The Consulting Report is pleased to announce The Top 25 Marketing and Sales Consultants and Leaders of 2024. Marketing and sales consultants are essential catalysts for business success, guiding companies to refine their marketing strategies and effectively engage and connect with their desired customer base by implementing data-driven market analysis, leveraging advanced digital marketing techniques, optimizing customer relationship management systems, and designing targeted communication campaigns.
In today’s rapidly evolving market, their expertise has become increasingly vital. The marketing consulting industry in the US alone has seen remarkable growth, averaging 8.6% annually over the past five years, driven by increasing demand for innovative solutions that harness big data analytics, AI for personalized customer experiences, integrated multi-channel marketing campaigns, and agile methodologies. These advancements are pivotal in addressing evolving consumer behaviors, technological advancements, and global market fluctuations. These leaders exemplify excellence in navigating challenges businesses face in today’s increasingly complex and competitive market, leveraging their diverse industry exposure and invaluable expertise to drive significant outcomes for their clients.
Among this year’s awardees, Stephanie Garcia, Managing Director at Alvarez and Marsal’s A&MPLIFY, stands out for her renowned leadership in providing transformative e-commerce and digital marketing strategies. Additionally Shweta Bhardwaj, Partner at Bain and Company, is recognized for her expertise in omnichannel retail strategy and Agile transformation, driving significant performance improvements. Lastly, Partha Gopalakrishnan, President and Partner at Brane Group, stands out for his innovative application of AI-driven marketing analytics and sustainable technology solutions, enabling clients to achieve data-driven marketing precision and long-term strategic sustainability.
Amid a talented pool of nominees, these leaders stand out for their proven track record in delivering impactful marketing and sales solutions and driving substantial business success in their respective domains. Please join us in recognizing the achievements of The Top 25 Marketing and Sales Consultants and Leaders of 2024.
1. Partha Gopalakrishnan
Firm: Brane Group
Title: President and Partner
Partha Gopalakrishnan is the President and Partner of Brane Group, where he spearheads business development and business transformation consulting. Gopalakrishnan is a leading business transformation expert with over 25 years of experience directing global teams to drive digital growth. With expertise in AI, Web3 and digital transformation, and a passion for sustainability, Gopalakrishnan leads new technology practices and implements IT systems which combine business insights with advanced cognitive technologies to create integrated business platforms and services.
Gopalakrishnan has served in executive leadership positions with some of the world’s largest technology and consulting global system integrators, including 17 years with Infosys, followed by a tenure at Tech Mahindra. Gopalakrishnan holds an MBA from Pondicherry University and a bachelor’s degree in electronics and communications engineering from the University of Madras. He has also completed executive education programmes at Stanford University Graduate School of Business and The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
2. Mat Zucker
Firm: Prophet
Title: Senior Partner
Mat Zucker is a New York-based Senior Partner and Chief Marketing Officer for Prophet. As a pioneer in the digital landscape and advocate of the integration of brand and demand, Zucker brings nearly 30 years of interactive marketing, advertising, social and content experience to Prophet. For five years, he was co-Leader of the firm's global marketing and sales practice.
Prior to Prophet, Zucker was Global Executive Creative Director at Razorfish and served as Chief Creative Officer at OgilvyOne New York as well as in leadership roles at R/GA and Agency.com. A graduate of Cornell University, Zucker started as a copywriter in advertising. He is co-author of Brand and Demand Marketing: A Love Story and author of Bronze Seeks Silver: Lessons from a Creative Career in Marketing. He is also host of Cidiot, a regional podcast in the Hudson Valley and co-host of Rising, a marketing careers podcast.
3. Bo Finneman
Firm: McKinsey and Company
Title: Senior Partner
Bo Finneman is a Senior Partner in McKinsey’s Growth, Marketing & Sales, Consumer and Travel Practices. He serves Retail, CPG, Travel and Technology clients through insights and digitally-led growth programs that span strategic and tactical levers. Over the last 15 years, he’s driven innovations in growth through the firm’s Consumer-Decision-Journey methodology, launched the leading growth metric, the Customer Growth Indicator, and built an advanced analytics solution called the Profitable Growth Navigator to spot headroom in markets.
Today, Finneman leads the Consumer Digital and Analytics practice, which focuses on helping clients design technology solutions that spur their competitive advantage, new business builds, and organic growth across marketing, ecommerce, experience, merchandising, and loyalty. This has led to impact partnerships with various sub-sectors of consumer retail, including food, beverage, apparel and mass – as well as travel operators and technology platforms. He also orchestrates McKinsey’s clients across Florida and leads our Growth, Marketing and Sales people operations across more than 20 locations to cultivate the practice’s talent.
Finneman’s experience in growth, marketing, sales and business development prior to joining McKinsey includes leading Audience Development for a digital media company, Wetpaint.com, working in brand management and sales at E&J Gallo Winery, and was an investment banker with Credit Suisse. Bo serves on the board of the Finneman Scholarship Foundation, a not-for-profit organization supporting students in California’s Central Valley in their pursuit of attending higher education.
4. Wei Ke
Firm: Oliver Wyman
Title: Partner
Dr. Wei Ke is a Partner based in Oliver Wyman’s New York office, and affiliated with both the pricing, sales and marketing, and the retail and business banking practices. Oliver Wyman is a global leader in management consulting that provides specialized expertise in strategy, operations, risk management, and organization transformation across offices in more than 70 cities across 30 countries. Ke has over 15 years of consulting experience advising leading financial institutions, software and data service providers, retailers, and travel operators around the world on product innovation, pricing strategy, marketing and promotional tactics, customer value management, and digital sales effectiveness.
Prior to Oliver Wyman, Ke was a Managing Partner with Simon-Kucher and Partners, a global pricing consultancy, where he led its Canada business and served as the Lead Partner for Financial Services and Travel for North America. Ke is a prolific writer on pricing and marketing related topics, with over 50 publications in industry and academic journals to-date, and teaches pricing strategy and analytics at Columbia Business School and NYU Stern School of Business as an adjunct associate professor in his spare time. Ke holds a Ph.D. in decision, risk and operations from Columbia Business School and a bachelor’s in electrical engineering and applied mathematics from Columbia University.
5. Sean McDevitt
Firm: Arthur D. Little
Title: Partner
Sean McDevitt is a leading decision-maker, advisor, and thought leader in the telecommunications industry, with three decades of international management consulting and operations experience spanning several global markets. Based in Boston, McDevitt is a Partner at global consultancy Arthur D. Little, where he leads the USA TIME Practice and recruiting efforts. McDevitt helps top telecom operators, suppliers, private equity, and infrastructure funds firms make critical business decisions regarding strategic growth initiatives, investment due diligence, market entry, spectrum auctions, and broadband services. McDevitt has driven ADL's growth, re-establishing it as a top-tier management consulting firm in the US, now serving five of the top ten US telecom operators since re-entering the market.
Prior to joining ADL, McDevitt was a VP at Cartesian, where he led the North American Strategy and Management Consulting businesses. Previously, he held executive positions in Europe, serving as Président-Directeur Général of Le Numéro France and COO of 118118//Media in the UK. McDevitt also serves on the Board of the First Responder Network Authority, the US’s nationwide public safety broadband network that equips first responders to save lives and protect US communities. McDevitt holds a bachelor’s degree in classics and business economics from Brown University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
6. Reggie Walker
Firm: PwC
Title: Partner
Reggie Walker is a Partner at PwC, where he leads the firm’s Global Salesforce Alliance and Practice. PwC is a network of firms in 151 countries with over 360,000 professionals dedicated to providing quality assurance, advisory and tax services. Previously, he served as a member of PwC's US Leadership Team as PwC's Chief Commercial Officer, responsible for all Brand, Marketing, External Communications and Relationship Development activities.
7. Janet Balis
Firm: EY
Title: Partner
Janet Balis is an accomplished executive with extensive experience in strategy, media, marketing, and technology. Most recently she spent nine years serving as Partner at EY, a professional services firm specializing in consulting, assurance, tax, strategy, and transaction services. At EY, she led the CMO practice, focusing on marketing transformation, including operating model design, marketing effectiveness and efficiency, data and technology strategy, and the talent agenda.
8. Linda Perry-Lube
Firm: IBM Consulting
Title: Partner
Linda Perry-Lube is a Partner of IBM Consulting, where she is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI and consulting expertise that helps clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Perry-Lube conceives and delivers digital transformations proven to increase customer loyalty, improve customer service, and deliver new business models, driving market share and revenue.
9. Ned Nicol
Firm: LanciaConsult
Title: Managing Director Europe
Ned Nicol is the Managing Director of the Bristol office at LanciaConsult, where he works closely with client teams to implement technology solutions that create lasting value. LanciaConsult is a business, technology and marketing consultancy, serving clients around the world from offices in Europe and Asia. In 2012, they established LanciaConsult in Singapore to address the evolving needs of the consultancy sector and maintain a strong advisory focus.
Ned has 20 years of experience in leading complex transformation programs and supporting clients to deliver efficiencies and drive change through IT strategy development and IT operating model definition. His experience spans a number of sectors including financial services, marketing, retail and third sector. Prior to Lancia, Ned worked at both Accenture and PwC Consulting. Ned graduated from Durham University with a master of engineering in manufacturing and management.
10. Barbara Venneman
Firm: Deloitte
Title: Customer and Marketing Leader
Barbara Venneman leads Deloitte Digital, a business that specializes in transforming future-ready customer experiences across marketing, commerce, sales, and service, to create great impact for the firm’s clients. Under her leadership, her team combines the unique discipline of Deloitte with the power of creativity, connecting people, ideas, technology, and capabilities in innovative ways that create new solutions to some of the world’s most challenging problems. Barbara’s strategic vision and leadership have enabled Deloitte Digital to lead the industry and strategically invest for future growth. She is a strong advocate for inclusion and collaboration, fostering high-performance teams that serve the market with distinction.
With over 30 years of experience, Barbara has led some of the most complex global customer-centric transformations for Fortune 500 brands. She is recognized as a leader in the marketplace and is continually engaged with leading and emerging technology companies worldwide to accelerate digital transformation and adoption.
11. Shweta Bhardwaj
Firm: Bain and Company
Title: Partner
Shweta Bhardwaj is a Partner of Bain and Company’s Retail and Customer Strategy and Marketing practices. Bain and Company is a global consultancy that works alongside clients across 65 cities in 40 countries to achieve significant outcomes. Bhardwaj has nearly 15 years of management consulting experience, supporting clients on a range of topics, including omnichannel strategy and operating model design, marketing and e-commerce acceleration, NPS implementation, Agile transformation and performance improvement.
12. David Edmondson
Firm: Accenture
Title: Senior Managing Director
David Edmondson is a Senior Managing Director and North America Market Sales Lead at Accenture. Edmondson is responsible for driving the sales strategy across North America while remaining engaged in the market's most critical and complex opportunities. He has responsibility for integrating Accenture’s sales teams across North America to proactively address our client’s most complex and critical challenges and create new career opportunities for our sales professionals.
13. Mark Cornwell
Firm: KPMG
Title: Managing Director
Mark Cornwell is a Managing Director at KPMG, a global accounting and advisory firm. Based in the San Francisco office, Cornwell works directly with top management on pursuits of new business targets. Cornwell is an experienced business leader with more than 25 years of sales and marketing expertise. Through a variety of senior leadership roles, he has leveraged his marketing, advertising, sales management, and communications skills to help organizations promote and build brand image, increase market penetration, and develop strategic partnership strategies.
14. Stephanie Garcia
Firm: Alvarez and Marsal
Title: Managing Director
Stephanie Garcia is a Managing Director with A&MPLIFY, Alvarez and Marsal's digital growth agency, out of San Francisco. A&MPLIFY accelerates customer growth and front office transformation by leveraging AI, data, digital technologies, and experienced operators, and unlocks value for clients through accelerated sales, optimized customer investments, and redesigned customer experiences. Garcia specializes in leading e-commerce businesses and digital marketing programs for top retail, entertainment and consumer goods brands. Her primary areas of concentration are customer experience transformation, e-commerce design and optimization and digital marketing performance improvement.
15. Chris Hessler
Firm: Protiviti
Title: Managing Director
Chris Hessler is a Managing Director at Protiviti, where he leads Strategic Alliances, including the Adobe partnership for the digital solution. Protiviti is a global consulting firm that delivers deep expertise, objective insights, a tailored approach, and unparalleled collaboration to support leaders in addressing their most critical challenges.
16. Fulvio Manente
Firm: Softtek
Title: Global Solutions Vice President
Fulvio Manente is the Global Solutions Vice President for Retail of Softtek, a global IT services company which supports clients in gaining a competitive edge through digital solutions aligned with their business strategies and leveraging a human-centric platform that integrates people, business, and technology. Manente has served as an experienced IT professional for more than 25 years, delivering his expertise to major corporations in Brazil, Mexico and the US. His expertise lies in strategic planning, innovation road-maps, national and multinational project and program management based on PMI, Prince and agile methodologies, ERP implementation, AMS and Service desk design, and conception and implementation based on ITIL and Cobit.
Before joining Softtek, Manente was a Head of Innovation and Market Intelligence at Estapar and before that, a Senior Manager at Wal-Mart Latin America. Earlier in his career he worked with Unibanco Seguros S.A. as a Business Analyst. Manente holds a master’s degree in artificial intelligence and machine learning from The University of Texas at Austin and an undergraduate degree in information technology from Centro Superior de Formação Tecnológica Carlos Drummond de Andrade.
17. Gaurav Mittal
Firm: Wipro
Title: Global Head of Digital Marketing and Commerce
Gaurav Mittal is the Global Head of Digital Marketing and Commerce for Wipro, a leading technology services and consulting company focused on building innovative solutions that address clients’ most complex digital transformation needs. Mittal is a digital transformation leader with more than 23 years of IT experience, and has spent over 15 years in consulting, design thinking, solution design and digital solutions implementation for several industry leading brands. He has partnered with C-Level and senior leadership in marketing and IT groups to define strategic roadmap and build compelling digital experiences to drive business outcomes.
18. Satish Nair
Firm: Infosys
Title: Senior Vice President
Satish Nair is the Senior Vice President and Global Head of Sales at Infosys BPM, where he manages global sales and client partnerships. Infosys is a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, with over 300,000 professionals who work to create opportunities for people, businesses and communities.
19. Matt Horner
Firm: World Wide Technology
Title: Senior Vice President
As Senior Vice President of World Wide Technology’s Global Enterprise sales organization, Matt Horner leverages his deep business expertise to spur transformational growth on behalf of WWT and many of its strategic clients and partners globally. Founded in 1990, WWT is a global technology solutions provider leading in AI and digital innovation. With $20 billion in annual revenue, the company leverages strategy, execution, and partnerships to accelerate digital transformational outcomes for large public and private organizations globally.
20. KC Chamberlain
Firm: Willis Towers Watson
Title: Vice President, Sales and Marketing
KC Chamberlain is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Willis Towers Watson, a leading global advisory, broking and solutions company that helps clients around the world manage risks and navigate paths for growth. Chamberlain is an experienced sales and marketing executive, known for driving revenue growth through initiatives including business development strategies and implementation, promotional programs, client communication, marketing collateral, advertising, trade shows, seminars, webinars, proposal preparation and presentations, program coordination, RFP response management, event management and public relations.
21. Waqas Aman Ullah
Firm: Telenor
Title: Vice President of Sales Marketing
Waqas Aman Ullah is the Vice President of Sales Marketing at Telenor, a leading telecommunications company across the Nordics and Asia with 158 million subscribers. Connectivity has been Telenor’s domain for more than 165 years, focusing on providing essential telecommunications services to connect people globally. Ullah leads the direction and delivery of sales ambitions at a national level, covering both GSM and financial services.
22. Benjamin Bloom
Firm: Gartner
Title: Vice President
Benjamin Bloom, Vice President and Analyst at Gartner, specializes in assisting marketing leaders with martech stack optimization, personalization, and customer data management. Gartner, Inc. provides actionable and objective insights to help organizations make informed decisions and achieve stronger performance on their critical priorities.
23. Rusty Warner
Firm: Forrester
Title: Vice President, Principal
Rusty Warner is a Vice President and Principal of Forrester, a research and advisory firm that helps leaders across technology, customer experience, digital, marketing, sales, and product functions use customer obsession to accelerate growth. Warner serves B2C marketing professionals, focusing his research on enterprise marketing technologies, including cross-channel campaign management, marketing resource management, and real-time interaction management. He helps organizations ensure their marketing technology investments underpin strategies to meet evolving customer expectations and align with overall business technology investments to engage, serve, and retain customers.
24. Tom Svec
Firm: BDO USA, LLP
Title: Principal
Tom Svec is a Principal at BDO Digital, leading the Marketing Technology and Strategy Practice. BDO delivers assurance, tax, and financial advisory services to clients throughout the country and around the globe. Svec is responsible for a team of architects, developers, analysts, campaign specialists and strategic advisors that help clients apply the best methods and technologies for driving revenue within their organizations, while maximizing the impact of their marketing technology investments.
25. Abha Singh
Firm: Capgemini
Title: Senior Director
Abha Singh is a Senior Director at Capgemini. She drives large transformation and consultative sales, presales, and marketing projects for Capgemini’s clients, bringing innovation into the core of every area of her work. Capgemini is a global business and technology transformation partner, helping organizations to accelerate their dual transition to a digital and sustainable world, while creating tangible impact for enterprises and society.
