The Consulting Report is pleased to announce the Top 25 Consumer and Retail Consultants and Leaders of 2024. In recent years, the consumer and retail sector has undergone significant growth and evolution, propelled by shifts in consumer behavior, such as the increasing preference for online shopping and personalized experiences, and technological advancements, including the adoption of artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and mobile commerce solutions. Amid rising inflation and supply chain disruptions, these consultants have learned how to navigate through these challenges to reorient businesses and meet consumer demands. This year's awardees possess diverse expertise and capabilities including advising on strategy, digital transformation, market expansion, operational optimization, and more. From seasoned senior partners to innovative specialists, these professionals collectively offer a wealth of knowledge and experience to their clients.
Among this year's awardees, we have Rachel Rosenblatt, Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting, who is renowned for her strategic communications expertise and has provided counsel to some of the industry's most recognizable companies, guiding them through moments of crisis and change while shaping their reputations. Additionally we have Daniel Zipser, Senior Partner at McKinsey and Company, who leads consumer and retail efforts in Asia with a focus on fostering growth opportunities in China and facilitating global expansion strategies. Lastly, Tiffany Brown, Managing Director at Alvarez and Marsal, has led groundbreaking initiatives in corporate performance improvement, pioneering digital finance technologies and achieving notable success in financial strategy and enterprise data management.
The individuals recognized in this year's lineup hail from diverse backgrounds, boasting extensive experience working with a broad spectrum of consumer companies spanning beauty, apparel, fashion, luxury, food and beverages, automotive, and other verticals. Please join us in celebrating the achievements of The Top 25 Consumer and Retail Consultants and Leaders of 2024.
1. Charles-Etienne Bost
Firm: Kearney
Title: Partner
Charles-Etienne Bost is a Partner, Head Consumer Goods, Retail and Luxury Business Europe at Kearney, an American global management consulting firm with offices in more than 40 countries worldwide. Under his management, Kearney has tripled their activity in Consumer Goods and Retail for Kearney Europe and has become the first Kearney practice in Europe.
Before joining Kearney, Bost was a chief financial officer (CFO), global supply at Coty and a business analyst to partner at A.T. Kearney. He started his career in 2003 as an audit junior at Ernst and Young. Boat earned his master’s degree in finance from Université Paris Nanterre and his master of science from Ecole des Ponts ParisTech.
2. Daniel Zipser
Firm: McKinsey and Company
Title: Senior Partner
Daniel leads McKinsey's consumer and retail efforts in Asia. He works with local leaders to enhance business performance by fostering growth opportunities in China and delivering global expansion. He also works with various consumer companies across the globe to improve their performance in China and throughout Asia.
He began his McKinsey career in the Frankfurt Office in 2001 and transferred to the Shanghai office in 2007. He led the sales and marketing practice in Greater China between 2010 and 2015 before assuming leadership of the firm’s consumer and retail work in Greater China and across Asia in 2020. Daniel works with a broad set of consumer companies spanning beauty, apparel, fashion and luxury, food and beverages, and automotive. His primary focus is sales and marketing, however his client work also spans topics including digital, organization and operating-model design, and operations. Zipser graduated from WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management with a PhD in finance and master’s degree in economics and business administration.
3. Rob Holston
Firm: EY
Title: Global Client Service Partner & Americas Consumer Sector Leader
Rob Holston is a seasoned global leader who helps solve consumer clients’ most pressing challenges. With more than 30 years of experience, Rob has held a variety of leadership roles at EY including leading some of EY’s most strategic Consumer and Retail Client teams.
He has previously been EY’s Global Consumer Industry Consulting Leader. He frequently advises Fortune 200 companies and pioneering startups on leveraging data to transform their business and define new markets. Before joining EY, Rob held executive roles at leading professional services firms and in the consumer industry. He has been a board member of Marketing Sciences Institute, is a founding Advisory Board Member of Columbia University’s Center for Pricing and Revenue Management and has recently concluded his term on the Presidential Advisory Board for Drexel University.
4. Rachel Rosenblatt
Firm: FTI Consulting
Title: Senior Managing Director, Strategic Communications, Head of Americas Retail and Consumer Products Practice
Rachel Rosenblatt is a senior managing director in the Strategic Communications segment of FTI Consulting and is the Americas head of our retail and consumer sector. Ms. Rosenblatt provides strategic communications counsel, media relations, media training, presentation coaching, crisis management, corporate communications and public relations expertise to her clients.
She works with some of the most recognizable companies in the retail and consumer space to tell their stories more effectively and to build and execute integrated communications programs that help achieve business goals. She works with companies through all phases, from IPOs to building and molding reputation, moments of crisis or change, and bankruptcies or restructurings. Ms. Rosenblatt is also a founding member of the firm’s communications training team, coaching top executives from multinational companies for media interviews, investor and analyst meetings, IPOs and major presentations.
Prior to joining FTI Consulting in 2005, Ms. Rosenblatt was a Director at Westhill Partners, a boutique consulting firm specializing in communications strategy. Ms. Rosenblatt is a member of the Belizean Grove, a global group of female leaders, and is an active member of the Lenox Hill Hospital Auxiliary. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.
5. Rhiannon Thomas
Firm: Kearney
Title: Partner and Global Lead, Consumer and Retail
Rhiannon Thomas is a Partner and Global Lead, Consumer and Retail at Kearney. She has more than 15 years of experience advising multinational consumer goods companies on top-line growth including leveraging digital and data, new business models (D2C, platforms) and e-commerce. As a global management consulting firm, Kearney has been a trusted advisor to C-suites, government bodies, and nonprofit organizations for nearly 100 years.
Rhiannon helps her clients grow and improve their productivity while simultaneously becoming more sustainable, subsequently transforming consumer goods companies and retailers into regenerative businesses. Recently, Rhiannon led a team on an end-to-end transformation for a consumer goods producer. Before joining Kearney, Thomas was a consultant to project manager at Mars and Co. and a consultant at Interbrand. She holds degrees from the University of Warwick and the University of Cambridge.
6. Debashish Mukherjee
Firm: Kearney
Title: Partner, Middle East and Africa Lead, Consumer and Retail
Debashish is a Kearney Original, having been with the firm for nearly 24 years. He is the regional leader for Consumer, Retail and Agri for Kearney in the Middle East and Africa region. He has developed practices and teams across countries and is tasked with growing the Consumer and Retail practice and adjacencies in the Region. He also provides supervisory support to accelerate growth in smaller markets such as Turkey. In the past, he has served clients across Asia.
Debashish’s impact is reflected in his ability to convince his Client Boards and decision makers about the urgency and need to implement change, which matches well with Kearney’s DNA of driving tangible impact. His unique blend of experience in emerging as well as developed markets helps him address the complex growth, profitability and capability tradeoffs in the ME and A Region.
He and the team lead transformation across a well-balanced portfolio of clients across consumer, retail and agriculture, which also includes government entities, driving the theme of “What’s Next” for key areas such as food and merchandise security, strengthening the P&L as well as developing new capabilities.
7. Siddharth Pathak
Firm: Kearney
Title: Senior Partner and Asia Pacific Lead, Consumer and Retail Practice
Siddharth Pathak currently serves as a Senior Partner and Leader of the Asia Pacific Consumer and Retail Practice at Kearney, and is based out of the firm’s Singapore office.
In his 15 year career in management consulting, Siddharth has served some of the world’s largest consumer goods companies as well as local conglomerates operating across the Southeast Asia, Greater China, India, Australia and Japan markets in the FMCG, retail, food services and distribution space.
He has worked with Boards, CEOs and management teams to navigate opportunities and challenges of the complex Asian markets. This includes formulating growth strategies, developing design and blueprints to start execution, and working with organizations to deliver impact through talent, process and technology interventions.
In recent years, he has partnered with his clients on growth strategies, digital, analytics and data transformations, mergers and acquisitions, route to market transformations, cost and cash excellence, S&OP transformations, supply chain resilience, operating model transformations and sustainability roadmaps.
Siddharth joined Kearney Singapore as a summer intern in 2008. He holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore and a B. Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.
He has partnered with various industry associations including National Retail Federation, Consumer Goods Forum and Tax Free World Association and is frequently quoted in the press on consumer and retail topics.
8. Frank Petraglia
Firm: KPMG
Title: Partner
Frank Petraglia is a Partner at KPMG. He leads a Deal Advisory and Strategy team at KPMG that is focused on serving clients within the dynamic Consumer and Retail Sector. KPMG is a global organization of independent professional services firms providing audit, tax and advisory services operating in 143 countries and territories. The organization has more than 273,000 people working in member firms around the world.
His technical expertise is focused on transaction support, which he developed during almost 30 years of Big 4 experience. While he brings a specific focus on carve-out divestitures, his experience spans buy-side and sell-side, private equity and corporate, with transaction values ranging from $50 million to $20 billion. Previously, Petraglia was an executive director of transaction advisory services. He graduated from University at Albany with an undergraduate degree in accounting.
9. Fulvio Manente
Firm: Softtek
Title: Global Solutions VP for Retail
Fulvio Manente currently serves as Global Solutions Vice President for Retail for Softtek, a global leader in next-generation digital solutions. Softtek was the first company to introduce the Nearshore model, and it currently helps Global 2000 organizations build their digital capabilities constantly and seamlessly, from ideation and development to execution and evolution. Its entrepreneurial drive spans 20+ countries and more than 15,000 talented professionals.
Prior to Softtek, Fulvio served as CIO and Head of Innovation and Market Intelligence for Estapar(Mobility Company in Brazil), spent several years leading Walmart International Teams, had other leadership positions at Sprint and IBM. With his latest master’s degree in artificial intelligence and machine learning from the University of Texas at Austin, and a master’s degree in finance and financial management he is focused on empowering companies to extract the best of AI and Gen/AI applying the available technology to real use cases that translate into financial and operational benefits.
Fulvio is an experienced IT professional who has worked for more than 25 years for large companies in Brazil, Mexico, and the U.S. He has solid expertise on strategic planning, innovation road-maps, and national and multinational project and program management, and deep knowledge on mobile development platforms, the best use of cloud services, machine learning and complex data models implementation and e-commerce launching and transformation.
10. Zeynep Noelle Koller
Firm: KPMG
Title: Partner
Zeynep Koller is a Partner in Deal Advisory & Strategy based in Boston. She is responsible for the consumer products industry portfolio and leads the pet care strategy practice serving private equity, publicly and privately held companies.
Koller helps her clients respond to market pressures, balancing organic and inorganic revenue growth choices expanding critical capabilities, channels, segments and new business models. She progresses the application of advanced-analytics led approaches to bring a more scientific lens to amplify value from integrated revenue growth management capabilities.
With 25+ years consulting experience, Koller has partnered with most iconic consumer companies in food, beverages, personal care and pet care subsectors. Koller serves as a board member and advises pet care and pet tech start-up companies to scale and create ecosystem partnerships.
Koller started her career in her home country Germany and worked with Deloitte and Accenture across 20+ countries before transitioning to the US. After her role as engagement manager at Booz & Company, she had a long tenure with Accenture exclusively serving consumer products companies and had a fast path to partner. At Grant Thornton and Porsche Consulting she focused on building new practices and expanding the U.S. business portfolio respectively.
She continues her education at Harvard Business School, Northwestern and MIT in platform economies, disruptive growth interventions and analytics-powered strategies. Koller earned her MBA and BS from The University of Tampa John H. Sykes Business School.
11. Mante Kvedare
Firm: Implement Consulting Group
Title: Partner
Mante Kvedare is a Partner and Global FMCG and Retail Industry Lead at Implement Consulting Group, where he coordinates with more than 100 FMCG and retail experts to support clients across the entire value chain. Implement Consulting Group is a consulting firm that operates in the business services industry. The firm offers a range of services including strategy development, operations management, sustainability planning, digital transformation, financial consulting, leadership training, and communication strategies.
Before joining ICP, Kvedare was a country manager at Orkla Confectionery and Snacks Latvija. She graduated from The London School of Economics and Political Science with an MBA and from BI Norwegian Business School with a master's degree in strategic marketing management. She earned her undergraduate degree from Rīgas Ekonomikas augstskola - Stockholm School of Economics in Riga.
12. Lisa Pryor
Firm: Kaiser Associates
Title: Partner
Lisa Pryor is the global lead for the Consumer & Retail practice at Kaiser Associates, a boutique strategy consulting firm specializing in insights-driven growth and performance improvement.
Kaiser uniquely combines capabilities that normally require multiple firms: (1) we acquire and synthesize hard-to-reach/uncharted intelligence; (2) we devise actionable strategies informed by deep sector knowledge. This pairing brings discerning clients a powerful edge in highly competitive environments.
With over 33 years of consulting experience, Pryor is a trusted strategy advisor and thought partner to the most admired Consumer & Retail companies and Consumer PE investors worldwide. She also advises early-stage consumer brands/portfolio companies.
Pryor has deep Consumer & Retail sector expertise, a robust industry network, and a passion for brands. Her areas of expertise are whitespace growth and market entry, G2M strategy and capability building, and commercial due diligence. She and her team have a track record of generating unique insights that unlock growth for our clients and create competitive advantage.
Pryor joined Kaiser in 1990 and achieved an accelerated path from Associate Consultant to Partner. Over her long tenure at Kaiser, Pryor founded and led the firm’s European business, and served as the firm’s Global Managing Partner for multiple terms. She earned her MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and BA from Georgetown University.
13. Natalie Kotlyar
Firm: BDO USA
Title: National Managing Partner
Natalie Kotlyar has been with BDO, a global assurance, tax and advisory firm serving more than 400 publicly traded domestic and international clients, for more than 25 years. She specializes in providing assurance services including audits of financial statements and internal controls, business advisory consulting and other attestation services for both public and private companies.
14. Isaac Krakovsky
Firm: EY
Title: Partner
As an EY Partner, Isaac Krakovsky leads the firm’s Americas Retail practice. He has advised and delivered on technology and business transformations, digital strategy initiatives, M&A due diligence and post-deal integration programs.
15. Erin Devine
Firm: PwC
Title: Partner
Erin Devine is a Partner in PwC’s Consumer Markets Trust practice in Boston, Massachusetts. She has served multinational clients in the consumer markets and industrial products and manufacturing industries. Devine has worked with SEC registrants on integrated audits as well as privately-held companies, with clients located in various locations across the globe.
16. Anthony Waelter
Firm: Deloitte
Title: U.S. Consumer Industry Leader
Anthony Waelter is a Vice Chair and U.S. Consumer Industry Leader for Deloitte. He leads the overall strategic direction for the firm’s consumer industry practice, including audit, consulting, tax, and advisory services. With nearly 30 years of experience, he has provided financial, operational, and information systems advisory and assurance services to U.S. and global clients in the consumer products, manufacturing, chemicals, retail and distribution, and transportation, hospitality and services sectors.
Waelter collaborates with colleagues, clients, and alliance relationships to gain insights into consumer industry trends and the evolving values and needs of the consumer. Prior to his Consumer Industry role, Waelter led Deloitte’s Controllership Services practice and continues to serve as a member of its U.S. Finance Transformation leadership team. Waelter has a bachelor’s degree in finance and accounting from the University of South Florida.
17. Jim Doucette
Firm: EY-Parthenon
Title: Principal and Global Leader of Consumer and Retail Sector Practice
Jim Doucette is a Principal in EY-Parthenon and is the Global Leader of the Consumer Products and Retail practice. He also co-leads the Sustainability Practice for EY’s Global Consumer Products and Retail sector. Jim has held a variety of leadership positions in the management consulting and consumer products industries in a career spanning more than 30 years, with a particular focus on growth strategies and enterprise transformations.
Jim has served as a consultant in the consumer packaged goods, food service, hospitality, industrial products, office products, private equity, retail, technology and transportation industries. His expertise includes corporate and growth strategy development, organization design, process design, and in-market implementation. He has led a number of large, complex transformation initiatives and has in-depth knowledge of marketing, innovation and sales strategies.
Jim is a member of Cornell University’s Johnson School Dean’s Advisory Council and a member of Clemson University’s FRESH Advisory Board (sustainability-focused partnership between business and academia). Prior to EY, Jim was a Partner in McKinsey’s Consumer practice and began his career at Procter and Gamble in Brand and Finance Management positions. Jim has an MBA from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management and a bachelor’s degree in management from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
18. Stephen Caine
Firm: Bain and Company
Title: Senior Partner
Steve Caine is a Senior Partner and head of Bain and Company's Chicago office. He is an expert in Bain's retail and customer strategy practices and has more than 20 years of management consulting experience with Bain.
19. Morgan Seybert
Firm: Tredence
Title: Chief Business Officer and EVP of Retail
Morgan Seybert has served as a trusted advisor on data and analytics to over 65% of the Fortune 500 FMCG Retailers and Manufacturers. In his current role as the EVP of Retail and Chief Business Officer at Tredence, he is working with eight of the top 10 retailers and CPGs in the world to set their data and AI strategies. Under his leadership, Tredence's retail vertical has grown four times in the last three years to become the industry’s preferred, specialized data modernization and AI consulting partner with nearly 1000 consultants. He leads the Retail P&L and oversees growth initiatives across Tredence verticals, including GenAI, data and AI modernization, and cloud transformations.
Prior to Tredence, Morgan served as the managing director and chief product officer at Nielsen, where he was responsible for setting the company product direction and leading a global team of data scientists in delivering advanced analytics to Nielsen clients. At Coca-Cola, Morgan led the trade strategy and category management team to improve Coca-Cola’s trade promotion ROI and retailer partnerships.
20. Anup Prasad
Firm: Cognizant
Title: Senior Vice President, Consumer Business Unit Head
Anup Prasad has served as Senior Vice President and Business Unit Head of Consumer Business at Cognizant since March 2023. Prasad’s keen insight and dedication at Cognizant have allowed him to rise up through the ranks of the company’s Dallas office, heading its retail and consumer goods teams for the south central U.S. and central U.S. before assuming his current position. He thrives at the confluence of technology and industry expertise and is known for his client centricity and building high-performance teams. He has brought to life numerous strategic and operational advances to cope with the post-COVID world, publishing his insights on that subject on Cognizant’s website and beyond.
Before beginning his exemplary 22-year career at Cognizant in 2001, Prasad worked as a consultant at IBM, and was a manufacturing associate at Arvind Mills. He earned a bachelor’s degree in technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, an MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur, and pursued further training in Reimagining Strategy With Design Thinking from Harvard Business School.
21. Chad Lusk
Firm: Alvarez and Marsal
Title: Partner
Chad Lusk is a Managing Director with Alvarez and Marsal Consumer and Retail Group in Chicago. He specializes in large-scale organizational and commercial transformations across retail and consumer goods, with a focus on growth strategy, marketing, new product development, business model innovation and customer experience redesign.
22. Lori Zumwinkle
Firm: Accenture
Title: Senior Managing Director
As Senior Managing Director and Accenture’s North America Retail Practice Lead, Lori Zumwinkle leads digital transformations in retail with a focus on retail channel operations, merchandising and marketing capabilities, organizational transformations, customer and employee experiences, delivery and value creation.
23. Chris Daniel
Firm: Protiviti
Title: Managing Director
Chris Daniel is a Managing Director in Protiviti’s Technology Consulting practice. He works in the Retail and Consumer industry, which includes consumer products, retail, and hospitality. Daniel is a leader in Protiviti’s Google practice and cloud practice, responsible for Protiviti's cloud go-to-market and the achievement of cloud based revenue.
24. Shivani Majewski
Firm: Slalom
Title: Managing Director
Shivani Majewski is a Managing Director at Slalom, where she leads Slalom's Salesforce Retail and CG team and the Salesforce Emerging Capability teams, which includes five net new practices such as Slack, Experience Cloud, Contact Center Transformation, Net Zero and Communication Clouds.
25. Tiffany Brown
Firm: Alvarez and Marsal
Title: Managing Director
Tiffany Brown is a Managing Director with Alvarez and Marsal Corporate Performance Improvement (CPI) in Atlanta. She is the North America Solution Leader for CPI’s CFO Services practice, where she partners with Fortune 1000 companies.
