The Consulting Report is pleased to present The Top 25 Education Consultants and Leaders of 2024. As educational institutions grapple with the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of educational consultants has become crucial in steering them toward recovery and growth. The education consulting market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5.78% between 2023 and 2028, reflecting the rising demand for customized learning experiences and increasing e-learning enrollments. These trends, accelerated by the pandemic, have made expert guidance more essential than ever to improve institutional performance and drive student success.
By developing strategic plans, optimizing HR operations, implementing performance improvement initiatives, and managing financial and operational risks, these consultants are fostering the innovation and resilience needed to rebuild and advance educational systems. Their work ensures that educational institutions are not just recovering but are also poised to meet future challenges head-on.
Among this year’s awardees, Jessica Roy, Managing Director at Accenture, stands out for her expertise in HR transformation within higher education and government sectors. She has over 15 years of experience enhancing staff, faculty, and student experiences while driving mission-critical initiatives. Jeff Denneen, Partner at Bain and Company, is recognized for his pioneering work in higher education transformation, specializing in strategy development, customer loyalty, and full potential transformation. Vadim Tsysin, Managing Director at Alvarez and Marsal, excels in performance improvement and M&A advisory for education clients, bringing over 20 years of experience in executing significant transactions and strategic planning initiatives.
This year’s awardees were selected through a methodical evaluation process and thorough consideration of each candidate’s career track record and professional achievements. Please join us in recognizing The Top 25 Education Consultants and Leaders of 2024.
1. Dennis Morrone
Firm: Grant Thornton
Title: Managing Partner
Dennis Morrone is the National Managing Partner of Grant Thornton's not-for-profit and higher education practices. In this capacity, Morrone oversees the firm’s services for clients in the sector nationwide and leads related marketplace initiatives. Grant Thornton is a global professional services network of independent accounting and consulting firms that provide a range of services including audit, tax, and advisory services to clients in various industries.
2. Jimmy Sarakatsannis
Firm: McKinsey & Company
Title: Senior Partner
Jimmy Sarakatsannis is a Senior Partner in McKinsey’s Washington, DC office and a leader of the firm’s education and private equity practices. McKinsey and Company is a global management consulting firm serving as a trusted advisor to the world's leading businesses, governments, and institutions across the private, public, and social sectors. Sarakatsannis’ work in education spans the public, private, and non-profit sectors, covering every stage from pre-K-12 to higher education and workforce development.
3. Daniel O’Shea
Firm: CohnReznick
Title: Partner
Daniel O’Shea is a Partner in CohnReznick’s not-for-profit industry practice. Based in the Bethesda office, O’Shea has 37 years of accounting experience and began his career focusing on audit and other attestation services. His current responsibilities include engagement administration, team management, and practice development. With over a century of experience, CohnReznick has nearly 4,300 global team members and 30 locations including global subsidiaries. The firm serves clients in 30 different industries through an integrated team of advisory, assurance, and tax professionals.
In addition to providing accounting, audit, and tax services, O’Shea consults on CFO advisory engagements as well as cost allocations, related entity structures, employee benefit plans, and exempt organizations tax issues. He oversees engagements that are subject to Office of Management and Budget Circular A-133 audit requirements. His clients include national trade and professional associations and labor and charitable organizations. O’Shea graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University with an undergraduate degree in accounting.
4. Adam Newman
Firm: Tyton Partners
Title: Founding Partner
Adam Newman is a Founding Partner of Tyton Partners and leads its strategy consulting practice. He guides companies, institutions, investors, and foundations through critical growth inflection points, delivering actionable recommendations that help them achieve their goals. He has extensive experience working with executives and leadership teams across all segments of the PreK-12, postsecondary, workforce, and professional education markets.
Prior to founding Tyton Partners, Newman was a director at Berkery Noyes, a mergers and acquisitions firm serving the information industry. Previously, Newman served as managing vice president at Eduventures (now Encoura), a leading market research and consulting firm supporting the education industry. Adam originated and led the firm’s syndicated market research and proprietary consulting businesses.
Prior to Eduventures, Newman served as a senior manager at CEB (now Gartner) in the company’s Corporate Strategy Board practice, working closely with senior strategy executives at Global 2000 companies. Newman began his professional career as a K-12 educator and athletic coach at schools in Boston, MA, and New Orleans, LA. He holds an AB in English from Duke University. Newman currently serves on his town’s elected School Committee and is a Trustee at Exploration School, a non-profit organization developing immersive, transformative programs for students and schools.
5. Ian Matthias
Firm: PA Consulting
Title: Partner
Ian Matthias leads PA Consulting’s global education practice. With 25 years of experience serving clients at national and institutional levels, Matthias specializes in higher education and partners with 15 universities every year to design and deliver their mission-critical transformations. His work includes strategy development, student experience modernization, operating model design, restructuring, and digital transformation. Matthias leads several communities of practice, including the Education Transformation Leader Network and co-authors PA’s annual survey of vice chancellors. Matthias graduated from the University of Nottingham with an undergraduate degree in industrial economics.
6. Mark Jeynes
Firm: CIL Management Consultants
Title: Partner, Head of Education Practice
Mark Jeynes is a Partner at CIL Management Consultants, an international management consultancy with offices in the US, Europe and the UK. Jeynes leads the education and training practice and has extensive experience advising investors and clients in the international education sector across a wide range of segments including early years (pre-K), K-12, further education, higher education, professional education and corporate training. His experience spans the UK, US, Western Europe, India, GCC, Asia, Australia, and Africa.
Jeynes has over 20 years of experience as a management consultant and has completed more than 100 education engagements, advising leading private equity firms and operators on commercial due diligence, market entry and expansion, proposition development, pricing, and opportunity identification and assessment.
Prior to joining CIL, Jeynes was a Partner at The Parthenon Group, now EY-Parthenon, and OC&C Strategy Consultants. He is also a Co-Founder of Inspiring Futures Education, an international schools group in the UK. He holds a bachelor’s degree in banking and finance from the Loughborough University of Technology and an MBA from London Business School.
7. Chris Cox
Firm: PwC
Title: Partner
Chris Cox is a Partner in and national higher education practice leader at PwC. PwC is a network of firms in 151 countries with over 360,000 professionals committed to delivering assurance, advisory, and tax services. Cox has served with PwC since 1992 and also leads the firm’s northeast healthcare assurance practice, focusing on providing audit and advisory services to various clients across the healthcare industry. Cox graduated from Nichols College with an undergraduate degree in business administration and accounting.
8. Jessica Roy
Firm: Accenture
Title: Managing Director, Public Service, Education
Jessica Roy is a Detroit-based Managing Director in Accenture's Health and Public Service organization specializing in HR Transformation in higher education and government. Accenture is a global professional services company that helps businesses, governments and other organizations build their digital core, optimize operations, accelerate revenue growth, and enhance citizen services.
9. Vadim Tsysin
Firm: Alvarez & Marsal
Title: Managing Director
Vadim Tsysin is a Managing Director with the Alvarez and Marsal Private Equity Performance Improvement Group in Chicago. He is the Education and Sell-Side Lead and specializes in performance improvement, carve-out and TSA advisory, operational due diligence, and overall M&A and capital markets advisory.
With over 20 years of experience, Tsysin has executed over 100 transactions ranging from $1.2 million to $16 billion. He has substantial cross-border deal experience, having executed deals in Brazil, Mexico, Russia, the UK, and Australia. His engagements center around merger advisory, integration execution, carve-out execution, pre-acquisition synergy assessments, operational due diligence, and integration and separation planning. Tsysin has extensive experience with education clients, including advising Leeds Equity on the sale and performance improvement of Campus Management Corp and Edcentric, assessing synergies for Edmentum's acquisition of Apex Learning, and conducting buy-side due diligence for San Joaquin Valley College and the Meritas group of private K-12 schools in the US, Europe, and Asia.
Prior to joining A&M, Tsysin spent six years with DeVry Education Group in Chicago, serving most recently as Head of M&A for Integration and Capital Markets. Previously, Tsysin worked with Bank of America Merrill Lynch as an Investment Banker and served as an M&A Consultant in the post-merger integration practice of Deloitte Consulting LLP. Tsysin holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance from Roosevelt University and an MBA from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. He is a licensed CPA in Illinois and holds Series 7 & 63 designations.
10. Gregory Finkelstein
Firm: Tyton Partners
Title: Managing Director, Co-Lead of Tyton’s Higher Education Practice
Gregory Finkelstein is a Managing Director across both Tyton Partner’s Strategic Consulting and Investment Banking practices. His 30 years of expertise focuses on go-to-market motion, human capital development, operational effectiveness, and organizational planning and scale. Within higher education, he has served hundreds of institutions across the globe spanning from large national and state institutions to regional and local schools. He started his career helping to write five- and ten-year strategic plans for state universities which led to launching, leading, and exiting multiple EdTech companies before returning to strategic consulting for the past six years.
Additionally, he is a Co-Founder and Co-Lead of Tyton’s Center for Higher Education Transformation. This expanded focus on higher education has positioned Tyton as one of the sector leaders in several related sub-practices. Among them are school-to-school affiliations, where Finkelstein has led several of the largest efforts in the sector including the recent announcement regarding a signed agreement between the University of Phoenix and the University of Idaho (Announcement Article).
He currently serves on the Board of Trustees for Antioch University and chairs several advisory boards for EdTech companies including K16 Solutions. Finkelstein holds a Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Tulane University.
11. Jeff Denneen
Firm: Bain & Company
Title: Partner
Jeff Denneen is a Partner at Bain and Company, a global consultancy operating across 65 cities in 40 countries. Denneen founded the firm’s higher education practice in 2009 and serves as its Global Practice Leader. He is also a leader in the transformation and change practice, specializing in full potential transformation across multiple industries.
12. Sam Sanders
Firm: KPMG UK
Title: Partner
Sam Sanders is a Partner at KPMG UK, where he leads the firm’s higher education advisory team and the education consulting practice. KPMG is a global organization of independent professional services firms that provide audit, legal, tax and advisory services in 143 countries and territories, with more than 273,000 partners and professionals globally.
13. Bob Billig
Firm: RSM US
Title: Partner
Bob Billig is a Partner at RSM US, a provider of professional services to the middle market. With 32 years of experience at the firm, he specializes in nonprofit organizations and educational institutions. Billig helps develop strategic objectives to align the assurance, tax, and consulting areas to work as one team of advisors serving nonprofit and education clients.
14. Roy Mathew
Firm: Deloitte
Title: Principal
Roy Mathew is a Principal at Deloitte, where he leads the higher education consulting practice. With 25 years of consulting and industry experience across both private and public sector clients, Mathew has led many of Deloitte’s largest higher education transformation programs that span strategy, implementation, and operations. He is actively involved in developing the firm’s capabilities in new business models and innovative uses of technology.
Deloitte is a prominent provider of audit, consulting, tax, and advisory services, serving numerous brands including almost 90% of the Fortune 500 and over 7,000 private companies. With 175 years of experience, Deloitte's vast network of member firms spans more than 150 countries and territories. Mathew holds an undergraduate degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a graduate degree from Stanford University.
15. Jason Reed
Firm: FTI Consulting
Title: Managing Director
Jason Reed is the Managing Director of FTI Consulting, a global business advisory firm with more than 8,000 employees in 33 countries and territories dedicated to helping organizations manage change, mitigate risk and resolve financial, legal, operational, political and regulatory, and reputational and transactional disputes.
16. Vanessa Webb
Firm: Oliver Wyman
Title: Partner, Private Capital Practice and Co-Head of Education & Training Practice
Vanessa Webb is a Partner at Oliver Wyman, where she leads the private capital practice in the Americas and co-heads the global education and training practice. Oliver Wyman is a management consulting firm with offices in more than 70 cities across 30 countries providing expertise in strategy, operations, risk management, and organization transformation.
17. Zachary Unger
Firm: Protiviti
Title: Managing Director
Zachary Unger is a Managing Director in the business performance improvement solution in Protiviti’s Metro New York region. Protiviti is a global consulting firm that provides a wide range of services, including internal audit, risk and compliance, technology consulting, business process improvement, data analytics, and cybersecurity to help organizations manage risks and improve business performance.
18. Mark Finlan
Firm: Huron
Title: Education and Research Business Leader
Mark Finlan is a Managing Director and education and research practice leader at Huron. With more than 20 years of experience in consulting, including deep expertise in higher education and the public sector, he specializes in leading institutions through complex programs to align strategy, improve performance and reduce costs. Finlan has partnered with dozens of institutions leading complex, organization-wide programs to align strategy, improve performance and optimize operations for some of the most well-known universities.
Prior to joining Huron, Finlan led the higher education, organization, and human capital practices at Censeo Consulting Group. He also served as a Principal at Bain and Company, where he helped found its higher education practice. Finlan holds an MBA from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School and a bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics from William and Mary.
19. Srimathi Shivashankar
Firm: HCLTech
Title: Corporate Vice President and Global Head, EdTech Business
Srimathi Shivashankar is the Corporate Vice President and Global Head of EdTech Business for HCLTech, a global technology company with more than 227,000 professionals working across 60 countries. HCLTech delivers capabilities centered around digital, engineering, cloud, and AI, supported by a broad portfolio of technology services and products.
20. Andrew Slapp
Firm: Capgemini
Title: Senior Director, Public Sector and Higher Education
Andrew Slapp is the Senior Director of Public Sector and Higher Education at Capgemini, a global business and technology transformation partner. Slapp’s background is in IT and business, with experience in consulting, sales and marketing.
21. Richard Sadler
Firm: CGI
Title: Vice President
Richard Sadler is the Vice President of CGI, an independent IT and business consulting services firm. With 90,000 consultants and professionals globally, CGI offers a comprehensive range of services including strategic IT and business consulting, systems integration, managed IT and business process services, and intellectual property solutions.
22. Shawn Rodriguez
Firm: World Wide Technology
Title: Vice President, State & Local Government and Education
Shawn Rodriguez serves as World Wide Technology’s Vice President of State and Local Government and Education. World Wide Technology is a global technology solutions provider with $20 billion in annual revenue. The company combines strategy, execution, and partnership to accelerate digital transformation outcomes for large public and private organizations worldwide. Rodriguez is responsible for the development and execution of all go-to-market strategies and activities including field sales hiring and enablement, integrated field marketing, contract capture, vertical business development, partner and solution execution, and overall growth.
23. Catherine Friday
Firm: EY
Title: Global Education Leader
Catherine Friday is the Global Education Leader of EY. She has extensive experience providing services to state and federal departments and regulators, ministerial councils, not-for-profits, and NGOs across Australia and New Zealand. Her work impacts various sectors, including education, health, human services, defense, transport and infrastructure, and central agencies.
24. Barry Manno
Firm: Cognizant
Title: Head Global Sales & Consulting Education
Barry Manno is the Head of Global Sales and Consulting Education at Cognizant, a multinational information technology services and consulting company. Manno has 30 years of experience in C-Level partnering and building world-class programs for Fortune 100 companies, and has developed organization learning models and programs to enable the selling effectiveness of a global salesforce.
Manno first got his start in 1983 as a Service Manager at Flexible Business Systems. From there, he went on to AST Research Inc., before eventually rising to global learning and talent enablement business Partner at Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, his most recent position prior to joining Cognizant. Manno graduated from Farmingdale State College with an undergraduate degree in computer science.
25. Jean Demchak
Firm: Marsh
Title: Global Education Leader
Jean Demchak is the Global Leader of Marsh’s education industry practice. Marsh McLennan is a leading professional services firm in the areas of risk, strategy, and people with more than 85,000 professionals advising clients in over 130 countries. Demchak also manages the integration of Marsh McLennan business operations into the higher education and K-12 sectors, both public, private, and for-profit.
