Meet some of our people

Nationality: Dutch
Background: MSc Financial Economics & BSc Economics

Something about myself

Besides studying Finance and Economics, I have gained experience in FMCG, Digital Transformation, Data Analytics, and consulting through several extracurriculars. In my spare time I love to do all kinds of cardio sports (particularly running), play the piano, or just enjoy a night out with friends.

Personal Growth at Strategy&

I really enjoy the work at S& because it allows me to combine many of my interests and constantly feeds my curiosity and eagerness for self-development. The learning curve is very steep because right from the start I got many opportunities to take on large responsibilities. For example, by joining a weekly session with the CEO of one of the largest European banks or by presenting an analysis to a group of ~25 S&/PwC partners. Throughout all of this, I feel very supported because of the friendly and constructive environment in our office.

Nationality: Dutch 
Background: Financial Economics, Corporate Law

Contribution to solving society’s important problems

One summer I had the opportunity to be involved in a pro bono project. The client asked us to come up with a plastic waste recycling technology to contribute to the global ocean clean-up. During this 6 week project, we identified various ways for our client to implement a sustainable solution for the plastic waste problem in South East Asia.

Personal growth at Strategy&

I started at Strategy& fresh out of university. From my first day in the office, I have been part of fast-paced project teams. Reflecting on the last 2 years, I think that the feedback and coaching from team members have helped me to accelerate my professional and personal growth. This does not only involve developing analytical skills and business acumen but also improving my ‘soft’ skills, such as interacting with senior client counterparts and presenting valuable insights.

Nationality: Australian 
Background: Renewables, Growth and Innovation

Something about myself

Strategy consulting is my third career (after working as a lawyer and then a commercial adviser in the energy and infrastructure industries). While a commercial adviser, my Booz alumni boss opened my eyes to the ‘top down’ way of thinking and I joined Strategy& as an SA after my INSEAD MBA. Outside of work, my children are the center of my world. On the peripheries, I enjoy cooking and trying to live sustainably (which essentially means spending time terrorizing people on Marktplaats with my terrible Dutch).

Contribution to solving society’s important problems

I work with retail and consumer goods companies to embed sustainability in their businesses. 

Two recent examples are (1) helping beverages company embed sustainability in their plans for building upstream supplier engagement capabilities, (2) helping an e-commerce player consider the strategic implications of their double materiality assessment and consider new business models for developing their value proposition.

Nationality: Dutch
Background: Energy transition and policy analysis

Personal growth at Strategy&

Since I primarily work on policy and regulatory economics related issues, strong micro-economic foundations are a must in order to add value to clients. Strategy& has allowed me to work with the brightest economists (led by Gulbahar Tezel, who is also a Professor of Economics at Tilburg) and strategists (especially in the energy domain, led by Paul Nillesen). I learn from them on a daily basis. Combined with several soft skills trainings, I have become a better communicator, manager and a leader.

Strategy& highlight

Every moment has been a highlight. Starting with the ski trip to La Clusaz in 2015 (where I stepped into the snow for the first time, and was already skiing in the red zones, and even experimented a black one), to working on the most impactful projects with people from different countries completely (and seamlessly) online during Covid times, to the team dinners after an intense project – where unexpectedly you hear the client say “Working with you guys felt like the premier league of consulting”.

Nationality: Dutch
Background: Financial economics

Something about myself

My biggest hobby while growing up was tennis. I combined athletics and high school as part of the LOOT program before studying/ playing tennis in the US on a scholarship basis. While greatly enjoying student life, I continued to challenge myself academically and personally as an Economics student, during my exchange in Chili and as part of Research Project when conducting research for Dutch companies in India. Nowadays, I live in Amsterdam, still enjoy physical exercise and having fun with friends.

Contribution to solving society’s important problems

The past year, I have had the opportunity to be part of our healthcare team that is helping our clients in solving one of the most fundamental societal challenges: controlling healthcare costs while ensuring the accessibility and quality of care. This way, I have worked side-by-side with hospitals, elderly care providers and insurers on some of their most pressing issues.

Besides project-related work, I am part of our CSR team that (amongst others) sets up annual pro-bono projects to help social enterprises in increasing their societal impact.

Nationality: German
Background: Economics, finance and climate change

Personal growth at Strategy&

I joined Strategy& straight from university, so there was a lot for me to learn. From the first day onwards, the fast pace of our work has exposed me to a variety of different tasks/ projects that have launched an incredibly steep learning curve. I was taught how to tackle business questions in a hypothesis driven way and distill key insights from quantitative analyses. Next to developing a core consulting toolkit, working on soft skills such as effective communication is a continuous process supported by every project manager, team member & mentor.

Strategy& highlight

Travelling and working in an international environment have always been two of my favorite things, so the projects I have enjoyed the most were projects abroad. For example, I had the opportunity to work on a digitalization project for a Greek bank in Athens. It was a unique experience, from a content and especially from a way-of-working perspective. Throughout the project we were working in fully integrated teams with the client and developed an innovative digital growth strategy together.

Nationality: Dutch
Background: Public sector

Something about myself

I aspired to be in strategy consulting while studying as I figured it would be a lot like my professional volleyball career: highly motivated people working together to complete a not-so-easy task under pressure, enjoying the process, feeling a big sense of achievement after being successful together and learning a lot along the way – luckily, that is exactly what it is and so I decided to stick around for as long as I have. Next to this, I recently had a son and am now enjoying all the great things this little person does on a daily basis.

Contribution to solving society’s important problems

he vast majority of the work I do is within the public sector and these types of project directly link to the well-being of people on both a micro as well as a macro, more long term level. Examples include working on reducing costs of healthcare while improving the quality of care and supporting the justice chain in increasing its effectiveness. Next to this, I co-lead our CSR team, with which we support a variety of (international) social enterprises in successfully fulfilling their mission.

Nationality: Dutch
Background: Economics, financial services

Contribution to solving society’s important problems

The main reason why I have chosen for Strategy& is the unique sector focus. For instance, we have a strong presence in healthcare and the energy transition. Personally, I have been active in the economics and climate practice where I have been working on multiple projects related to the reduction of carbon emissions and improving government subsidy instruments aimed at decarbonizing the Dutch heavy industry.

Strategy& highlight

My highlight with Strategy& is going on a trip with all the (senior) associates of the firm. The organizing committee had put in a lot of effort and organized a rally to an unknown destination. Luckily, I was in a car with colleagues who all knew the best answer to each quiz question and finally we figured out the destination and we arrived in Gent, Belgium.

This highlight is just a simple example but illustrates perfectly that your coworkers are not only colleagues but also quickly become friends.

Nationality: Russian
Background: PhD in mathematics

Something about myself

In my last year of PhD, I started looking for a job which will also give me a broad range of interesting projects and will challenge me to continue learning. Strategy& gives me this intellectual challenge, and at the same time provides enough support and encouragement.

In my free time I enjoy learning languages, reading, and cycling through beautiful Dutch countryside.

Personal growth at Strategy&

In Strategy&, we have colleagues from different backgrounds – from Finance and Economics to Chemistry and Engineering. As an experienced hire with academic background, I participated in a 1-week training in St. Gallen where we learned the basics of Strategic Consulting and Finance. I enjoyed both lectures and having a chance to meet colleagues from other Strategy& offices. We had great time learning together and exploring beautiful town of St. Gallen!

Nationality: American
Background: Organization transformation, cost improvement and capability development across industries, incl.: consumer and retail, technology, life sciences, manufacturing and aerospace and defense

Something about myself

I am a citizen of the world, having been raised across the world as a young child. I find myself equally at home in my country (the USA), or in the Netherlands (the country where I live), or India (the country of my ethnic origin), or almost anywhere else. I believe in “work hard and play hard” and in life balance. That’s helped me have fun and do great work with teams and clients, and also have the support of my incredible wife of 21+ years (Meredith), our children and my entire family.

Contribution to solving society’s important problems

I am passionate about what I do, and I am truly grateful for the privilege I have to work with teams all over to truly help clients and beneficially impact the lives of thousands of people all over the world – many of whom I will never meet.

The best part is that I get to work together with people in teams and have the support and scale of the huge and deeply capable PwC Network behind me. I know that together we can literally solve any problem a client throws at us. Most of all, our values are real for us – our firm is guided at its core from the value of building trust in society by solving important problems. That helps me sleep well at night.

Nationality: Turkish
Background: Economics and climate practice lead, specialized in competition economics, regulation and climate economics

Contribution to solving society’s important problems

The Economics & Climate Practice uses economic theory to address societal questions.

Competition, regulation and market design: we conduct economic analysis to help clients comply with competition laws and regulation. We help policy makers organize markets so that they deliver socially optimal results.

Climate: we help policy makers shape climate policy; we help companies reduce their environmental footprint.

Strategy& highlight

I am very proud of the work that my team and I carry out on climate and environmental issues. We have advised the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate on the Dutch carbon tax and the future of the hydrogen infrastructure. We also published a though leadership document proposing a solution to the Nitrogen problem in the Netherlands.

Nationality: Dutch
Background: Medicine

Personal growth at Strategy&

Switching from medicine to consulting was a big jump for me; feeling totally uncomfortable, but also heavily supported by the team around me. Within no time I learned how to analyze big data sets, perform interviews, extract insights, and translate this into visually appealing documents. Extensive feedback and trainings supported my. At some point you realize: every expert was a beginner once. More importantly, I learned what my core strengths are and how to build upon these. I strongly value our development focus on people’s strengths.

Contribution to solving society’s important problems

Healthcare faces one extremely complex challenge: how to improve quality of care, while lowering costs? We help healthcare insurers, hospitals, and mental and elderly care providers tackle this issue. By focusing on appropriate care and building digital hospitals, we lower costs significantly. The results of our project work reshape healthcare; this forms key input for national policies. These type of projects make me feel I am still a medical doctor that takes care of patients; in the role of a consultant, I am a doctor of our healthcare system.

Nationallity: Portuguese
Background: Tax, deals, energy

Something about myself

Started my career in Deals Tax in Portugal but moved to The Netherlands to study Strategic Management at Erasmus University. Commuting on a bike in hilly Porto was very difficult, but now you can find me happily cruising through Amsterdam on my omafiets

Next to delivering impact with and for our clients, I’m a big sports fan particularly interested in football, padel and running!

Personal growth at Strategy&

Learning is the only constant in my thrilling journey – yet still short – as a strategy consultant. The path to become an expert on solar PV distributed generation in LATAM or manage 7 different nationalities within a project team are examples of growth opportunities I was presented with from day one

At Strategy& I can feed my enthusiasm and curiosity with challenging experiences, critical feedback and supportive colleagues

Nationality: French
Background: Private equity deals support and value creation in portfolio companies; focus on industrial products and energy

Contribution to solving society’s important problems

The manufacturing sector in Europe has been impacted by globalization in the last 2 decades. As a result, I really enjoy supporting mid-size companies improve, deliver value, and grow as it impacts the economy overall, innovation strategies, and ultimately job creation to impact positively society.

Some recent project examples include supporting a PE improve commercial excellence, and operations capabilities across 10+ of their portfolio companies in the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Italy amongst other places.

Strategy& highlight

One of my project highlights is a global transformation for a cement company where I went to 20+ locations (US, Australia, Colombia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Argentina, etc.) for over 4 months, always with the core team incl. the client. This taught me a lot about cultural differences and about developing lifetime relationships with clients by working side by side.

One of my office based highlights is undoubtedly the Amsterdam ski trip where the tight-knit office culture is every year celebrated and reinforced.

Nationality: Dutch
Background: Banking and international business

Something about myself

I started my career in banking, specifically financing companies in distress and financing start-ups & scale-ups. I realized that the strategy component of these projects was the most fascinating to me, so I changes careers. Prior and in my work, I have spent significant time abroad in the USA and Australia, which stems from my curiosity for other people, cultures and experiences.

Contribution to solving society’s important problems

To date, I’ve had the opportunity to work on an array of different projects, from healthcare to construction to telecom. All projects focused on solving complex problems the business was facing from restructuring a company in distress to challenging a managing board on their budget for the 2023.

Contributing to a healthcare provider for the most complex children who need special care, has been especially impactful.