perceive networking as kissing up to senior leaders, but I think it goes beyond that. I've learned so much and gotten so many opportunities from it.

Do you have a story to share about professional networking? Contact this reporter at ccheong@businessinsider.com

• Demand for consulting firms has been down in key markets like the US and UK.
• However, the advisory business is booming in Gulf states thanks to national development projects.
• Working on major national projects is giving consultants "unique" influence in the region, experts told BI.

Recent years have been tough for the consulting business. Growth has plummeted in some key markets, and the challenging economic climate has led to layoffs and restructuring at major firms. But one region is proving to be a consulting bright spot.

International consultancies are finding success in the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC — a political and economic bloc that includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman.

According to Source Global, a UK-based research firm that tracks the consulting industry, the GCC consulting market grew 13.2% in 2023.

Source Global's research found that in the more mature US and British markets, growth in 2023 slowed to 5.2% and 4.7%, respectively. In previous years, growth in both countries had been in double digits.

Dane Albertelli, a senior analyst at Source Global, told Business Insider that the scale of growth in the GCC advisory market is "unprecedented" and that it has become "the place for opportunity and the place where these companies can make a lot of money."

Albertelli said that data for 2024 has yet to be finalized but that the GCC market was expected to have accelerated by more than 15%.

A 'cascade' of opportunities

Opportunities for consultants in the GCC started with the UAE roughly 20 years ago, when its government poured resources into plans to diversify its economy away from oil.

Heavy investment in tourism, aviation, real estate, and financial services led to the need for planning and technical expertise. Consulting firms started to pour money and resources into meeting the needs of the Emirati government, and "it's just been a cascade from there," Albertelli said.

The scale of Western consulting firms' presence in Gulf nations is apparent in the volume of offices they have in the region. All of the Big Four — Deloitte, PwC, EY, and KPMG — have 10 or more offices in GCC countries, while McKinsey has eight, BCG has six, and Accenture has four. The UAE is a particular hot spot, with Deloitte having nine offices in the country.

Saudi Arabia has been leading the drive in recent years with its Vision 2030 strategy, a $1 trillion project to reduce reliance on oil revenues and boost the country's standing on the global stage.

The centerpiece of Vision 2030 is Neom, an ambitious megacity and tourism hot spot being built in the country's northern deserts. But Saudi Arabia is also planning to construct a whole new district in Riyadh, preparing to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games and the 2034 FIFA World Cup, and aiming to become a "national champion" in AI.

Dubai is now a tourism and expat hot spot, and the UAE's economy is booming. But the drive for growth and the need for consultants hasn't stopped — the current push is toward healthcare innovation with the aim of becoming a medical tourism hub.

Similar tourism, sport, technology, and infrastructure initiatives are underway in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman.

"That naturally translates into an awful lot of advisory work," Albertelli said. International consultants are being called in to design and implement projects ranging from transportation networks and city construction to education reform and public sector tech systems.

Such projects have not been without controversy. Saudi Arabia has been accused of human rights abuses against local tribespeople living close to the site of Neom, while hundreds of migrant workers were acknowledged to have died in Qatar in the lead-up to the 2022 World Cup.

Albertelli said that while they spend to diversify away from reliance on petrochemical dollars, the Gulf nations' backlog of oil funds has ensured that the advisory sector avoids the macroeconomic tension that has hit the European and US advisory markets.

Barring any massive geopolitical tension, opportunities aren't going anywhere, Albertelli said. He expects the rate of growth to continue for several years and says the main change to the market will be that, as infrastructure gets built, the work will shift from strategy to operations advice.

From the pull factor of little to no income tax to the recent opening up of society, the region has plenty to attract consultants besides a steady stream of projects.

"If you don't mind a bit of sun, it's probably the best place to go for your career," Albertelli said.

A unique market

The GCC consulting market is unique in that most firms' clients are national governments rather than private companies, giving international firms a significant role in shaping the public sector.

"The degree of access and influence that consultancies have over policymaking is far more extensive than what you see in most other regions," Dawud Ansari, President of the Majan Council, an Omani think tank focused on development in the Gulf region, told BI. "They don't just refine policies or draft reports — they design entire national visions and, in some cases, effectively take over the steering wheel of major policy initiatives."

"Most Gulf states have a limited number of national think tanks and independent expertise, meaning that when a decision needs to be made, the instinct is usually to bring in an external, mostly foreign, consultant," al-Ansari told BI.

"They come from a completely different cultural and institutional background, which inevitably affects how they operate and how aligned their recommendations are with local realities."

Al-Ansari said that the continued reliance on external expertise for policymaking could erode public trust and restrict nationals from developing career paths in public policy.

As the market continues to grow, a rising number of local boutique advisory firms are being created. The Saudi government's "Saudization" policy — which enforces a quota system on high-value industries — is also resulting in more nationals entering the offices of international consultancies.

Albertelli told BI that most Gulf states are focused on the outcomes and care about the brand rather than the nationality of consultants.

"All the big countries in the GCC want the best talent and they're willing to spend no matter where it's from. Obviously, these are all big Western companies, but I think they realize that, particularly with the Big Four, they're massive international firms," he said.

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• Perceptis has raised $3.6 million to automate tedious consulting tasks with generative AI.
• The startup was founded by a former McKinsey consultant and former Apple engineer.
• The cofounders said AI could lead to a lot of growth for small- and midsize consultancies.

Consulting has long relied on manpower, but a new generative AI startup co-founded by a former McKinsey consultant says its software can take over some of the industry's most tedious tasks.

"A lot of the internal processes are extremely manual labor heavy," Alibek Dostiyarov, cofounder and CEO of Perceptis, told Business Insider of consulting workflows, which he said "lend themselves almost perfectly to what GenAI is capable of doing."

He co-founded Perceptis with CTO Yersultan Sapar, a former engineer at Apple, to help consulting and professional services firms automate monotonous tasks, freeing up people at those firms to serve more clients and focus on solving their problems.

"Perceptis is an operating system for the consultants designed to help them win more business and make consulting — their day job — even more enjoyable and focused on the core of their service," Sapar said.

Perceptis has raised $3.6 million in funding led by Streamlined Ventures, along with The House Fund, Tekton Ventures, FEBE Ventures, MOST Ventures, and Silkroad Innovation Hub. They've also gained some prominent angel investors, including Charlie Songhurst, a member of Meta's board of directors and former Microsoft executive; AJ Shankar, founder and CEO of Everlaw, and Peter Kazanjy, author of "Founding Sales" and co-founder of Atrium.

Advancements in generative AI have disrupted the broader consulting industry, with major firms making huge investments in the technology and establishing dedicated AI units, such as McKinsey's QuantumBlack. A senior partner at McKinsey told BI last year that he thinks AI is "going to be most of what we do in the future."

How AI helps consultants land jobs

Perceptis is currently focused on the business development side of consulting, or helping firms secure jobs. The AI can do industry research for companies that Perceptis clients are interested in, identify what opportunities there are, and match that up with the clients' specific skills and backgrounds. It then creates a detailed, custom proposal that the client can use to try and secure a job.

Dostiyarov said an average proposal, meaning the work put in before the consulting firm is even hired for a job, can take 20 hours of work or more, adding that with AI it can take a fraction of the time.

Dostiyarov used an analogy for their message to clients: "We are going to find the house on fire for you, and then we are going to help you show up as the perfect firefighter for the job by giving you the perfect proposal."

"Because of all the data and all the capabilities that we have with our AI, we now can tell a perfect story as to why you are the great company to solve this problem," he said.

The co-founders said Perceptis clients are often able to double or triple the number of proposals they send each month and experience higher conversation rates as well as increases in revenue soon after getting started with the program.

Perceptis primarily serves small- to medium-sized firms, which typically don't have the same manpower as the biggest firms nor do they build their own internal AI tools.

The startup saw its biggest growth yet in November and December, doubling its annual recurring revenue, the cofounders said.

AI can't replace human consultants

The Perceptis co-founders said they see AI as supplementing human consultants, not replacing them, and that the technology still has its limitations. They said AI can't replace human judgement, at least for now, or the human-to-human interaction that is needed in consulting.

But they think it could make the industry overall a lot more productive. AI could also potentially help smaller consultancies and even independent consultants compete more seriously in the space by taking over the tedious but necessary work that the bigger firms have more than enough employees to handle.

"Perceptis therefore democratizes access to consulting as an industry," Dostiyarov said.

As a result, they said the consulting industry could become a lot larger, more fragmented, and more specialized — and that the MBBs and Big Fours of the world could become a bit less dominant.

"There are, of course, the goliaths in the industry. We don't think that they're going to go away," Dostiyarov said. "Still, we think that the majority of the growth is actually going to come from these much smaller firms."

Do you work in consulting and have insights to share about the industry? Contact this reporter at kvlamis@businessinsider.comor via the encrypted messaging app Signal at kelseyv.21.

• Paul Travis started his career as a marketing consultant but left the industry after a layoff.
• He launched a dating program for singles over 40 during the pandemic called The School for Love.
• Now, Travis is a certified sex educator and embraces a digital nomad lifestyle.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Paul Travis, the 59-year-old founder of The School for Love based in Bainbridge Island, Washington. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I'm a sex educator and the founder of The School for Love. I have a BA in mathematics and computer science and completed the Harvard Executive Program in Brand Management.

After a two-year stint as the VP of marketing for Net Nanny Software in the early 2000s, I took my Harvard postgrad executive branding work into consulting for a variety of client engagements, from rebranding to new product launch to marketing systems implementation, in industries from food manufacturing to laser lighting to SaaS services.

In December 2013, I was engaged to implement a customer community program for Avalara, a fintech company. Eighteen months later, I transitioned to full-time employment as a senior program manager for the web marketing team.

After losing this job, I decided to leave consulting behind and become a sex educator.

I was laid off in September 2020

Avalara brought its first CMO aboard in late 2019. In January 2020, my manager told me that the two program management roles inside marketing would be eliminated. I set out to find another position within the company, but with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and financial uncertainty, most hiring came to a standstill.

As we entered spring, I mentally braced for losing more than $10,000 monthly in income and benefits. I was earning six figures a year when I left Avalara. I'd enjoyed growing with the company through an IPO, but at the same time, I was tired of the increasing energy drain and uninterested in another corporate gig.

I was excited and uncertain when I was laid off in September 2020, but I trusted that I was embarking on the next big chapter of my life.

I knew I was interested in midlife dating

As David Bowie said, "Aging is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should've been." I learned how important variety is to me, so returning to a past chapter like consulting (like returning to a past lover) didn't call to me — I wanted to build a company.

I researched a few ideas that had been in the back of my mind and decided to focus on midlife dating, with which I was extremely comfortable after my divorce following a 19-year marriage.

Given the lockdowns and masking during the pandemic, I understood how difficult this was for singles — many of whom say it was already more challenging than during the last 10 years.

Given my years of study in nonviolent communication, tantra, and interpersonal work, I felt a passion brewing to help people in this very different realm of training, propelled by COVID-19.

I started an online program for singles over 40

In February 2021, I launched my twelve-week online program, "The Great Dating Reset," for $999 under the umbrella Pandemic.Love to help spiritual singles over 40 cultivate "authintimacy" — a portmanteau of authenticity and intimacy.

I found my initial clients from advertising on Facebook. It was heartwarming to help Sue, a 52-year-old woman, navigate a new relationship and save her from being taken advantage of for a few thousand dollars. Equally so for Sally, who had been painfully dumped from a seven-year relationship and found esteem and self-love through the homework exercises.

Since rebranding in January 2022 as SchoolForLove.com, I've run two to three group programs online each year. Later in 2022, I created and hosted a summit for this same audience, "Dare to Date Differently," along with 12 other speakers.

I next became a certified sex educator

In speaking regularly with people about their dating lives and our program, I found just how often singles brought up sexuality as a core area of worry, shame, or frustration. I set out in 2023 to study with Dr. Martha Tara Lee in Singapore and became a certified sex educator, certified by AASECT (the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists).

I haven't yet reached my former salaried income level, but I've lowered my expenses by renting out my house and having a tight budget. I downsized into my Sprinter van and embraced van life. I'm thankful technology allows me to work as a digital nomad. I've traveled more in the past three years than ever.

I'd make the choice all over again

I'm delighted to make a genuine difference in people's love lives rather than in corporate software and marketing.

I'm writing a book on "Authintimacy," so I spend a lot of time on social media and marketing systems, talking to clients and prospects, and managing several freelancers. I'm in the process of launching my second program, Authintimacy Brotherhood.

I work six to seven days a week from anywhere between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., but I take time every day to be in nature, play with my dog, and nurture my spirit away from the computer.

Society teaches us to get on the "life escalator," and everything will eventually work out for retirement. That's not how my life has worked, but I have no fears about retirement.

I've had some devastating detours, awesome advances, and circuitous change-ups. I have no career regrets and appreciate the various chapters and people in my life.

• Consultant starting salaries have remained flat since 2023, a new report found.
• Management Consulted found salaries were largely stagnant at boutique, MBB, and Big Four firms.
• The industry has been impacted recently by slowing demand and AI-fueled productivity increases.

Starting salaries for consultants at both top firms and boutique consultancies largely remained flat for the second year in a row, according to a new report from Management Consulted, a company that provides online resources and career coaching to professionals trying to land jobs in consulting.

The report found that starting pay has remained stagnant since 2023 as the consulting industry reels from a slowdown in demand for services, despite some recent signs of improvement. Previously, annual increases of 5 to 10% were standard for the industry, according to Management Consulted.

The company's 2025 Consulting Salaries Report included over 100 firms and was based on submissions and offer letters shared by its readers and clients who work in consulting. Management Consulted said it does not include salary information that it is unable to verify.

The report found that starting total compensation at the Big Four professional services firms — Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, and EY — has not increased since 2023. This was true for new hires coming out of undergraduate programs as well as the higher paid ones coming out of MBAs or PhDs.

The same was largely true for new hires at MBB firms — McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company, and Boston Consulting Group — which are widely considered the most prestigious strategy consulting firms and are known for their competitive pay packages.

Do you work in consulting and have insights to share about the industry? Contact this reporter at kvlamis@businessinsider.com or via the encrypted messaging app Signal at kelseyv.21.

The report said that Management Consulted expected salaries to remain flat despite some increases in demand for consulting services in 2024, which came after a couple years of a downturn that saw major firms conducting layoffs or delaying start dates for new hires.

The plateau is notable given that consulting compensation surged in 2022 and 2023, according to Management Consulted's 2023 salary trends video. The last major increase before that was in 2019.

In 2023 post-MBA hires earned a base salary of $192,000, a performance bonus of up to $60,000, and a signing bonus of $35,000 at the top tiers. Pre-MBA hires earned a base salary of $112,000, a performance bonus of up to $30,000, and a signing bonus of around $5,000.

However, salaries and performance bonuses rose across the industry in 2023, with several firms enhancing benefits like profit-sharing, paid leave, and retirement contributions. Boston Consulting Group even overhauled its compensation structure in a bid to attract new talent and retain existing talent.

One reason salaries remained the same in 2024, according to the report, is productivity advancements sparked by generative AI and remote work. The report also said fewer consultants were leaving the industry due to limited opportunities elsewhere, meaning the stagnant salaries could be another potential side effect of the so-called white-collar recession.

"AI enablement is enabling consulting firms to accomplish more with fewer hires. Productivity gains, combined with slower attrition, reduce the need for new hires and stall salary growth," Namaan Mian, chief operating officer of Management Consulted, said in comments shared with Business Insider.

Mian also said the perception of the value of hiring MBAs, who typically make a higher starting salary than consultants coming out of undergrad, varies widely.

"Firms historically pay MBAs twice as much, but don't get twice the value from them. This doesn't fly in an efficiency oriented environment," Mian said. "This is why we're seeing less hiring from MBA programs and more from undergraduate ones."

Some firms also used changes in their variable compensation — in which pay is partially determined by performance via bonuses — to make their pay packages look more attractive, the report said, adding that only 5 to 10% of consultants typically earn the maximum amount of their bonus.

Management Consulted said it expects an increase in hiring as demand for consulting services and attrition are expected to increase in the coming years. However, it said salaries for new hires could remain stagnant.

Do you work in consulting and have insights to share about the industry? Contact this reporter at lvaranasi@businessinsider.com or via the encrypted messaging app Signal at lvaranasi.70.

• Nicole Chan Loeb is a 38-year-old photographer, videographer, and mother of two.
• She started her career as a management consultant at Deloitte and quit after two years.
• As a photographer, she's able to be present for her family while doing work that she loves.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Nicole Chan Loeb, a 38-year-old former Deloitte management consultant who quit in 2010 and is now a photographer and videographer in Boston. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I've always loved numbers and excelled at math, so I majored in finance in college. In my junior year, I took a business class that involved project-based work, igniting my passion for management consulting. After speaking with Deloitte representatives during an on-campus job fair, I applied and was accepted to an internship for the summer after my junior year.

I enjoyed the internship. I had a great team, lots of support, and a clear progression path within the company. At the end of the summer, I received a return offer, which I accepted.

As a first-generation child of immigrants, I felt like my parents came to the US so I could have these opportunities. I think they were excited and proud of me for studying finance, graduating, and landing a job like this. But that path didn't last for long.

I hated the exhausting hustle culture

I started working at Deloitte full-time in the fall of 2008 after graduating. My job required extremely long hours in what was known as the 3-4-5 program — three nights in a hotel, four days at a client site, and a fifth day back in the office. I flew to a client site every Monday, stayed through Wednesday night, and flew back to Boston on Thursday. It wasn't a good work-life balance.

I worked on three significant projects during my two years at Deloitte. Being between projects was called being "on the beach," which could hurt your utilization ratio, affecting raises and bonuses. We were expected to find projects to stay busy with, so I took on initiatives for the company like volunteering and writing white papers.

It was a hustle, churn-and-burn culture, and it was exhausting. I hated it, but was too shy to raise my concerns.

I overheard senior managers and partners airing their frustrations about lack of time with partners and families. Having a family and balance was something I wanted in the future, but I could see myself getting sucked in for the next 15 to 25 years, feeling financially comfortable but never having time to be home.

I also didn't feel much job satisfaction; despite having a lot of work, my impact felt insignificant. One particularly awful week, I thought to myself, I can't imagine feeling like this for the rest of my life.

I remember sitting in a Thai restaurant and telling my then-boyfriend, now-husband, about it. He said, "You're miserable. You're going to run yourself to the ground. Why don't you just leave?" He encouraged me to pursue photography as a career. Ever since I was young, I've loved photography, and with my Deloitte salary, I'd upgraded my gear and kit, but I'd never considered it as a career.

At first, I shrugged him off, but I started thinking more about it and eventually decided to take the leap. In August 2010, I put in my eight weeks' notice to give the company time to find a replacement and in October 2010, at 24 years old, I left Deloitte.

The fear of having to return to finance motivated me

During my eight-week notice period, I created a website, posted on social media, and gave out business cards at marketing and networking events on the Fridays and Saturdays I was home.

I made soft announcements to friends. Some were supportive and immediately referred me to friends and family, but others warned that I'd wasted my college education and that photography should stay a hobby or a side hustle.

I actually didn't tell my parents for the first couple of years. They'd worked so hard that for me to say, "Hey, I'm going to leave my very comfortable, stable job with benefits and a retirement plan to do my own thing" was terrifying.

I gave myself two years to replace my Deloitte salary. If I couldn't achieve this, I'd return to another corporate job and keep photography as a hobby. The fear of needing to return to finance if I couldn't make this work was a really strong motivator.

It took me several months to get my first clients. To get my name out there, I did free photoshoots and assisted established photographers. I poured kindness and passion into my first clients and asked them to give me honest feedback, and they returned my kindness with referrals.

I found that many skills I'd learned at Deloitte transferred over to my new career — active listening to client concerns, professional client communications, presentation skills, understanding what clients want, both spoken and unspoken, and bridging strategy and creativity.

After the first 18 months, I saw that it could be a sustainable career.

I'd never consider going back

I don't ever miss working in consulting and wouldn't consider returning to that fast-paced life, although I'm not sure if the culture has changed.

Being a wedding photographer allows me to be present for my family while doing work I love. I choose clients who align with my values and structure my schedule to be intentional with my time. I can pick my kids up from school every day, take midweek adventures, and never have to ask for permission to travel.

I love capturing small, unscripted emotions that couples and families will cherish forever. I don't regret anything, and I'm very grateful for my supportive partner who encouraged me to pursue this passion.

I'm thankful for the mentors that I had at Deloitte, who were terrific role models, endlessly brilliant, and supportive. I still use the skills they taught me today in my photography work, and I wouldn't be who I am today without the experience of working there.

I hope that the humility and kindness that drove my career forward haven't gone away. It's really cool that I can make a comfortable living by taking pictures, and I don't take that for granted.

Deloitte representatives did not respond to requests for comment.

If you quit a Big Four consulting firm to pursue a different career and would like to share your story, email Jane Zhang at janezhang@businessinsider.com.

• Francesca Lagerberg is CEO of Baker Tilly, one of the world's 10 biggest accounting firms.
• In an interview with BI, Lagerberg explained why her firm has managed to buck the downward trend in the sector.
• Lagerberg doesn't want to turn Baker Tilly into a lesser version of a Big Four firm, she told BI.

The Big Four professional services firms lead the accounting and advisory market globally. They have a combined 1.5 million employees, generate billions in annual revenue, and their easily recognizable names draw in scores of eager young graduates annually.

But for all their status, the Big Four have seen a marked drop in growth rate over recent years, and their consultants have been leaving.

Bucking that downward trend in the market is Baker Tilly, a midsize network of around 140 member firms.

Its offering of tax, advisory, and legal services generated global revenue of over $5 billion for the year ending December 2023, an 11% increase from the previous year and a record high for the firm. It's now one of the top 10 accounting firms in the world.

For Baker Tilly, though, the goal isn't growing to the point where the Big Four becomes the Big Five, its CEO Francesca Lagerberg told Business Insider.

"Am I ambitious? Yeah, very," she told BI. "But am I ambitious to be a lesser version of something else?"

"The Big Four Super Tank is an amazing organization, very successful and really good at what they do. We just operate in an environment where midsize firms excite us."

Lagerberg said Baker Tilly's success is due to its great proposition, strong member firms within the network, and the moves those firms have made into bigger markets.

"It's a very good time for us. We've been able to offer what the market needed. We've been in markets where growth has continued and the kind of work that we specialize in seems to have a bit more of an ongoing level."

"In the mid-tier, where we are strongest, firms are looking for that kind of input and advice. So we've been able to offer the services they want, and there hasn't been that drop-off."

Smaller-scale growth has also meant the firm didn't follow the overstaffing fallout that has afflicted bigger names.

On paper, all accounting firms like Baker Tilly appear to offer the same services, but Lagerberg, who's spent her career in professional services, says it's the culture that helps differentiate the firm. It's not just about the services you provide, but offering them in a way that clients would like to have them delivered, she said.

"It is fundamentally about the values and behaviors that we have. We have a very strong people-first approach, and we genuinely mean it," she said.

There are no strict work hours at Baker Tilly that other firms are renowned for. Instead, the company offers its employees unlimited holidays and flexible working. It's an organization whose staff actually get on with each other and that attracts like-minded clients, Lagerberg said.

Being people that others like to do business with is a "much-misunderstood part of how the world goes around," she added.

The private equity wave

The mid-tier sector of professional services firms hasn't avoided the slowdown hitting the Big Four.

Together with economic pressures and high interest rates, the strain is helping drive a new wave of private capital investment in mid-tier accounting firms.

Firms have typically paid out profits to equity partners, who also get a vote on how the firms are run. External cash injections are divesting the control historically promised to partners and shaking up the culture at firms.

In the US and UK, firms like Grant Thornton, Cooper Parry, and EisnerAmper have gone down the private equity route. In 2024, Baker Tilly US did the same, selling a majority stake to private investment groups Hellman & Friedman and Valeas. It was the second-largest deal to be done in the sector.

PE has lots of advantages, but it isn't a golden bullet, Lagerberg told BI. One benefit is that it's providing an influx of capital that's necessary for firms as they evolve with technology and data.

"We used to be a really cap-light business. Now, we're a cap-heavy environment, so it's not surprising that PE is seeing growth," the Baker Tilly CEO said.

It's also bringing about a huge change in the culture that not all partners are happy about.

"A lot of partners they've operated in an environment that's been very similar all their careers, and suddenly in comes an external stakeholder," Lagerberg said. But they also bring a new rigor to firms.

"PE houses are very good at running organizations in an efficient way. I think you'll see an even stronger emphasis on the financials and looking for a return."

The reality for any business is that you can't be future-proof, Lagerberg said. In this era of instability, this is part of the reason companies keep turning to Baker Tilly.

"You will not make all the right decisions because no one quite knows where something is going to go. But you can be future fit. How can you get yourself to a position where you're going to ride out most of it? Some things are going to be amazing opportunities. Are you ready to take them?"

Do you work at a consulting or accounting firm? Contact this reporter in confidence at pthompson@businessinsider.com to talk about your experience and the industry.

• Andersen Consulting was once one of the top names in professional services.
• The firm rebranded to Accenture in 2000, and its parent company went bust following the Enron scandal.
• Now Andersen Consulting is making a comeback, The Financial Times reported.

One of the leading consulting brands of the 1990s, whose parent company was brought down in the Enron scandal, is making a comeback.

Andersen Consulting, which was one of the "Big Eight" consulting firms, will relaunch next month, unnamed sources told The Financial Times.

The firm's comeback has been orchestrated by Andersen, a tax business founded in 2002 by former employees from Arthur Andersen, the once-prestigious accounting firm and the parent company of Andersen Consulting. It acquired rights to the Arthur Andersen name in 2014 and renamed itself Andersen in 2019.

Andersen has mostly focused on tax and legal work but has been steadily building a consulting division under the guidance of George Shaheen, a former CEO of Andersen Consulting in its heyday. Shaheen joined the group as a special advisor in 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile.

In the past six months, the company has added 20 member firms focused on consulting from the US and other countries, several of which have connections to the old Andersen Consulting and Arthur Andersen, the FT reported.

"Six months ago, we began building Andersen Consulting, and already we have 108 offices in 66 countries with nearly 3000 employees," Mark Vorsatz, Andersen's CEO, said in a statement sent to Business Insider.

"We're seeing incredibly fast growth. Our goal in three years is to reach a billion dollars in revenue, which I think is very realistic."

"Our global firm has a massive competitive advantage and this scale creates a unique consulting experience that is unrivaled in the crowded consulting space," he added.

The resurrection of Andersen Consulting marks a major comeback for what was once a leading name in professional services.

"Andersen Consulting was the Coca-Cola of professional services," Vorsatz told the FT. "If you are over 40 in business, you know Andersen Consulting."

The original Andersen Consulting split from its parent company, Arthur Andersen, in 2000 and rebranded as Accenture.

One year later, the Andersen name was tarnished when Arthur Andersen became embroiled in the Enron scandal. Executives at Enron, one of the largest energy providers in the US, were found to have hidden billions of dollars in debt by manipulating financial models and lying to investors.

Enron filed for bankruptcy, and thousands of employees lost their jobs and retirement savings.

Arthur Andersen, Enron's auditor, was found guilty of obstruction of justice for shredding its client's auditing documents as the government started its investigation.

The fallout led to Arthur Andersen's collapse in 2002, reducing the "Big Five" global accounting firms to four. It is one of the most dramatic corporate collapses in US history — one year earlier, the firm had reported roughly $9 billion in global revenue.

The rebooted version of Andersen Consulting would not try to compete with Accenture as an outsourcing services provider, Vorsatz told the FT.

• Accenture CEO Julie Sweet said she looks for candidates who love to learn new things.
• Sweet said in a podcast interview that she would ask people what they have learned recently.
• The former lawyer said it didn't matter even if people just said they learned how to bake a cake.

Accenture CEO Julie Sweet said there's one key question she poses to people who want to work for her.

"There's one question that we ask everyone, regardless of you're a consultant or you're working in technology or whatever you do," Sweet said in an interview with Norges Bank Investment Management CEO Nicolai Tangen on his "In Good Company" podcast, which aired Wednesday.

"We say, 'What have you learned in the last six months?'" she added.

Asking this question, Sweet told Tangen, is a practical way for her to determine if candidates are interested in learning new things.

"If someone can't answer that question, and by the way, we don't care if it's 'I learned to bake a cake,' if they can't answer that question, then we know that they're not a learner," Sweet said.

This wouldn't be the first time Sweet has talked about her expectations for new hires at Accenture. The consulting firm said on its website that it employs around 799,000 employees and operates in more than 200 cities.

The former lawyer said in a 2019 interview with The New York Times that she looks for candidates who demonstrate two main traits.

"The first is curiosity. The new normal is continuous learning, and we look for people who demonstrate lots of different interests and really demonstrate curiosity," Sweet told The Times.

"The second piece is leadership. I don't care what level you are, there is the need to offer straight talk when you're working with clients. You have to have the courage to deliver tough messages," she added.

Representatives for Sweet at Accenture did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Sweet isn't the only C-suite executive who places a premium on learning.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said that students should devote their time to learning and reading, and less time on social-media platforms like TikTok and Facebook.

Dimon was speaking at the Georgetown Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy's annual Financial Markets Quality Conference in September when he was asked if he had any advice for the students in attendance.

"My advice to students: Learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn. If you're Democrat, read the Republican opinion, the good ones. If you're Republican, read the Democrat ones," Dimon said.

"Read history books. You can't make it up. Nelson Mandela, Abe Lincoln, Sam Walton. You only learn by reading and talking to other people. There's no other way," he continued.

• The Big Four firms reported revenue growth in 2024, but consulting lagged behind other services.
• The firms reported more growth in tax and legal services as demand for consulting slowed.
• PwC cited market factors and political uncertainty as reasons for slower growth in consulting.

The Big Four professional-services firms — PwC, Deloitte, EY, and KPMG — all reported revenue growth this year, but growth in their consulting arms lagged compared with their other services.

After experiencing a boom during the pandemic, the consulting industry has faced economic headwinds and slowing demand over the past couple of years. Major firms have conducted layoffs, delayed start dates, and cut partner pay.

Financial reports released by the Big Four professional-services firms throughout the year indicated that their consulting arms grew slightly, but not as much as their legal, tax, and assurance businesses.

In October, PwC said several factors were contributing to the slower growth in consulting.

"A continuing slow market for mergers and acquisitions, sluggish economic growth in a number of key markets and political uncertainty holding back investment in some key projects meant that the growth of our advisory operations slowed over the last twelve months," its report said.

KPMG, the last Big Four firm to report 2024 financials, reported the highest overall revenue growth, at 5.1% year over year.

Here's a breakdown of how the Big Four firms performed this year.

Deloitte

• Fiscal year end: May 2024
• Global revenue: $67.2 billion
• Revenue growth year over year: 3.1%

• Revenue growth by category:

  • Tax and legal: 8.7%
  • Audit and assurance: 4.1%
  • Consulting: 1.9%
  • Financial advisory: - 3.8%
  • Risk advisory: 3.2%

PwC

• Fiscal year end: June 2024
• Global revenue: $55.4 billion
• Revenue growth year over year: 3.7%

• Revenue growth by category:

  • Tax and legal: 6.3%
  • Assurance: 3.4%
  • Advisory: 2.6%

EY

• Fiscal year end: June 2024
• Global revenue: $51.2 billion
• Revenue growth year over year: 3.9%

• Revenue growth by category:

  • Assurance: 6.3%
  • Tax: 6.3%
  • Strategy and transactions: 2.3%
  • Consulting: 0.1%

KPMG

• Fiscal year end: September 2024
• Global revenue: $38.4 billion
• Revenue growth, year-over-year: 5.1%

• Revenue growth by category:

  • Tax and legal: 9.6%
  • Audit: 6.2%
  • Advisory: 2%

Have a news tip or a story to share? Do you work in consulting? Contact this reporter at kvlamis@businessinsider.com.

• Jobs in management consulting can be difficult to land, especially at prestigious firms.
• Management Consulted offers coaching from former MBB consultants and online courses.
• The COO said case interview prep and keeping options open can help aspiring consultants break in.

Jobs in management consulting can be notoriously difficult to land, especially for job seekers hoping to join a prestigious MBB firm — McKinsey, Bain, or BCG.

That's where career coaches come in.

Some aspiring management consultants call in the professionals to walk them through every phase of the application process, from choosing which firms to apply to, submitting their resume and cover letter, and prepping for case study interviews.

Management Consulted, founded in 2008, has worked with more than 15,000 candidates and helped them land jobs at over 170 different firms, according to Namaan Mian, chief operating officer. In addition to online curriculums, the company has around 25 coaches, all of whom formerly worked at an MBB firm.

A top coaching package offered by Management Consulted costs $4,500 and is aimed at those who are at least six months away from actually submitting job applications to firms. The package includes 20 hours of 1:1 sessions with coaches, edits on your resume and cover letter, and access to their online classes.

According to Management Consulted, 80% of their premium clients get at least one job offer from a consulting firm.

For anyone interested in getting into consulting, with the help of professional coaches or not, Mian emphasized a few things that all candidates should focus on.

Don't put all your eggs in one (MBB) basket

Some people interested in consulting are set on joining a prestigious firm, like an MBB or a Big Four — EY, PwC, KPMG, and Deloitte.

While some Management Consulted clients do land at those firms, Mian said it's important applicants keep their options open, and that there are often great opportunities at lesser known firms.

"There are literally hundreds of consulting firms out there doing amazing work," he said. "Some of them pay just as well as the MBB or the Big Four, and nobody's ever heard of them."

Mian noted that Management Consulted's salary report, which includes salary data from more than 100 firms, shows there are plenty of lesser-known companies with high-paying starting salaries.

He said they generally advise clients to identify and focus on six to eight firms. The goal is for clients to have several offers at the end of the process that they can leverage against one another.

Timing is key

Hiring in consulting works on pretty specific timelines, which vary depending on where the applicant is in their schooling, Mian said.

For undergraduates, applications are typically due in June or July, interviews are conducted in August, and offers are given by September or October for positions that start the following summer.

That means undergraduates should ideally figure out by the second semester of sophomore year that they want to go into consulting, so they can start prepping and applying to land internships for their summer after junior year.

For first-year MBAs seeking internships, application deadlines are typically in November, with interviews in January, and offers extended by the end of January for positions that summer.

For second-year MBAs looking for a full-time role. Application deadlines are in August and September, followed by interviews and offers.

Mian said being aware of these timelines so you can prepare and network well in advance is key to landing a consulting role. He said how long you've prepared is "the number one determinant in terms of success."

"If you wait to start preparing for the interview until you already have one, it's almost always too late," he said.

Focus on mastering case studies

Case interviews are a unique and notoriously tough part of getting hired in consulting.

In a case interview, candidates are presented with a business problem and need to develop a plan to solve it in real time. Preparing for case interviews can be the most time-consuming part of getting a job in consulting.

"Case interviews are a skill that I would say don't come naturally to any human being," Niam said, adding, "You have to talk, you have to think, and you have to write at the same time."

Getting to the level of competency needed to succeed in a case interview requires a lot of practice, and specifically practicing out loud with a friend or coach.

That's why starting to prepare early, well before you even submit your application, is crucial, he said. If you wait until you get an interview there won't be enough time to get good as case studies.

Make sure you actually love business

Mian said that although it may seem obvious, before deciding to become a consultant you need to make sure you love business — reading about business, thinking about business, and talking about business.

"At the end of the day, you are solving business problems for larger organizations, and all of your projects have one of three outcomes: You are either working to increase revenue, decrease costs, or update the organizational design," Mian said. "That is my second-grade definition of what a consultant does."

Plenty of people are drawn to consulting because of the prestige and high-paying salaries, he said, but find once they are actually in the job, often spending the majority of their days as a new consultant in Excel, they don't enjoy it.

"If you don't like solving business problems, you're not going to like consulting," he said.

Have a news tip or a story to share? Do you work in consulting or have you worked with a consulting career coach? Contact this reporter at kvlamis@businessinsider.com.