evy.fulgado@umbrex.com
Welcoming New Member Hideaki Iwase
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Hideaki Iwase with QoL Inc. Hideaki joined McKinsey Tokyo/Atlanta and enjoyed strategy, operations, and corp. relation design / M&A/PMM. He then worked as several executive management roles for global companies’ Japan operations and became independent in Y2000.
Since then, he focuses on hands-on value delivery to clients. Please let me know if your client has any interest in Japan.
He also enjoys academic life, venture management, social welfare corp. etc. Private life: active sports player; soccer, tennis, running, yoga, etc.
Welcoming New Member Tatiana V Ridley
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Tatiana V Ridley with Ridley Global Advisors. Tatiana is an Ivy League educated strategy and operations leader with 18+ years of experience developing and implementing enterprise and business strategies for leading Financial Services and FinTech firms driving multi-million dollar revenue and profitability impact.
Tatiana has successfully built, scaled and led high-performing teams at Fintech startups, a Fortune 500 technology leader and a top-tier global consultancy. She has a proven track record of leading and managing top-priority strategic initiatives, partnerships and products through all phases of the initiative lifecycle including data-driven analysis, strategy development, and execution.
Tatiana loves coaching and mentoring colleagues.
She resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, their two daughters, a 100-lb newfoundland and a cat named Chicken.
Welcoming New Member Sean Carney
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Sean Carney with Wentwell. Sean Carney spent ~3 years as Manager of Communications at McKinsey before starting his own strategic communications firm, Wentwell. Prior to McKinsey, Sean spent more than 15 years in top PR/advertising agencies in NYC and Philadelphia, primarily representing B2B technology, banking/finance, energy, real estate, and professional services companies.
He specializes in writing, messaging/narrative development, media training, and public relations consulting, and helps companies around the world tell more meaningful stories. Sean also lectures at the Wharton School, where he teaches a class on business communications, public speaking, writing, and leadership.
Sean lives in Philadelphia and is happy to collaborate on any projects involving change management, communications, employee training, and writing.
Welcoming New Member Hari A Sripathi
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Hari A Sripathi with Find Product Market Fit.
Hari is an expert on product led growth for consumer industries. He spent 6 years as a Management Consultant at Strategy&, Booz and Company after which he led corporate strategy at PepsiCo and Avis Car Rental. His areas of core expertise areas include discovering and delivering on breakthrough innovation, new market entry and revenue optimization.
Hari currently runs his own boutique practice focused on helping growth stage companies achieve better scale. He actively mentors disruptive startups in consumer industries. He is an engaged thought leader on the future of food and future of mobility.
Welcoming New Member Diana Dosik
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Diana Dosik. Diana spent 16 years at BCG. She was a Partner and core member of the People and Organization Practice, with a focus on organizational behavior, organizational design, and people/culture transformation.
She is also a trained executive coach (through Newfield Network, an ICF accredited training program). She is interested in coaching senior executives and projects related to leadership, culture or organizational change.
Welcoming New Member Ozan Ozaskinli
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Ozan Ozaskinli with Value Gene Consulting Group. Ozan is the Partner and Managing Director in Value Gene. He has 17+ years of strategy consulting experience especially in consumer goods, food industry and telecommunications. During his career, Ozan has led 70+ strategy, supply chain, operations and digital & data analytics projects and large-scale transformations in the US, Europe, Central Asia and Middle East.
In the recent years, he has focused on supply chain, operations and digital projects in the US. Prior to joining Value Gene, he was a Partner in Boston Consulting Group Istanbul office.
Welcoming New Member Curt Andersson
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Curt Andersson with Flynn Fisk. Curt is the Managing Director of Flynn Fisk, a boutique management consulting firm focused on strategy, artificial intelligence, and operations performance. Prior to Flynn Fisk, he was a senior consulting partner at The Mitchell Madison Group and served in leadership positions as President, North American Tire, of The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company and as President, Cooper Crouse-Hinds Division, of Cooper Industries (now Eaton Electric).
Curt lives with his wife near Syracuse, NY and is very open to supporting projects in the northeast with industrial / B2B clients as well as in application of advanced analytics and artificial intelligence.
Welcoming New Member Miguel Guarino
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Miguel Guarino. Miguel, spent 4 years at McKinsey after completing the Masters in Management. Previously a lawyer, from 2004 to 2010. Miguel describes his practice:
After my years at McKinsey I joined Finsolutia, leading the Advisory and Portfolio Management teams, where I contributed to growing AuM from 300m€ to 1.6b€ by leading the team through several acquisition processes adding up to >2b€ worth of distressed assets and creating the NPL and RE pricing models. Later on, and after a 6 months break where I joined a PE firm, I returned to Finsolutia to create new business units, namely, a digital mortgage broker, a RE i-buyer and a BPaaS fintech.
I have been an Independent Consultant since Jan 2022, having worked mostly on Strategy and PMO projects in Healthcare, Transports, Energy and Entertainment.
Welcoming New Member Martin Band
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Martin Band. Martin is a Software-as-a-Service growth stage Chief Product Officer, CTO and CEO with experience in over 40 SaaS SMEs, Oracle and Salesforce as well as Boston Consulting Group and Schlumberger. Martin is a leader and enabler of hyper-growth and mentor to entrepreneurs. He has extensive experience with Private Equity / Venture Capital.
Martin’s speciality is SaaS product strategy and management and software engineering management. He implements global best practices, tailored to a client’s own maturity and objectives, through a transformation programme. He operates as a consultant and interim manager.
Martin is based in London. As well as the UK, he is prepared to work anywhere in the EU or the US East Coast, onsite or remote.
Welcoming New Member Eliza Li
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Eliza Li with Eliza Li Consulting. Eliza is a young and vibrant independent strategy consulting, who previously worked at the BCG Melbourne office for 1yr+. Since becoming an independent consultant, Eliza has predominantly worked on projects in financial crime and the digital future of mining in Australia.
During her BCG career, she worked across several practice areas namely: federal and state government reviews, mapping consumer retail footprints and expansion strategies and deploying great data and analytics capabilities in financial institutions. More importantly, Eliza has led several social impact projects with key not for profits including Teach for Australia, First Nations Clean Energy Network and Regional Education Student Network.
Creating impact has always been a driving force for Eliza, who cofounded the NFP, Halad to Health, which provides free mental health counselling and services to some of the most disadvantaged communities in rural Philippines.
Eliza always loves meeting new minds and connecting.
Welcoming New Member Joseph Jordan
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Joseph Jordan with Actuparo. Joe is the President & CEO of Actuparo, a strategic advisory firm focused on assisting financial sponsors and individual companies in navigating the Federal marketplace and maximizing opportunities for growth and success.
He was previously the head of Federal procurement policy, the top contracting official at the U.S. Small Business Administration, a two-time technology CEO, and a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Company.
Welcoming New Member Alex R Miller
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Alex R Miller. Alex was previously the Global Head of Strategy and the U.S. Strategy Line Leader for KPMG. With more than 30 years of M&A and strategic consulting experience, Alex has focused on helping corporate and private equity clients assess and complete transformational acquisitions and improve performance, with particular emphasis on helping clients to develop, assess and realize their investment theses and end-to-end “strategy to execution”. Alex has substantial experience across multiple industries including distribution and retail / consumer products.
Specialties include: strategy, private equity, mergers & acquisitions, due diligence, and financial analysis.
Welcoming New Member Ravi Arulanantham
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Ravi Arulanantham. Ravi has two decades of experience in the financial services industry at the intersection of product, investing, and corporate strategy. Most recently he was Global Head of Product & Strategy at Wells Fargo Asset Management.
Prior to Wells, he held various strategy and investment roles at JPMorgan Asset Management, Silver Creek Capital, and was also a political appointee in the Obama administration at the Export-Import Bank of the United States where he served as Head of Strategy and Senior Advisor to the Chairman with a focus on modernizing the bank and extending its reach to underserved businesses and markets.
Ravi serves as an advisor to various fintech firms, from seed to series B, with a focus on novel technologies and applications in asset & wealth management.
Ravi lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two children, and is an avid classical musician. Ravi would enjoy collaborating on financial services related engagements, especially those in the asset & wealth management and related technology areas.
Welcoming New Member Maria Chevtsova
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Maria Chevtsova. Maria spent five years in the Boston, New York, and Moscow offices of BCG working on strategic and operational projects with increasing focus on the Healthcare/BioPharma space.
She transitioned into industry as an Inhouse Consultant at Merck KGaA and most recently built out and lead Portfolio Strategy and Analytics at Black Diamond Therapeutics, a BioTech startup.
Maria lives in the Boston area with her husband and young daughter. Maria is happy to collaborate on projects involving strategy, financial modeling/analytics, and organizational effectiveness preferably, but not exclusively, in the Healthcare/BioPharma space.
Welcoming New Member Christian Fendt
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Christian Fendt with Arumis Consulting GmbH. Christian has over 25 years international experience in management consulting and in financial services. Prior to founding Arumis Consulting, a small, independent management consultancy, he founded Pegasos Capital, an independent private wealth management company and launched his own mutual fund.
Christian also worked 5 years for Fortis Investments, a global asset management company. During this time and based at the company’s headquarters in Brussels, he completed and successfully integrated a number of acquisitions. He also spent 1½ years in St. Petersburg as Managing Director, CFO & COO of KIT Fortis Investments (a leading Russian asset manager) and was a member of the Supervisory Board of Fortis Investments in Turkey. Before this, he spent 4 years in London working as a freelance consultant for companies such as Gartmore Investment, Legal & General and the Financial Times. Christian started his career as a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group in Munich.
Christian is happy to collaborate on financial services projects – especially asset management & wealth management – as well as strategic growth and M&A projects in Germany, Europe and globally.
Welcoming New Member Christian D Ruf
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Christian D Ruf as Independent Consultant. Christian grew up at beautiful Bodensee (Lake Constance) in southern Germany. Being a kid, he wanted to become a customs officer to wave the cars through, but he enrolled in a university program in information systems and gradually shifted focus to business analytics, algorithms, machine learning, and operations research. He visited UT Austin for joint research and obtained his PhD from the Technical University of Munich in 2020. He then went into management consulting as an Operations Research expert at Bain & Company where he got to work on exciting projects across industries.
Most of his work concerned supply chain management and production planning. After his time at Bain, he took a timeout. However, after a while, he started taking on occasional projects and becoming an independent consultant by accident. Besides coming up with and building analytics models, he loves skiing, country music, partner dances, and I has a weakness for cheese cake.
Welcoming New Member Tomas Juppa
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Tomas Juppa with UP Czech. Freelance management consultant with experience from BCG. Major focus on telco and media industry in the areas of sales, channel management, marketing and commercial due dilligence.
Experience from other industries as well – banking, heavy manufacturing, construction, healthcare etc. Special focus on Central & Eastern Europe, however with project experience also from Western Europe, Middle East, US and Africa.
Welcoming New Member Bill Bentaieb
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Bill Bentaieb. Bill has, since 1998, been a consultant and interim transformation executive serving as Head of Finance, HR and Technology Transformation, Global Business Services, Analytics, BI and Outsourcing Programmes. As an independent consultant and interim executive, he supports and leads business transformation programs including the design, implementation and optimization of GBS structures in Finance, HR and Technology, with a focus on technology benchmarking, selection and implementation process and organizational design, outsourcing, off-shoring and transition management.
Bill is an alumni of McKinsey, Deloitte and Accenture. Bill enjoys travelling (52 countries so far), hiking and cycling. He is a citizen of France and Canada and is located in Washington DC. Bill is looking forward to collaborating with the rest of the Umbrex community on projects and knowledge sharing.
Welcoming New Member Frank Deane
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Frank Deane with Lumleian. Frank describes his practice : I am a former Bain Consultant with significant experience in strategic planning and portfolio analysis for Life Sciences companies and Life Sciences investors. Having begun my career at Eli Lilly evaluating pipeline assets and supporting portfolio optimization, forecasting, and business unit strategic planning, I bring a deep knowledge of the Life Sciences space.
I also worked as a consultant with Leerink Swann focused on the Life Sciences space with an emphasis on assessing and valuing technologies and assets for Life Sciences companies and investors. I began working as an independent life-science consultancy 8 years ago emphasizing portfolio planning and due-diligence for life-science companies and life-science investors.
My recent independent consulting work has been focused on due diligence and supporting emerging Life Sciences companies with strategic consulting, primarily focused on growth optimization. These cover the gamut of disease states and span drugs, medical devices, and diagnostics.
Welcoming New Member Brad Turner
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Brad Turner with Hampshire Advisors. Brad focuses on transforming sales and marketing in private-equity owned mid-market software businesses that require rapid performance improvement. He plays both a consultative role, creating and driving the transformation plan as well as taking on interim CRO or senior sales leadership roles. Sweet spots include role and territory redesign, talent assessment and recruiting, and value selling methodology.
Brad’s early career background in private equity portfolio operations (Berkshire Partners) and strategy consulting (Bain & Company) have provided him with the strategic vision and a pragmatic “get it done” approach. After Berkshire Partners, Brad served as the President of Tealeaf by Acoustic, CRO of Access Information, and General Manager of Harris Broadcast’s media software business.
Welcoming New Member Ahmad Mansour
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Ahmad Mansour with Rare Capital. Ahmad describes his expertise:
I started my career as an entrepreneur, co-founding two technology startups (B2C and B2B). As a Sr. Engagement Manager at McKinsey, I led top line growth (marketing and sales) and operations optimization for PE-backed B2B technology portfolio companies; in addition, I led investment and commercial due diligences for top private equity companies on tech assets (B2B, B2C).
Key Accomplishments: Independent Advisor: Advised top PE/Growth Equity/Hedge funds/VC funds on investment/commercial due diligence for target assets and markets, and turn-around / top-line growth of portfolio companies. Advise startups across stages on top-line growth, pricing, market entry, strategy, operations McKinsey & Company – Advised top PE firms on technology and consumer investment due diligences and portfolio company turn-arounds (growth strategies, operations optimization)
Scryptech – Co-founded Scryptech, a web/mobile app development house for the TMT industry. Led product management, marketing & sales, and business development happin – Co-founded happin, the “waze for safety threatening news” in the MENA region. Led product management, user acquisition, and go-to-market strategies.
Welcoming New Member Michael Parrott
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Michael Parrott. Michael spent 5 years in Operations and Digital at McKinsey & Company and 4 years as a generalist at Mars & Company. In industry, he had short visits at Anheuser Busch InBev and e-Xstream engineering.
Michael has expertise in ‘digital transformations’ of corporate functions, having led multiple transformations for supply chain, procurement and finance functions. While his program is more functional, his primary industry focus is the consumer sector, as well as transportation and logistics.
He lives in Chicago, Illinois with his wife and daughter. Outside work he enjoys cycling and cooking his wife’s hometown dish of paella.
Welcoming New Member Jean-Marie Roche
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Jean-Marie Roche with JMR Savjet. Senior Executive whose outstanding international track record of success in General management, HR management (Webhelp, Bain & Company) and Strategy consulting (Bain & Company) demonstrates his dedication to results.
Available for Executive Coaching, as well as Consulting and Transition Management assignments in Talent Management and HR Operations.
Welcoming New Member Jacob Lehman
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Jacob Lehman. Jacob began his career in McKinsey’s strategy group in 2009 and has worked in a variety of internal and external consulting roles focused primarily on customer acquisition and new market entry strategies including Voice of the Customer research across industries ranging from financial services, to education technology, to industrial products.
He specializes in identifying creative, win-win solutions that combine rigorous analysis with a respect for the client’s culture and non-financial goals, and brings an executive search consultant’s lens to considering organizations’ leadership and talent needs. From 2015-2021, in addition to his consulting practice, he helped the Johnson Graduate School of Management triple its annual placements at Bain, BCG, and McKinsey and double total consulting offers.
He spends his spare time choreographing safe and thrilling fights for theater and film projects, and is an inveterate crossword puzzle addict and three-time Finger Lakes Crossword Competition champion.
As a non-practicing attorney, Jacob is happy to collaborate on projects that require sensitivity to legal or regulatory issues and advise on effective engagement with internal or outside counsel. He holds a B.A. from Cornell University and a J.D. from the University of Michigan law school.
Welcoming New Member Philippe Simon
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Philippe Simon with WINNOTEK Sarl. Philippe served two years as delegate administrator on behalf of his client in a patent licensing pool addressing a European digital TV standard whereby the client owned an “essential” patent. He assists several public research organizations in technology transfers toward private industry, and facilitates maturation of startups innovative technologies through setup of collaborative projects with industrial partners.
Philippe was previously General Manager Business Development, Europe, for Thomson (Technicolor)’s Intellectual Property & Licensing division. Earlier he had been Senior Manager, Product Innovation and Lifecycle Management (PILM) practice with Deloitte Consulting and Director of R&D processes, tools and methods at Faurecia (tier 1 automotive equipment). He created Braxton Associates’ Moscow (Russia) consulting office in 1997. He was initially US Manager, Marketing & Development for Pechiney Aluminium from 1982 to 1987 based in NYC then joined Bain & Co in Paris and later Boston in 1988.
Philippe holds an engineering degree from Ecole Nationale Supérieure Mines Paris-Tech, and an MBA from University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Welcoming New Member Lisa Chapello
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Lisa Chapello. Lisa joined Bain’s Chicago office in 2010, before becoming a product leader at Walmart and Twitter. She has practical expertise in product strategy, product operations, and “0 to 1” style efforts. She also has vertical expertise in developer platforms, e-commerce, grocery, and EBT/SNAP. As an independent consultant, Lisa has also helped clients in CPG, healthcare, and last-mile delivery.
By training she is an engineer (University of Illinois) and received her MBA from Stanford. Now based in Boulder, Colorado, Lisa spends a large portion of her time outdoors and will happily spend hours discussing running with you.
Welcoming New Member Marcus Sandberg
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Marcus Sandberg. Executive with strong experience from top-tier management consulting Bain & Company and corporate executive roles in media and technology. Deep experience from strategy development and execution across a range of industries and situations, combined with very strong Private Equity experience across the full deal cycle (due diligence, operational value creation and exit).
Strong track record of delivering results by leading, working with and influencing teams across all levels of the organization. Significant experience working directly with senior executives, owners and Boards.
Welcoming New Member Marie-Pierre Schickel
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Marie-Pierre Schickel as Independent Consultant. Marie-Pierre describes her practice:
I have worked in Strategy Consulting for Bain & Co, then Marketing & Brand Management, Post-Graduate Design Education and more recently within the ecosystem of Italian Innovative Start-Ups.
With a Graduate degree in Economics from ESSEC Business School and a Master in Business Design from Domus Academy, I have developed a strong conviction that to create meaningful and viable businesses, we must combine a deep empathy for one’s customers with actionable insights from small & big data and a solid business strategy. As a Brand Innovation Strategist and Business Designer, my goal is to help my clients align their Brand Strategy with their Business strategy, making their Brand a core strategic asset.
I regularly teach in various international universities about the continuous evolution of consumers values, innovative brand strategies and business models adapted by fashion, luxury or lifestyle players.
I am part of Angels 4 Women, the first Italian business angel association focusing on women-led start-ups, and I mentor start-ups in their seed development stages.
I currently leave in Milan where you can contact me if you have projects where business strategy needs alignment with brand strategy.
Welcoming New Member Claire de Weerdt
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Claire de Weerdt with de Weerdt Consulting. Claire is a former McKinsey Consultant and has been running her consulting company, de Weerdt Consulting Inc, for the past year with a focus primarily in strategy and market research. Prior to McKinsey, Claire obtained her MBA from the University of British Columbia and worked as a Project Engineer at SNC-Lavalin. Claire provides support to investors, consulting companies, executive teams, as well as start-ups primarily in the industrials, technology, real estate, and health care sectors.
Claire lives just outside Vancouver with her husband and Corgi and enjoys spending time outdoors. Claire is always happy to discuss potential project opportunities.
Welcoming New Member Martijn Thierry
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Martijn Thierry with Martijn Thierry Strategic Results. Martijn spent seven years at Bain in London and Amsterdam. He was part of the Bain team that set up the Amsterdam office and left as Senior Manager. Prior to Bain, he gained his PhD on circular business at Erasmus University Rotterdam and published a leading article.
Martijnhas been running his own consulting firm for over 15 years. He has particular expertise in business strategy development, ESG strategy development, innovation and business development. Most of his work has been in B2B. He has worked across Europe. In addition to his work for companies, Martijn has advised multiple NGOs on their strategy. He has hands-on experience of setting and scaling up innovative social ventures (in water & sanitation, and in road safety).
He lives east of Amsterdam with his wife and two young sons. Martijn is happy to collaborate on projects involving business / ESG strategy (including circular business) in Europe.
Welcoming New Member Yann Parer
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Yann Parer with YP Consult. Yann is a consultant with 4 years’ experience working with McKinsey and Australian boutique firm PQ Partners with extensive experience in mining, technology M&A, business transformation, strategy, and sustainability.
Yann serves companies across Australia in projects ranging from group strategy and value chain optimisation to valuing intangibles and making the business case for nature stewardship.
He has also led acquisitions and partnerships in the mining technology sphere. Prior to completing his MBA at INSEAD, Yann was a geotechnical engineer in the Australian outback in some of the world’s largest iron ore mines.
While based out of Melbourne, Australia, Yann currently works with clients in Asia, Europe and the Americas and is happy to discuss new opportunities across the world.
Welcoming New Member Deniz Koc
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Deniz Koc with DEKOC Strategy & Management Consultancy. Deniz is an innovative, detail-orientated professional with a master degree in business administration and more than 20 years of proven experience in digital transformation, strategy consultancy, as well as planning and managing business, and supporting operations. Deniz worked in the consulting unit of SAP, looking after SAP’s major clients all over the world and took roles like global account manager and customer engagement manager. He also worked and lived in New York City for SAP America, before turning independent with his own consulting firm. He was also Director for Consumer & Retail at Booz & Company, later Strategy&. Deniz is an independent consultant since 2016 again.
Deniz has a clear focus on Consumer Products / FMCG and worked in all areas like food, drinks, cosmetics, fashion etc. His main focus is on Trade Spends and Revenue Growth management.
Welcoming New Member Marc Bachs Castan
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Marc Bachs Castan. Marc is a management consultant with extensive Commercial/Vendor Due Diligence, Strategy, Performance Improvement and M&A experience at Bain & Co. and as an independent contractor. He has lead multiple consulting teams and his career has taken him to Europe, America, and Australia where he currently lives. Marc is very interested in how technology can completely reshape industries as we currently know them.
Welcoming New Member Jan Starrsjö
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Jan Starrsjö with Jan Starrsjö Advisory.
Jan Starrsjö spent 7 years with McKinsey in the Scandinavian office and 1 year in Los Angeles, CA, USA. The work included corporate strategy, profit improvement programs, sales effectiveness, and product development. Since then, Jan has spent 23 years with PostNord holding senior executive positions whereof the last 6 years as member of the Group Executive team with group strategy as key role.
Jan spent much time on developing solutions for the eCommerce customers. Other roles include sustainability, business-, sales-, network-, digital channels and operations development and group HR. PostNord is the leading parcel and mail distribution company present in all four Nordic countries. For 3 years Jan led a small venture capital firm investing in early stages of logistics start-ups.
He lives in Stockholm, Sweden with his wife. Has two children who are on their way to form their own families. Jan is happy to support clients on postal/parcel/logistics restructuring and operational improvements primarily in Europe.
Welcoming New Member Austin Riggs
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Austin Riggs. Austin describes his practice :
I am a strategy consultant with over 10 years strategy and operations experience. In addition to my expertise in growth strategy, M&A, and strategic planning, I have deep experience in new business launches and social innovation. My industry expertise covers financial services, technology, entertainment and consumer electronics. I am especially passionate about sustainability and mission-driven businesses. With professional experience in the USA, UK, South Africa, and Jordan, I excel in adapting to new cultures and managing teams across a variety of working environments.
Before becoming an independent consultant, I was the Senior Director of Strategy at Better, a mortgage finance and technology company. There I built and ran a strategy team responsible for company-wide planning, M&A, and organizational development. I led the diligence, execution, and integration of the company’s first two acquisitions – UK-based financial technology companies. Prior to Better, I was the Director of R&D at the International Rescue Committee. In this role, I launched a social innovation lab whose mission was to improve refugee programs by combining social science research, design, and technology. There I built a team of 30 FTE, raised $125 million, and launched over 15 early and mid-stage innovation projects. I was also a consultant at Bain & Company in the New York and South Africa offices. My client work focused on growth strategy, private equity, and M&A for financial services and technology companies.
Having launched multiple teams and institutions within organizations, I excel in taking projects and initiatives from concept to reality, and coordinating complex projects across cross-functional teams. I am a passionate builder of teams, and enjoys working with junior employees to build their skills and confidence. I also have applied experience in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policy, and have founded and led employee resource groups.
I have an MBA from NYU Stern, and an undergraduate degree in theater from UCLA.
Welcoming New Member Ted Perkins
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Ted Perkins. Ted is a former banker and Associate Partner at McKinsey, where he served clients on corporate finance & strategy topics and due diligence. He left McKinsey in 2020 to found an interactive business learning platform called Skill Range. Ted works as an independent consultant and is looking to collaborate on strategy, due diligence and corporate training projects.
Ted lives in Santa Monica, CA with his wife and one-year old son and enjoys hiking and aquascaping.
Welcoming New Member Jessica Shamoun
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Jessica Shamoun. Jessica spent 6 years with Bain & Company focused on private equity, portfolio optimization, and growth strategies.
Since Bain she has held leadership roles at two startups, first in CPG then in real estate tech, most recently as the VP of Business Operations and Product Strategy leading projects at the intersection of product, operations, and sales.
She has deep expertise and experience in data/analytics, process improvement, M&A, product strategy, and program management.
She is based in Denver, CO and is open to travel and/or remote projects
Welcoming New Member Serge Milman
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Serge Milman with Sourcing Advisors Group. Serge is proven leader with extensive expertise eliminating supply chain constraints, generating 25%- 40% vendor spend cost reduction, and improving vendor quality of service. I lead through fact-based engagement, skilled at building stakeholder support, and have successfully improved team expertise resulting in more effective engagement and retention. He is a former executive with Mitchell Madison Group, McKinsey & Co and Wells Fargo Bank.
Welcoming New Member John Thorneycroft
Umbrex is pleased to welcome John Thorneycroft with Independent Consultant. John is an experienced executive and advisor who has recently launched an independent consultancy practice in the Amsterdam area. He was a generalist at McKinsey Netherlands for 5 years, before joiningg BT plc in the UK, where he led numerous major strategic and commercial product departments till 2016.
Since then John has led strategic redesign and portfolio change at two tech scaleups. John specialises in crafting practical, deliverable, underpinned B2B strategies and driving through properly prioritised change.
He lives near the city of Alkmaar with his wife and four children, and would be happy to collaborate on projects focusing on practical strategic change or B2B product management in the Netherlands.
Welcoming New Member Weiming Zhang
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Weiming Zhang. Weiming has a combined experience of McKinsey Partner and corporate top management. During his 8 years at McKinsey, he worked on projects of various topics and industries, ranging from strategy, operation to overall transformation, from low-carbon development to real estate.
In 2018, he joined a leading industrial real estate developer in China as EVP of strategy, investment and operation. Starting from 2021, he switched focus to SMEs with director and advisor roles.
Weiming lives in Shanghai with his family. He is happy to collaborate on projects involving SME, China or real estate elements. He can work remotely or onsite with a bit lead time.
Welcoming New Member Kristoffer Ekelund
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Kristoffer Ekelund with East Point. Kristoffer professional background consists of ~12 years from consumer goods and retail and ~8 years management consulting from firms like Procter & Gamble, Apoteket and Bain & Co. He currently resides in Sweden and has spent significant time with international engagements across Europe.
Kristoffer has worked extensively on strategic and operational matters in a retail and FMCG setting, including strategy planning, business development, M&A/due diligence as well as Lean operations and organizational design. He earned his graduate degree at the London School of Economics in the UK and his bachelor’s degree from Macalester College (MN) in the US.
Kristoffer is now running his own advisory business and welcomes discussions related to collaboration, projects, transformation, new ventures and other significant change efforts.
Welcoming New Member Trevor McCaw
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Trevor McCaw with Kitsilano Partners. A visionary and pragmatic consultant with 20+ years of healthcare experience with a passion for building and advancing innovative medical and healthcare digital/analytic technologies.
A result-driven executive/consultant comfortable with rolling up his sleeves to get the job done and a keen eye for strategic planning, partnerships, and operations to accomplish ambitious goals. 20 years of experience working collaboratively with clients, C-Suite leaders, and cross-functional teams.
Welcoming New Member Bart Welch
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Bart Welch with Welch Executive Services. Bart joined McKinsey & Co as a Business Analyst in 2006 and spent the better part of a decade with the Firm. He served primarily Travel & Hospitality clients on a variety of commercial topics including deep focus on Loyalty, Pricing & Revenue Management, Direct consumer Marketing, and International Expansion.
Following his time at McKinsey, Bart held several leadership roles at Rocket Travel, a wholly-owned entity of Booking Holdings, the world’s largest e-commerce travel organization. At Rocket, Bart oversaw all commercial functions including marketing, data science, partnerships, account management, and business development. In January 2020 he was promoted to Chief Executive Officer and led the company through the challenging period of the Covid crisis. The company thrived after a period of deep reprioritization of efforts and now generates over $1B in travel sales annually.
Bart is currently exploring opportunities and advising several organizations of varying scale.
Welcoming New Member Elias Mazzawi
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Elias Mazzawi with 4H-2D. Formerly a consultant at a leading global strategy house and senior executive at multi-nationals and mid-size organisations internationally, Elias is a highly experienced interim specialist in integration and growth across multi-OpCo businesses.
With a depth of leadership and programme experience at the point of M&A and at strategic inflexion points (including transfer to private equity, change of management and roll-up), he specialises in M&A post-merger and whole-greater-than-the-sum-of-the-parts revenue strategies; primarily across across midsize, and private equity backed environments internationally.
Considered strategic, pragmatic and independent, he brings distinctive transformation and operational skills to navigating and aligning complex stakeholder scenarios to deliver, accelerate and sustain bespoke combinations of synergy across client management, proposition integration and cross-sell; supported by expertise in commercial excellence.
B2B | financial services, professional services, outsourcing, manufacturing | regulated environments | UK-based and highly international | developed and emerging markets.
Welcoming New Member Oscar Martinez
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Oscar Martinez with Whale’s Tail. Oscar brings two decades of corporate finance and operations experience to his clients. He served as CFO of two publicly traded companies and executed two IPOs. Oscar currently serves as a fractional CFO to privately held companies looking to accelerate their growth or prepare to execute a strategic transaction. In this role he has deployed three instances of NetSuite, while also adopting dashboards to revamp reporting and track key drivers. He excels at aligning key processes to develop actionable growth plans and measuring results against expectations.
Prior to starting his fractional CFO practice, Oscar served as COO of a $1 billion revenue division of Equifax overseeing large data onboarding and customer service teams. In this role, he integrated various acquired companies and executed planned synergies while consolidating legacy operations. Additionally, he deployed Salesforce and supervised migration of his organization’s data to the cloud to drive meaningful efficiencies for his team of over 1,600 FTEs.
Prior to that, Oscar was hired as CFO of Huttig Building Products (Nasdaq HBP until acquired) to restore investor communications and reporting as well as stabilize inefficient operations. Before joining Huttig, Oscar oversaw the IPO and successful sale of Foresight Energy (NYSE FELP until acquired). In his first three years as CFO, the company doubled its revenues organically to $1.1 billion while maintaining EBITDA margins of 40% given the alignment between operations. Foresight Energy was backed by private equity sponsor Riverstone Holdings.
Oscar also has experience in capital markets, both within Treasury departments and as an investment banker with JPMorgan Chase. In these roles, Oscar worked on issuances of over $11 billion of debt and nearly $3.0 billion in equity and equity-linked transactions. He has negotiated and structured numerous acquisition financing packages and integrated dozens of acquired companies. In addition to his NetSuite and Salesforce experience, he has participated in the installations of SAP, Oracle, Paycom, Paylocity and Tableau.
Oscar earned a bachelor’s degree in Finance with an additional major in Economics from Trinity University in San Antonio and an MBA from Harvard Business School in Boston. He has a certificate in Artificial Intelligence from Northwestern University. He is a native Spanish speaker and has worked in the US, Mexico, Argentina, Germany and China. Oscar is an avid skier, traveler, and cyclist. He enjoys grilling and spending time with his family and two dogs in St Louis, Missouri.
Welcoming New Member Kristine Simonsen
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Kristine Simonsen with VelocitySquad. Kristine is a forward-thinking Digital Business Leader with +10 years of experience and a proven track record in accelerating and building businesses and products that challenge status quo. She brings a unique combination of strategic acumen, creative thinking and effective execution. Built +5 Digital ventures and led +10 large-scale Digital transformations for some of the world‘s largest companies within travel, consumer, and financial services and co-founded and led McKinsey‘s Digital Business Building [LEAP] business. Successful entrepreneur and advocate for women founders as an Angel investor, advisor and founder of Female Founder House.
Welcoming New Member Sabrina Boesch
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Sabrina Boesch. Sabrina spent 4 years working at Bain & Co., focussing primarily on financial services. She left Bain to join a fast growing FinTech in Dusseldorf focussing on expanding a newly founded business division. Her passion for business development and e-commerce led her to take over the German market at Emma Sleep, the biggest e-commerce in the sleep industry.
Since leaving Emma, Sabrina is focusing on helping clients build and expand their e-commerce businesses as well as working on overarching growth projects. Apart from her consulting business she’s building a purpose-led e-commerce brand in the sustainable fashion space. She’s located in Lisbon, Portugal.
Welcoming New Member Ladislav Bozik
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Ladislav Bozik. Ladislav has 20 years of experience leading and advising complex and complicated procurement and supply chain projects, with a track record of achieving extraordinary outcomes in costs and lead times. Strategic leadership on procurement addressable spend from 100m up to 1bln EUR, with successful delivery of transformation objectives, implementing TCO, make vs buy or should cost modeling principles. Known for being an enthusiastic, data-based decision-making leader shaping strategy and priorities and able to motivate teams to overdeliver.
Welcoming New Member Kirstie Gust
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Kirstie Gust with Conintento Consulting. Kirstie has more than ten years of experience advising Fortune 500 companies in process and program design, implementation, improvement, management, monitoring, and auditing. With previous employers including KPMG and McKinsey & Company, Kirstie has built her career as a trusted partner for organizations across industries.
Kirstie specializes in Operational Risk Management, Third Party Risk Management, Fraud Prevention, Finance and Accounting Processes, and Strategic Alignment.
Welcoming New Member Nathan Pamart
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Nathan Pamart with Expert Focus. Nathan Pamart is a former Vice President at Bain Capital Private Equity who previously worked for Boston Consulting Group as a Consultant. Nathan focuses on commercial due diligence and strategy work.
Welcoming New Member Arda Gurtuna
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Arda Gurtuna. Arda graduated from the University of Birmingham, UK. He enjoys 12 years of professional experience, where he had been part of McKinsey & Company and IBM as a management consultant which are followed by leading strategy in e-commerce unicorn and B2B conglomerate. Followed by these experiences and prior joining OMS, Arda also spent 3 years in a partner role for a private equity and a hyper-growth management consulting firm. During this experience, he had several key roles and delivered exceptional results across EMEA and North America. His skill highlights are:
• Strategy and Business Development
• Venture Development and Scale-up
• Digital and Org. Transformation
• Management Consulting • Project and Program Management
• Portfolio Management
• Operating Model Design and Execution
• Customer Experience Management
Based in Barcelona / Spain, Arda speaks fluently English.
Welcoming New Member Fahad Modak
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Fahad Modak with The Eating Soup Company. Fahad shares his practice: A forward-thinking innovation executive with +20 years of product and consultative selling experience to help improve profit margins by finding opportunities to increase revenue or reduce costs. I am adept in storytelling with the natural ability to influence CxOs with insights and without authority. I infuse common sense when it is no longer common.
I possess Lean Six Sigma Master Blackbelt and certification in Uipath. I seek a leadership role to enable ESG/Sustainability strategy and digital transformation initiatives. I can help implement simple ways to capture data, develop a better product and report back to the street.
Welcoming New Member James Thomas Pyke
Umbrex is pleased to welcome James Thomas Pyke with TCB Advisors. Jim has spent his entire career working on energy and energy transition topics for utilities, industrials, and financial sponsors. He has consulting experience with McKinsey & Company and banking experience with Houlihan Lokey. He was also responsible for establishing the solar EPC business at Quanta Services, the largest specialty contractor in North America.
He currently works as an independent professional serving a wide range of clients on energy transition strategy. Jim has also completed over 20 commercial due diligence projects for financial sponsors. He also serves on the board of the Rice Engineering Alumni where he focuses his efforts on helping engineers from underrepresented groups launch their professional careers.
Welcoming New Member Xavier Jopart
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Xavier Jopart with Fisheye Consulting. Xavier is a freelance management consultant with deep expertise in the financial sector, Small Business development and Government policy and regulation. Xavier started his consulting career with McKinsey & Company in Belgium and worked for a total of 10 years with McKinsey, in Brussels, in Dubai and in London (as part of their Finalta subsidiary). Xavier spent more than half of his 25 years career in the Middle East and continues to serve clients in this region. Xavier also has entrepreneurial experience in the Middle-East in the area of fitness and wellness.
Xavier’s strengths reside in his ability to develop an end-to-end view of the business and build a strategic outlook while being totally comfortable with operational matters. He approaches problems in a very structured and systematic way. He is also able to synthesise complex situations in a clear communication.
Xavier is persistent and demonstrates a strong ability to interact comfortably and constructively at all levels of an organisation; this allows him to strive for impact while engaging and building support throughout his clients’ organisation.
Welcoming New Member Robert Latusek
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Robert Latusek with Sequoia Strategy. Experienced project manager leading complex corporate transformation and value creation programmes in pharma, insurance and tech industries, and supporting Private Equity clients with m&a and post-merger integrations of their portfolio assets. Geographical expertise in EMEA, APAC and North America.
PhD from University of Oxford in Radiation Oncology. Previously worked in McKinsey and tech startup Quandoo.
Welcoming New Member Sarah Elliot
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Sarah Elliot with Elliot Enterprise Advisors. Sarah is a former Bain & Company consultant who helps organizations build customer-centric businesses for the present and the future. She has nearly 17 years of experience helping global retail, CPG, and consumer-centric organizations transform their businesses through strategic thought leadership and pragmatic operational execution. Sarah’s knowledge base is vast and expands across channels (i.e. digital, brick and mortar, omnichannel, off-price), business models (i.e. B2C, B2B2C, DTC), and functional areas.
Sarah is based in Manhattan, New York, and is open and flexible to travel to other geographies as necessary for projects.
Welcoming New Member David Huie
Umbrex is pleased to welcome David Huie with Libertas Consulting. A former Booz-Allen & Hamilton consultant, David has also founded multiple tech startups one of which was acquired by a Fortune 50 financial services company. David has designed and developed 15+ SaaS software applications and is highly experienced in requirements discovery and documentation, UI-UX design, and data modeling.
David is adept taking a client’s idea from a whiteboard and then designing, developing, and implementing a solution that is both high quality and cost-effective. His forte is serving as the nexus between the business and its IT team.
David is a creative, out-of-the-box thinker with a strong analytical foundation honed during five years at Booz-Allen & Hamilton. There he successfully led multiple strategy and operations improvement engagements. He has deep healthcare domain experience but has worked in a variety of industries including financial services, telecommuncations, green tech, and food manufacturing.
David is an articulate and persuasive communicator and has extensive international experience.
Welcoming New Member Marco Neutard
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Marco Neutard with Neutard Consulting. Marco has a track record in consulting as well as line management (C-level). He spent five years at McKinsey (Engagement Manager) followed by roughly ten years at a boutique consulting firm raised by former McKinsey partners where he was also responsible for the whole recruiting process. He has been running his own consulting business focussing on strategy, organizational & operational performance and turnaround situations in 2017. Recently, he has also worked for a client as a C-level manager taking care of digitalization, strategy, IT, HR and controlling during two years.
Prior to McKinsey, he worked in product management and sales of Fast Moving Consumer Goods company Henkel. Marco has particular expertise in developing strategies and new business and improving operational performance (focus marketing & sales). He has lead major transformations in Online Retail business, Base Materials & Manufacturing and Real Estate & Service – in Germany, UK and NL. In many cases Marco has worked in a Private Equity (PE) context or directly for PE companies, and in addition to his analytical capabilities he has a strong “hands-on” & “getting-things-done” attitude.
He lives in the Rhine-Neckar-Area (Germany) close to Frankfurt with his (French) wife and two children, and he is quite familiar with English and French. Marco is happy to collaborate on projects involving strategy & digitalization, organizational & operational performance, marketing & sales, turnaround and PMO.
Welcoming New Member Sajeev Cherian
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Sajeev Cherian with Cherian & Company. Sajeev spent five years as a Principal / Director in the technology strategy practices at BCG and PwC and has been running his own consulting firm focused on strategy and design since 2022. In addition to his management consulting experience, Sajeev has been a scientist, technologist and executive at leading healthcare companies (AbbVie, Abbott Labs). Sajeev has particular experience designing winning digital strategies, aligning business and digital strategies for senior executives and rescuing struggling projects and has led major transformations in healthcare.
He lives in Chicago, Illinois with his wife and two children and enjoys spending time on two wheels (cycling / motorcycling). Sajeev is happy to collaborate on any projects globally, but particularly those involving digital / AI / data / technology strategy.
Welcoming New Member Julie Nelson
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Julie Nelson wih JBN Advisors. A veteran of BCG, McKinsey and PepsiCo, Julie Nelson has deep expertise building Operations strategies to enable growth via efficient, flexible capacity and labor models. She also has extensive experience building productivity plans that deliver competitive cost advantage while supporting strategic initiatives, including automation, digital transformation, and ESG priorities.
Combining ten years of consulting with ten years in leadership roles at PepsiCo spanning operations, sales and channel management, Julie brings a full value chain perspective to Operations strategy. She is equally effective in working with C-Suite executives and front-line teams, and is a hands-on, highly pragmatic team member.
Julie is excited to partner on Operations projects involving productivity and/or growth strategy.
Welcoming New Member Nabil Latif
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Nabil Latif. With over 12 years of advising global companies, Nabil has a demonstrated track record in planning and delivering large-scale, complex transformations averaging a value of over $100 million. His expertise lies in end-to-end digital and technology-driven business strategies, from current state analysis to business case formulation and implementation planning.
Nabil recently left a successful consulting career to return to study and complete his qualifications as a Psychologist, and is currently serving as an independent consultant/ contractor on a part-time basis whilst completing studies.
Welcoming New Member Mallika Adarkar
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Mallika Adarkar with MECE Matters. Mallika has 18+ years of consulting experience on growth strategy, operations, risk management and data analytics. Before launching her advisory business, she was at McKinsey & Company and PwC in their financial services practices. Her clients have included bulge bracket banks, asset managers and life insurance companies.
Mallika has an MBA from Columbia Business School, an MS in Information Systems from Drexel University and a BTech in Computer Science and Technology from SNDT University (India). Outside of her consulting interests, Mallika is developing a mobile app to assist families manage in-home care for their elderly relatives.
Mallika would be happy to assist in matters related to strategy, operations or risk management. She currently resides in New York with her family.
Welcoming New Member Maxim Kulchenko
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Maxim Kulchenko. Max began his career in consulting, specializing in digital transformations, technology, and operational efficiency for a decade. He then transitioned to a leadership role as a technology executive at a multinational telecommunications company with a market value of USD 9 billion, where he focused on driving business transformation and innovation through technology.
He lives with his family in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and is happy to collaborate on projects across Europe and in North America.
Welcoming New Member Anthony F Ramirez
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Anthony F Ramirez. Anthony spent two years as an Expert in the Growth practice at Boston Consulting Group Digital Ventures and has been running his own consulting firm focused on growth marketing and e-commerce. Anthony has extensive experience in running direct to consumer marketing operations across consumer, medtech, and health systems providers.
He is currently a MBA candidate at MIT Sloan and enjoys cooking, birdwatching, and hiking.
Welcoming New Member Lev Lesokhin
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Lev Lesokhin. Lev has served as an executive leader, strategist, CMO and product evangelist at multiple tech firms. His experience ranges from software development & QA, cybersecurity, NLP, and consumer finance to full stack marketing, product development, and supply chain optimization.
Lev serves on the boards of two software industry consortia and an AICPA workgroup. Prior to becoming a CMO, Lev was on the executive team as the head of technology and analytics for CAST, a leader in automating software intelligence. Prior roles included the launch team for SAP’s first SaaS product, building the first web-based CRM for a major telecom, and serving as a management consultant at McKinsey.
Welcoming New Member Jerome Bouaziz
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Jerome Bouaziz. Jerome has spent 10 years at Digital McKinsey working on all elements of IT modernization with a particular focus on Cloud Adoption. Prior to that, he was a software developer for 10 years. Jerome lives in the Chicago Northern suburbs with his wife and two young kids. His areas of expertise include Digital Transformation, Agile and Product Oriented Operating Model Adoption, Cloud Adoption, Cloud economics, and IT Procurement.
Jerome is happy to collaborate on IT transformation projects in North America.
Welcoming New Member Matthew Egol
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Matthew Egol with JourneySpark Consulting. A partner at PwC Strategy& for more than 15 years, Matt is a recognized thought leader in the experience management space. Since leaving PwC, he launched JourneySpark Consulting to help clients on their company journeys to be more customer-driven. Matt is also a subject matter expert with the Modern Marketing Association, helping them engage their membership to accelerate value from their investments in customer experience.
Matt has worked across a broad set of industries, from retail to consumer goods to healthcare to financial services to technology to industrials. Matt helps companies enhance their organizational effectiveness and build capabilities that fuse human-centered design with analytics, evolving their culture to be more customer-driven.
Welcoming New Member Hanna Mahlen
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Hanna Mahlen with HM Consultancy. HM Consultancy provides people-centric strategy and implementation to help clients meet and exceed their objectives. Its founder, Hanna Mählen, is an experienced and versatile consultant who delivers results for clients through a combination of strategic thinking, analytical skills, and hands-on execution, with expertise in strategy, transformation, marketing, innovation, and change management.
She has a strong track record of helping clients in various industries, including healthcare, finance and technology, navigate complex business challenges and deliver business results.
If you’re looking for a consultant who can help your business optimize and achieve its goals, bringing along your people at every step, contact Hanna.
Welcoming New Member Tyler Thornton
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Tyler Thornton with Tyler Thornton Consulting. Tyler is the Principal and Founder of Tyler Thornton Consulting, LLC. Tyler most recently served as the Chief Operating Officer for a 3,400-student charter school network in Cleveland, OH and has 15 years of experience working in K-12 strategy and operations. Having begun her career at Bain and the Bridgespan Group, Tyler combines her background in strategic consulting and project management with her non-profit senior leadership experience to provide non-profit and social services organizations with hands-on, collaborative support tackling key strategic or operational questions and implementing high-priority organizational initiatives.
She is also available to provide gap coverage for senior operational leadership or Chief of Staff leaves or transitional vacancies. Tyler lives in Cleveland, OH with her daughter.
Welcoming New Member Suren Pai
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Suren Pai with Pai Management Associates. Suren brings over twenty-five years of global experience to his consulting practice as a C-Suite executive, Board Director, and Management Consultant at Booz & Co. in the wireless, enterprise software (SaaS), tech-enabled consumer services, and healthcare industries. He brings CEO experience in public and private companies and is skilled at executing all stages of a company’s life cycle, inspiring and nurturing teams from startup to exit.
He is passionate about unlocking value through innovation by conceptualizing revenue models, de-risking early-stage ventures, commercializing new tech, striking high-growth partnerships, and exploiting a company’s core assets optimally. A bold and creative problem solver, he offers a steady hand in helping boards and management teams execute strategic transitions, performance improvement initiatives, and turnarounds, including taking on roles as an interim or fractional executive.
Suren maintains residences in the Greater Boston and New York Metro areas and is an avid road biker, squash player, and licensed private pilot. He is happy to collaborate on projects anywhere in the U.S.
Welcoming New Member Gunther Gerlach
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Gunther Gerlach with Gerlach Consulting. Gunther has over 25 years of experience in international top management consulting and C-level roles including growth strategies, transformation, restructuring, M&A, and internationalization.
He has a background in multinational operational leadership and management consultancy roles. Prior to his consulting practice, Gunther was CEO of Epple Druckfarben AG, a German printing ink manufacturer. Before he held several C-level management positions in Germany, Poland and Russia in the media, publishing and multi channel retail sector. He started his professional career with McKinsey & Co.
Gunther holds an MSc. in Industrial Engineering and Management (Dipl. Wi.-Ing) from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). He speaks English and German, and has basic knowledge in Czech, French, Hungarian, Polish, and Russian.
Gunther and his family live in Augsburg, Germany and he enjoys classical music, traveling, biking and swimming.
Welcoming New Member Bianca Bozzone
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Bianca Bozzone with Bozzone & Associates. Bianca spent a decade at a family office, developing and managing the strategy and portfolio contributing to inclusive and sustainable solutions and innovations across sectors. She has been managing her own consulting practice since 2019 and is passionate about partnering with clients to develop and deliver purpose-driven and shared-value strategies. She has held multiple leadership positions across the for-profit and non-profit sectors giving her unique insights into the complex ecosystem of business, government and social sectors. She has a depth of experience with innovative startups, having established and led an Enterprise Incubator focused on kickstarting township-based enterprises to increase access to pre-school education, kickstarted an early learning social franchise, and implemented a step up programme in a youth accelerator. Earlier experience includes consulting with McKinsey & Company in their Johannesburg office, and positions in the financial sector.
She lives in Johannesburg, South Africa with her husband and four young children. Bianca is happy to collaborate on global strategy projects and has a passion for Global South opportunities.
Welcoming New Member Bill Hauschen
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Bill Hauschen. Bill has 15+ years of marketing and strategy experience, with a focus on how to use data to drive better marketing decision-making and performance. Bill started his career with McKinsey & Company, where he left as an Engagement Manager. He worked with clients in numerous industries, with a particular focus on retail and marketing engagements. After McKinsey, Bill spent 2.5 years at Target Corporation where he led a Marketing Business Intelligence team and created and led a Lifecycle Marketing team focused on DTC performance marketing campaigns.
Most recently, Bill spent 6.5 years at Best Buy, in a variety of leadership roles. At Best Buy Bill led teams ranging in size from 2 to 25 and worked across the organization in Marketing, Strategy, E-commerce, Innovation and Data and Analytics roles, most recently as the Senior Director of Marketing Data and Analytics. Bill has also taught Strategy and Marketing Research courses for the MBA programs at Hamline University and the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.
Welcoming New Member Simon Pannatier
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Simon Pannatier. Simon has a track record in leading strategic projects and teams, and implementing business change transformation. As a Senior Strategy Consultant, he has delivered shareholder value for Fortune 500 in South-East Asia and Europe for over six years (BCG, independent consultant). Before BCG, Simon held managing positions at Roche, and PEG Africa (renewable energy scale up) where he spearheaded commercial operations in West Africa and Switzerland. He started his career at Procter & Gamble in marketing and corporate finance.
Simon is happy to collaborate on projects focused on strategy design and implementation in the Healthcare / Life Science, Energy, Public Sector, and Consumer Goods industry.
Simon splits his time between Zurich and Milan. As well as Continental Europe, he is prepared to work anywhere in the UK, Middle East, or the US East Coast, onsite or remote.
Welcoming New Member Thanh C Nguyen
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Thanh C Nguyen. Thanh was with BCG on topic of Greenfield strategy/ digital innovation and raised $30M series A serving as CoS of the $200M Fintech, and has been running independent practice on digital venture. He has a passion for launching tech businesses, successfully launched 2 start-ups since 2017. Prior to BCG, he worked as venture builder in a boutique VC.
Of his 10 year experience, he has a keen interest in developing and launching digital strategy, and has led major engagement for $B conglomerate. Thanh is happy to collaborate in strategy, digital venture, and project management.
Welcoming New Member Anthony Hopp
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Anthony Hopp with AnthonyDykeHopp. A summary of Anthony’s experience follows.
“I’ve been a serial business builder and a strategy consultant since 1988. My fields of experience span from technology disciplines like circuit board design/manufacturing, medical imaging, shared computing and robotics; to business disciplines like business building, franchising, product development, marketing and enterprise project management.
As a business builder, I have founded eleven companies in industries as varied as: remote sensing, healthcare networks, medical imaging, bank technology, cloud services, internet access(both wired and wireless), datacenter services, communications and logistics.
As strategy consultant with McKinsey & Co., I’ve acted as lead business builder on seven engagements; client industries ranged from telecommunications to aerospace to food services.
I have developed a well-regarded knack for business building, which I’ve used repeatedly in different enterprises and across a variety of industries.”
Welcoming New Member Michael D Bass
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Michael D Bass. A summary of Michaels’s experience follows.
“I am a seasoned healthcare executive with a 20-year history of ever-increasing roles of responsibility in operations and strategy at both the facility (CEO and COO) and regional, multi-site and state level. I have served as a healthcare consultant with McKinsey & Company (focused on operational improvement), a Regional Vice President for USPI, Divisional Vice President for DaVita Healthcare, and have previously worked for HCA, Cirrus Health, and Kindred Healthcare.
In addition to keen operational skills, I have a history of developing strong employee and physician relations as well as a passion for quality patient care.”
Welcoming New Member Joe Griffith
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Joe Griffith with Atalaya Insights.
Joe is a senior consultant with over 15 years of consulting experience. As a trusted advisor to senior leaders across the tech, retail, consumer goods, and industrials sectors, he has consistently delivered insightful strategic guidance and actionable plans.
Prior to working independently, Joe was a Case Team Leader with Bain & Company where he led multiple strategy and transformation projects for a diverse portfolio of clients while based in San Francisco, CA and Dubai, UAE.
Welcoming New Member Béa Beste
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Béa Beste with Headhackers.
Béa Beste has more than 25 years of experience in all areas of branding and customer insight thanks to 15 years of entrepreneurship, 6 years of strategy consulting, 4 years of TV and 4 years of agency experience. She founded digital start-ups (Tollabox, Tollabea) and a chain of bilingual schools in Germany (Phorms Education) of which she was CEO until 2011, recruiting and managing 360 employees from Germany and abroad. 2000 – 2006 she was a brand expert at BCG and 1996 – 2000 she worked at SAT.1 as a Product Manager.
Béa offers motivation-based strategic brand/innovation consulting, mentoring and coaching in all areas: customer, employer and corporate. She is an expert in a set of tools for very deep insight qualitative market research and co-creation processes. In addition, she coaches people at the intersection of professional and private life, especially when parenting and children education issues are an impediment to growth and wellbeing.
Béa speaks and writes fluently English, German, French and Romanian plus Spanish (bastante bien!).
Welcoming New Member Pierre Frot
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Pierre Frot as Independant Consultant.
Pierre has a particular expertise and helping companies and their leaders to transform. He has a strong track records in managing international change management projects (incl. Post-Merger-Integrations), and he is a sought-after executive and executive team coach. In the last years, he was involved in numerous projects aiming at implementing agile organisations.
Pierre spent 5 years with the Boston Consulting group and 6 years with CSC Index where he leaded the German subsidiary with more than 40 consultants.
Beside his engineering studies in computer sciences and his MBA from INSEAD, Pierre has studied psychology and is a certified coach, systemic coach and business mediator.
He is fluent in English, German and French.
Pierre is based in Munich, Germany and is happy to collaborate on local or international transformation projects.
Welcoming New Member Michael Krone
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Michael Krone.
Michael Krone has 7 years of experience in tech strategy & operations. During his 5 years with BCG, Michael was a core member of DigitalBCG (now BCG X) where he specialized in product go-to-market and digital transformation casework across industries. After BCG, Michael spent the past 2 years working in startups. As a founder, Michael led the design, development, and launch of a social media platform for college & pro athletes and as a COO Michael led the build out of a net new manufacturing facility in the US.
Prior to this work, Michael worked for Boeing as a mechanical engineer. He lives in Austin, TX and is happy to collaborate on strategy projects across the US.
Welcoming New Member Marissa Pittard
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Marissa Pittard.
Marissa spent 3 years at McKinsey focused on strategy, growth, and operations. She also spent a year focused on US health system innovation, with expertise in drug pricing, behavioral health, and social determinants. She has since been a successful 2X founder and now operates as an independent consultant.
She earned a BS in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering from Georgia Tech and an MBA from Stanford University. She lives in San Francisco, where she plays in a band and teachers yoga.
Welcoming New Member Olaoluwa Adeola
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Olaoluwa Adeola with Leke Services.
Laolu is an experienced strategy consultant with 10+ years in automotive and mobility industry. Thrives in fast paced environments, relying on data-driven insights to solve complex problems with a customer focus. Proven record in strategic planning and driving growth. Effective communicator and collaborator with strong client relationships.
Prior to joining McKinsey, Laolu spent about 10 years in automotive industry roles (e.g. product development engineer at Navistar, strategy roles at Faraday Future). Laolu holds bachelor of science degrees in both mechanical and aerospace engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology, and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Welcoming New Member Jill Markle Hidaji
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Jill Markle Hidaji with Jill Hidaji.
Jill is an HR Advisor and Organizational Coach with 15+ years experience. She enjoys working with Clients to evolve their HR functionality & systems. In addition to her years of leading HR practices as SVP at Regions Financial, HR Director at Juice Plus+ and as a fractional consultant at Clermont Partners most recently, she is also an executive coach who specializes in systemic and neuro-science based solutions for organizations, teams and individuals.
She speaks on a variety of topics including conversational intelligence, workplace differences appreciation and talent retention. Her industry experience includes government contracting (US DoD, non-profits, financial services, business services, hospitality, natural foods manufacturing and direct sales) Jill has been active member and board member in the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) as the local, state and national levels since 2002.
Jill loves living in the Blue Ridge Mountains with her husband, three horses & 4 dogs at their eco-retreat center (www.aramesh.co) near Asheville NC.
Welcoming New Member Chris Bosworth
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Chris Bosworth with Bosworth Aviation Consultancy.
Accomplished aviation specialist with a unique blend of experience having worked in both corporate and consultancy environments. A natural communicator who is adept at working across complex organisations of any size. An able strategist who challenges to drive clients and organisations to achieve their maximum potential. A proven programme leader who has led multiple projects where stakeholders often have complex and differing needs. Highly motivated, passionate, and inspiring with a proven record of success across global organisations, an internationally recognised Subject Matter Expert and thought leader. Trusted advisor to Governments and regulators.
Welcoming New Member Iain Paine
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Iain Paine with Silver Ridge Advisors.
Iain is a senior operations, technology and program management leader with more than 20 years of experience in business transformation. He specializes in helping companies optimize their end-to-end business flows and operational processes to improve performance and scalability. Iain has worked with companies of all sizes, from smaller startups to large global enterprises, collaborating across business functions to develop integrated operating plans with aligned interests. Iain is a Managing Director at Silver Ridge Advisors and a Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Company, retained for deep subject matter expertise in business operations and transformation.
Previously, he was COO and Trading Operations Lead at the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, where he was responsible for trading operations and establishing a back office product development capability. Earlier, he was at Royal Bank of Scotland (formerly Greenwich Capital Markets), where he was most recently Managing Director and Head of Change Management for the Global Banking and Markets division in North America. In this capacity he managed a $75 million annual change agenda, including a 250-person PMO function across multiple locations.
Prior to RBS, he worked at JPMorganChase with the interest rates swaps middle office. Iain started his career as an Electronic Engineer, working for Racal Electronics in the UK designing hardware and software for military communications.
Iain has a Master’s of Engineering (MEng) and a Bachelor’s of Engineering (BEng) Class 1 with Honors from the University of Warwick, United Kingdom.
Welcoming New Member Yoshiomi Kubota
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Yoshiomi Kubota as Independent Consultant.
Managing a management consulting company for large corporations in Japan.
Also developing and providing AI services.
Previously, worked for global top strategy consulting firms (McKinsey and Roland Berger) and one of the top venture capital firms in Japan (Global Brain).
Started career in IT industry (Hitachi).
Spike in: management x technology, new business development, project management, team capability building
Welcoming New Member Tim McManus
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Tim McManus with TCMcManus Consulting.
Tim is a global expert regarding the development and delivery of major capital projects and programs and is an advisor to companies and governments involved with the planning, development and delivery of major infrastructure, transportation, urban development, resiliency and sports facilities capital projects and programs. He has been a Vice President at McKinsey & Company and was appointed to the faculty of Columbia University’s School of Engineering as an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and serves as the Industry Advisor for the Global Leaders in Construction Management Program at Columbia University (glcm.info) and is a Lecturer at Northeastern University’s Graduate School of Engineering. Tim has also lectured at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Business and the Graduate School of Design, and at MIT University.
Tim is a member of the Americas Board of Directors for Turner & Townsend, a UK based project management company, sits on the Critical Infrastructure Advisory Board for Parsons Corp. and serves as the Chair of the Board of Advisors and Member of the Board of Directors for the Smart City Works Venture Studio.
Welcoming New Member Sean Maurer
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Sean Maurer with Maurer Consulting. Sean started his career as a market research consultant with ACNielsen BASES doing new product research for companies like P&G, GP, and GlaxoSmithKline. After business school at Duke, he worked for BCG in the Atlanta and London offices with clients such as IP, Boeing, B&Q and Kroger.
Following BCG he held a progression of director and VP roles in corporate strategy, marketing and merchandising for Tyson Food’s, Hershey’s and Ahold Delhaize (Giant, Stop n Shop). Since 2016 he has worked as an independent consultant. Projects have spanned PE due diligence, customer journey mapping, new product strategy, and market research. Clients have included Tyson Foods, YUM brands, Live Nation, and Pentair as well as PE and construction companies.
Currently based in Barcelona, he consults on 1-2 projects per year, usually in the winter months.
Welcoming New Member Doug Tracy
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Doug Tracy with XformDigital. Doug spent multiple years as a Strategic IT Consultant at BCG, Accenture, and PwC, in addition, he as been a CIO reporting to the CEO at two global Fortune 500 companies. Doug also spent several years with full P&L responsibility as a Chief Operating Officer at Milestone Technologies.
He holds an MS in Software Development and Management from RIT, an MBA with Honors from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, and was an Honors graduate of the US Naval Academy earning a BS in Electrical Engineering. He is available for projects globally.
Welcoming New Member Nicolas Montoya
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Nicolas E Montoya with Loring Park Consulting.
A summary of Nicolas’ experience follows.
“After earning his MBA from Kellogg, Nico Montoya spent three years at BCG, working primarily in the Consumer practice area. His projects ranged from strategy (portfolio strategy, growth strategy, M&A strategy) to transformation (org transformation, process transformation.) Prior to that, he worked in brand management at General Mills.
He lives in NE Minneapolis with his wife and two elementary school age children. Nico is happy to partner on projects involving consumer insights, growth strategy, and growth-oriented business transformation.”
Welcoming New Member Marius Möhler
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Marius Möhler as Independent Consultant. Marius loves combining his practical experience in facilitating organizational development projects with his evidence-based knowledge from his academic background to promote lasting change for clients in the private and social sector.
His expertise lies in co-creatively designing large-scale transformations – and facilitating their sustainable implementation with a focus on leadership development, culture change and top team coaching. In previous roles, he worked as engagement manager at LEAD Mindsets & Capabilities (a consultancy specialized on cultural change and leadership) and as consultant at McKinsey & Company. He holds degrees in Economics, Psychology as well as Public Administration. As a former McCloy Fellow at Harvard’s interdisciplinary Kennedy School, he further broadened and deepened his set of tools and approaches – including behavioral insights, human-centered design, and Adaptive Leadership.
Welcoming New Member Daiwei Zheng
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Daiwei Zheng as Independent Consultant. Are you looking for an experienced problem solver who is not only strong in developing concept but also strong when it comes to implementation? Daiwei has practiced the consulting toolkit since 2012 and has worked for top strategy firms such as Strategy& and Bain & Company. His industry focus was in the Chemicals and Life Science industry.
Since 2020, he has been a passionate independent consultant and entrepreneur. Daiwei combines a structured approach with an entrepreneurial mindset and spirit.
Welcoming New Member Alexander Zumdieck
Umbrex is pleased to welcome Alexander Zumdieck. Alexander is an experienced technology consultant who helps clients to deliver business impact in the financial services and e-commerce industries. Prior to setting up his own consulting practice he was the Managing Director of the Metroaccelerator (startup innovation unit for Metro AG) and the VP Pricing for Zalando, an European e-commerce company.
A physicist by training he started his consulting career spending 5 years as an engagement manager in McKinsey’s Business Technology Office. Alexander is happy to collaborate on projects that need bridge building to enable an organisation to take full advantage of technology.
