Operations
Related Consultants
Balika Sonthalia is a senior partner and Americas leader of Kearney’s Strategic Operations Practice. She is a C-suite advisor on the end-to-end supply chain transformation agenda within the consumer goods and retail industry and has expertise in logistics and distribution for all major sectors that make and distribute products.
As the strategic operations practice leader, Sonthalia is responsible for the performance of the firm’s largest practice in the Americas which includes overseeing the practice growth and profitability, product innovation, and managing a team of approximately 150 consultants and 25 partners. Prior to her current practice leader role, Sonthalia has held other leadership positions in the firm including serving on the Americas leadership team and leading the Americas Deliver Tower in the strategic operations practice. Balika holds an engineering degree from SNDT Women’s University in Mumbai and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business.
Bernardo Miranda holds the position of senior partner and managing director at Falconi's U.S. office in Chicago, where his role includes key involvement in the company's strategic planning and execution. Since joining Falconi, a leading Latin American management consulting firm, Miranda has dedicated over 16 years to supporting CEOs and SVPs across North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Miranda's contributions and leadership led to his rapid advancement within Falconi. In 2018, he was promoted to partner, in 2020 to head of US operations, and by 2022, to senior partner and managing director of the Chicago office. Under his guidance, the U.S. branch has seen significant growth in revenue, customer base, and the number of consultants.
Miranda started his career at the American Chamber of Commerce in Brazil, where he managed committees related to business development, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions for two years before joining Falconi. He holds a degree in business from Ibmec Business School, certifications in finance from Chicago Booth and mergers and acquisitions from NYU Stern, and an MBA from IESE Business School.
Melissa Zamora is the Vice President of Corporate Support Accounting at DATAMARK, where she focuses on strategic initiatives, operational excellence, and process improvements. Zamora collaborates closely with senior leadership to develop precise roadmap functions such as accounting and finance, enterprise risk management, client services, and business process management. In this role, Zamora also oversees a diverse portfolio of responsibilities, ranging from optimizing performance management processes to managing the pay and benefits portfolio.
As a seasoned leader, she has successfully led multimillion-dollar initiatives, including custom software designs, ERP implementations, and process reengineering projects. Zamora’s prior roles include accounts payable manager at AFGlobal Corporation, and multiple roles at U.S. Legal Support including vice president of corporate operations, senior vice president of operations, and senior vice president of business process management.
Cat Brownlie is one of the Partners at Argon & Co, a Global operations Strategy and Transformation firm with over 600 consultants. Brownlie leads the Strategy and Transformation practice in the UK and is a collaborative and commercially minder leader, recognised for operationalising strategies and achieving tangible results in dynamic environments. She is also an innovative entrepreneur, and she has been the driving force behind launching Connect, Argon & Co’s Strategy and Transformation community. Connect brings together senior leaders from across industries to share ideas and build meaningful connections. Since launching Connect in August 2022, over 250 members have joined in the UK, and the initiative has been taken up globally within Argon & Co.
Prior to joining Argon & Co, Brownlie was Chief Programme Officer at bp pulse, which was the EV charging subsidiary of bp. Brownlie designed and implemented the PMO function within pulse to support with the integration, as well as the significant innovation across digital and hardware products. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Brownlie worked at Healthtech startup Babylon Health, and was responsible for execution for new market entry for Babylon within aggressive timescales.
Brownlie also worked at McKinsey & Company, where she supported clients on delivering global transformation programmes, specifically within operations and procurement. Prior to McKinsey & Company, Cat worked at AkzoNobel, and was an Engineering Project Manager designing and commissioning equipment for a state of the art manufacturing facility. Brownlie earned a first class degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Sheffield.
During her 25-year career, Clare Harris has built a reputation as a leader in the industry, working with and managing complex projects for some of the world’s most recognized brands. Harris has held several leadership roles across procurement and supply chain consultancy with Proxima and has played a key role in steering the company’s growth and operational excellence. With a background in retail, Harris has played an important role in Proxima’s growth in the sector.
Proxima was recently acquired by global consultancy Bain & Company, and Harris has been instrumental in integrating the two companies’ services to leverage their combined expertise. Harris holds a bachelor of science with honors in German and economics from the University of Surrey.
Ashutosh Dekhne is a Partner and practice leader for the Americas supply chain operations and technology at Ernst & Young Global Consulting Services. He advises and serves clients primarily in consumer-packaged goods (CPG), retail, auto, industrial, pharma, and hi-tech sectors. His areas of expertise include manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, omnichannel, procurement, and strategy, with innovative approaches in digital and advanced analytics and technology. He also serves clients in commercial, go-to-market (GTM), and technology areas, global business services and global capability centers.
Before joining EY, Ashutosh was a partner at McKinsey & Company, where he held leadership positions for over a decade. He also brings approximately 15 years of industry experience, having led global logistics, global operations, and regional P&Ls at companies such as PepsiCo and Kuehne+Nagel. Ashutosh holds an MBA in finance, as well as M.S. and B.S. degrees in industrial engineering.
Engin Beken is a Partner based both in Arthur D. Little´s Frankfurt and Vienna offices. Engin is part of the global leadership team of the Performance Practice and leads the Industry 4.0 / Digital operations competency center. His main areas of expertise cover operations strategies, operating model design, operational / performance excellence, operations digitalization and transformation programs. Engin is especially focused in manufacturing industries, the energy sector (e.g. PowerGen and transmission system operators) and the railway business (Rolling stock as well as infrastructure operators).
In his role as the lead of the digital operations competency center, he is leading a broad set of operations experts globally on the research on key topics such as the future impact of AI in operations or the value generated through the end-to-end use of data and analytics on operations problems. He recently published one of Arthur D. Littles flagship reports on potential ways of generating value through the use of the industrial metaverse in an operations context.
Engin has helped over the years a broad set of large scale companies to setup the strategic COO and CTO agenda and to implement fundamental excellence transformations. He is often requested a key leader in integrating future operations trends with bottom-line questions of as-is operating models. Prior joining Arthur D. Little, Engin worked for five years in the energy industry and gained significant experience in a broad set of renewable power generation questions. He holds both a PhD and a MSc in Engineering from the Vienna University of Technology.
Maryann Gallivan boasts a wealth of leadership expertise cultivated over 25 years, encompassing high-profile roles in both consulting companies and the life sciences industry. Currently, as President and CEO of Tunnell Consulting, she has steered the company for the past eight years while also serving as a valued member of Tunnell’s Board of Directors since 2014.
Tunnell provides consulting services and expertise to a variety of Life Sciences clients including biopharma companies, agencies within the U.S. Government and NGO’s. Prior to joining Tunnell, Gallivan split her time between Europe and North America, helping clients with both business strategy and organizational transformation. Her consulting assignments provided her with numerous opportunities to work across businesses in Research and Development, Supply Chain, Sales and Marketing as well as in Support Services.
Gallivan has held a variety of leadership roles with Gemini Consulting, Capgemini and The Monitor Group. Prior to beginning her consulting career, she spent eight years in public accounting with Arthur Andersen & Co. where she earned her CPA. She earned her Graduate Certificate, “Women in Politics and Public Policy,” at the University of Massachusetts, her MBA at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, and her undergraduate degree at Boston College.
Jim Kilpatrick is the global leader of Deloitte’s supply chain and network operations consulting practice. Deloitte is a leading global supply chain and operations consultancy, working with clients across industries and the public sector to provide solutions for complex operational challenges and to improve supply chain capabilities. Kilpatrick has been driving Deloitte’s supply chain alliances, ecosystem partnerships, and asset development by leveraging rapidly advancing digital and physical automation technologies to enable smart factories, smart distribution centers, and digital supply networks.
In his over 30 years with Deloitte, Kilpatrick has led many global end-to-end supply chain transformation programs, impacting global supply chain optimization and leveraging advanced supply chain systems and technologies to enhance capability and improve performance. He deems building digital capability as critical to moving beyond traditional service, cost, and asset optimization and embracing new supply chain imperatives of resilience, sustainability, and agility, finding the right balance in reimagining supply networks for the future. Kilpatrick is a frequent speaker and author on supply chain management. He received his MBA from the University of Toronto and received a degree in systems design engineering from the University of Waterloo. He is a professional engineer and Lean 6-Sigma Master Black Belt.
Joe Martin is a partner at Kearney and the president of the firm's public sector and defense services. As an operations strategist and supply chain practitioner serving the aerospace and defense industry, he helps clients build high-leverage programs that improve performance. His experience includes organizational transformation, supply and demand analytics, industrial economics, and facilities/overhead optimization for a wide range of industry-leading clients, as well as the U.S. and foreign governments.
Martin has over 30 years of consulting experience, with a consistent focus on performance improvement through both a strategic and operational lens. Martin began his career at Fairchild Republic with a focus on aerospace engineering. After earning his MBA from New York University, he joined McKinsey & Co., where he eventually worked his way to partner at the firm in the supply chain and technology operations practices. He then went on to work for various consulting firms in a partner capacity, including Kearney, Oliver Wyman, and Strategy&. In 2019, Martin took on a role at the Pentagon as the executive director of supply chain management for the US Navy. In October of 2021, he returned to Kearney as a partner in the aerospace and defense practice.
Kay O. Manke, a seasoned professional with over 30 years of expertise, currently serves as senior partner and global supply chain and operations leader at BearingPoint. In his role as the global leader for service line operations and senior partner for consumer goods and retail, he guides BearingPoint's supply network practice globally.
Throughout his career, Manke has been instrumental in leading global end-to-end supply chain transformation programs, optimizing supply chains worldwide, and leveraging advanced systems and technologies to enhance performance. As a prominent figure in the consumer and retail sectors, he has provided guidance to companies navigating disruptive periods, emphasizing resilience, sustainability, and agility in supply chain management. Beyond his tenure at BearingPoint, Manke boasts a distinguished consulting background, having worked at Accenture and Arthur Andersen Management Consulting. An influential speaker and author on supply chain management, he advocates for building digital capabilities to meet the evolving imperatives of resilience, sustainability, and agility in supply networks. He is an alumnus of Leibniz Universität Hannover and NEOMA Business School.
Kristin Sjoholm is a managing director in FTI’s performance improvement practice, bringing more than 20 years of experience to the role, specializing in supply chain transformations and end-to-end operational improvements. Sjoholm’s domain expertise spans the entire supply chain including supply planning, inventory management, sales and operations planning, procurement, and supply chain sustainability. In addition, Sjoholm is FTI’s expert at integrating environmental and social best practices with supply chain intricacies and realities.
Notably, as a consultant, Sjoholm led a mission-critical COVID-19 project for the State of Rhode Island. Prior to joining FTI Consulting, Sjoholm was the head of global operations for Marmot Mountain and ExOfficio at Newell. Before that, she held key supply chain leadership roles at both Restoration Hardware and Pottery Barn. Sjoholm received her bachelor’s from Colorado College and an MBA from UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Mike Hales is a senior partner at Kearney, bringing decades of industry and consulting experience across the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific to this role. His global financial experience spans multiple industries, including hi-tech, retail, chemicals, utilities, and finance, with over 50 large-scale operations improvement efforts covering all aspects of operations. These include innovation, supply management, manufacturing, logistics, as well as merger integration for two of the largest chemical industry mergers.
Hales lived four years in London and another four in Sydney where he co-led the launch of Kearney’s Australia offices. Notably, Hales has authored over 50 articles on recent semiconductor issues, as well as procurement, innovation, customer experience, and channel strategy. He co-leads Kearney’s annual “Assessment of Excellence in Procurement,” co-authored the book Supplier Relationship Management: How to Manage Supplier Value and Opportunity, and co-founded the Global City Index & Outlook which annually ranks over 125 cities. Hales has worked closely with the Institute of Supply Management and was on the board of trustees for its Center for Strategic Supply Leadership. He holds a bachelor’s in business from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a master’s in management from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. He passed the exams for Illinois Public Accounting and the American Production and Inventory Control Society.
Per Kristian Hong is a senior partner and global leader in Kearney’s strategic operations practice. He brings over 27 years of experience to his role, with expertise in operations transformation topics related to post-merger integration, efficiency and performance improvement, network optimization, make vs. buy strategies, and supply chain organization transformation.
Throughout Hong’s career, he has focused on healthcare, consumer products, and specialty chemicals in both developed and developing markets. He began his Kearney Operations career in Kearney’s London office for eight years, and his other past positions include managing partner of Kearney’s unit in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States from 2010 to 2016. Hong also co-leads Kearney’s global collaboration with the World Economic Forum and the advanced manufacturing and global value chain reconfiguration platform. Notably, he helped launch the forum’s COVID action platform and has led multiple value chain resilience initiatives. Hong received an undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College and an MBA from the University of Michigan.
Sean Laffere serves as the national supply chain leader for Alvarez & Marsal's corporate performance improvement (CPI) group, where he also leads the supply chain services practice. Laffere has over 25 years of experience in multiple supply chain areas, including sales and operations planning, sourcing and procurement, logistics, and organizational design. His expertise extends to financial supply chain and operations improvement, focusing on asset and fleet management, the procure-to-pay and order-to-cash cycles, contract management, material planning, working capital optimization, and business process optimization.
Laffere’s industry experience spans energy, industrials, consumer-packaged goods, media, and construction. Before his tenure at Alvarez & Marsal, Laffere worked at Deloitte for over six years, specializing in supply chain management and enterprise software applications. His career also includes time at O’Neal Steel, Inc., where he was involved in operations. Laffere's academic background includes a bachelor’s in industrial distribution from Texas A&M University and an MBA from Rice University.
Ben Shrewsbury is Managing Director at Russell Reynolds Associates, where he leads the company’s global operations and supply chain officers practice. His primary focus is on roles related to integrated supply chain management, operationally oriented general management, CEO positions, and board memberships within both public and private entities.
Before his tenure at Russell Reynolds Associates, Shrewsbury was a management consultant at Kearney, mainly within the transportation and infrastructure sector. His diverse background also includes over seven years of service with the United States Air Force, taking on roles such as advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, member of the defense contracting management agency (DCMA) in Afghanistan, and part of the commander’s action group (CAG) at Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts. Shrewsbury holds a bachelor’s in management from the United States Air Force Academy, an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School, and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.
Stephane Crosnier leads Accenture’s supply chain and operations practice in the U.K. and Ireland, where he helps clients digitally transform their logistics network for improved performance, resilience, and sustainability. He shapes supply chain and operations strategies, designing and implementing new capabilities through innovative technologies as well as performing turn-around interventions. His team has consistently been recognized as a market leader and received numerous industry accolades, more recently for its role in working with a consortium of leading aerospace and engineering businesses producing medical ventilators for the UK National Health Service during the COVID crisis - setting up and operating a new supply chain in record time.
With a career spanning over 30 years, Crosnier began in the computer industry as a supply chain planner before moving into consulting roles with Accenture in Singapore, Paris, and London, and PRTM (now PwC) in Paris. Notably, in his global leadership role for supply chain resilience at Accenture, he helped create the “supply chain stress test,” establishing industry standards for measuring supply chain resilience and helping clients identify hidden vulnerabilities in their end-to-end supply network. His expertise includes industrial products, automotive, high-tech, aerospace and defense, and consumer goods. Crosnier is an alumnus of Ecole Centrale of Nantes with an engineering degree and holds an MBA in supply chain management from ESSEC Business School, France.
Yatish Desai is a principal at KPMG, where he leads the supply chain execution for the firm's supply chain and operations practice. With extensive experience across numerous industries and sectors, Desai excels in crafting and executing strategic initiatives in operations and supply chain management. He collaborates closely with C-suite executives, senior leaders, and private equity figures to create strategies, innovative solutions, and operational plans.
Desai’s background spans both consulting and senior executive positions, including roles at a Fortune 400 conglomerate and various manufacturing companies. His specialization areas include supply chain and operations strategy, operational diligence, operating model transformation, and cost optimization for profit improvement. Desai holds an MBA in business and operations management from the Weatherhead School of Management and a master's in materials engineering, both from Case Western Reserve University. He earned his B.Tech in materials engineering and science from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Bombay).
