The Consulting Report is pleased to announce the Top 25 Human Capital Consultants and Leaders of 2024. Successful human capital management may be one of the most difficult to observe, yet it is perhaps the most powerful lever of success for corporations. Aligning employee performance with corporate strategy requires a high level of care and expertise from leadership — an expertise cultivated by this year’s awardees.
As the employment atmosphere evolves, leaders in the human capital space are tasked with the increasingly complex job of understanding human behavior and translating that psychology into achieving the long-term financial and strategic goals of major corporations and organizations. This year’s awardees are trusted consultants who have proven that successful human capital management when employed not only attracts the finest talent but also positions this talent at the forefront to improve and sustain operational effectiveness that sets the organization apart from its competitors.
Among this year’s awardees, Yaarit Silverstone, Senior Managing Director for Strategy, Talent, and Organization at Accenture, stands out for her 30 years of experience in diagnosing complex organizational performance issues and designing leadership development programs. Additionally, Sara Elk, Partner at Bain and Company, is recognized for her expertise in transforming large companies facing technology or business model disruption. Lastly, Simona Spelman, US Human Capital Leader at Deloitte Consulting, excels in navigating workforce disruptions and leading hybrid and tech-enabled business transformations, leveraging her extensive background in HR strategy and IT transformations.
This year’s awardees were selected based on a review of nomination submissions and further research into the depth of their experience and proven client success. Following a methodical process, The Consulting Report is pleased to congratulate this year’s Top 25 Human Capital Consultants and Leaders.
1. Norman Lonergan
Firm: EY
Title: Global Managing Partner
Norman Lonergan is the EY Global Managing Partner for people advisory services. EY is a provider of assurance, tax, transaction, and advisory services, helping clients navigate complex business challenges and improve performance. EY operates in more than 150 countries, offering insights and services to support capital markets and economies worldwide.
Prior to this role, Lonergan served as Global Vice Chair of Advisory, working with leading global businesses to address complex industry issues and capitalize on growth opportunities. Under Lonergan's leadership, EY Global Advisory achieved year-on-year double-digit growth. Previously, Lonergan was a Partner at PwC Consulting. Earlier in his career he worked with Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. as an IT director.
2. Kim Wylam
Firm: Baker Tilly US
Title: Managing Principal
Kim Wylam is the Managing Principal of the Human Capital (resources) consulting practice. Over her career, Wylam has developed a breadth of experience in all aspects of human capital including recruitment, retention, compensation, benefits, workforce planning, HR operations and compliance. Specializing in HR strategy and development, Wylam works with clients representing all industries, including internationally.
Wylam has also developed an extensive portfolio of thought leadership, with published articles appearing in the PA Business Journal, HR Executive Magazine, Weight Watchers Magazine, HR Technology and several other periodicals on a wide range of human capital topics and trends. Wylam is also a frequent contributor to the HFMA group, providing content on healthcare related HR issues.
Prior to founding Vantagen and joining Baker Tilly, Wylam served as vice president for NatWest Bank (now Bank of America) in the HR services division. Within this role, she coordinated HRIS, payroll, compensation and employee benefits for more than 25,000 employees in the U.S. and abroad.
3. Anthony Abbatiello
Firm: PwC
Title: Partner and Workforce Transformation Practice Leader
Anthony Abbatiello is a Partner at PwC, where he leads the firm's human capital consulting and workforce transformation business. PwC helps clients prepare for the future workforce by addressing HR strategy and transformation, talent strategy, behavioral change, and rewards and well-being. In his role, Abbatiello is responsible for driving scale and innovative growth in the business.
Abbatiello has over 25 years of P&L management, leadership consulting and human capital experience to advise senior clients in all industries, working as a trusted advisor to senior executive performance, transformational leadership and succession management. Prior to PwC, Abbatiello led the global advisory business for Russell Reynolds Associates. Abbatiello began his career at Accenture and helped pioneer the firm's HR transformation capabilities with the first HR outsourcing arrangement in the financial services industry. Abbatiello graduated from Villanova University with an undergraduate degree in business administration.
4. Rachel Charlton
Firm: Deloitte UK
Title: Partner
Rachel Charlton is a Partner in Deloitte's Human Capital business where she leads the digital change practice. In this role, Charlton helps companies maximize their technology investments, transform business operations, and leverage their workforce for added value through strategic technology adoption.
5. Peter Brown
Firm: PwC UK
Title: Partner
Peter Brown is PwC’s Global Workforce leader, having joined PwC as a partner in 2010 from another global professional services organization. He has over 20 years’ experience working and advising global organizations on workforce and people related matters. He sponsors PwC’s Centre for Transformative Leadership and leads on market leading PwC research including the annual Hopes and Fears Survey of over 56,00 workers around the world and the PwC AI Jobs Barometer.
Prior to working in professional services, Pete was in the Royal Air Force and continues to support them as an Ambassador for the RAF Museum and as a Trustee of the Royal Air Force Charitable Trust with a focus on inspiring young people to have an interest in aviation, engineering and space. He was appointed MBE in 2000.
6. Mark Williamson
Firm: KPMG UK
Title: Partner, Head of People Consulting
Mark Williamson leads KPMG’s People Consulting practice in the UK, providing workforce, learning and HR solutions designed to address organizations’ key people, change, and talent issues in driving business performance. His expertise focuses on HR and workforce transformation, learning solutions, and the role of AI and technology in these areas.
Williamson’s client experience spans various industry sectors, including financial services, defense, government, industrial manufacturing, telecoms and media, consumer markets and life sciences. He has led some of the largest learning, workforce and HR transformation programs in the UK and globally. With over 30 years of experience, Williamson has worked in both industry and for several other global professional services organizations prior to joining KPMG.
7. Dave Eberhardt
Firm: PwC
Title: Partner
Dave Eberhardt is a Partner at PwC and a leader in the firm’s Workforce Transformation practice. With over 20 years of experience in human capital, Eberhardt specializes in helping clients develop and implement effective strategies for HR transformation, service delivery models, operating model development, leadership enhancement, culture building, change management, talent management, and workforce analytics and planning.
Eberhardt's experience includes leadership and consulting roles at Accenture, Deloitte, and Booz & Co., where he has worked with numerous FORTUNE 500 companies. In addition, he has served as a Chief Human Resources Officer in the industry, providing him with a well-rounded perspective on human capital management. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah and an executive certification from The Wharton School.
8. Mary Liszak
Firm: Tata Consultancy Services
Title: Partner
Mary Liszak is a Partner at Tata Consultancy Services, an IT services, consulting, and business solutions organization that supports businesses in their transformation journeys. As an HR and IT executive, Liszak integrates operational and consulting skills to create value-driven business solutions.
9. Yaarit Silverstone
Firm: Accenture
Title: Senior Managing Director Strategy Talent and Organization
Yaarit Silverstone is Senior Managing Director for Strategy, Talent and Organization within Accenture Strategy. Silverstone focuses on developing talent and organization effectiveness to help clients achieve their people strategies and goals. Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps businesses, governments and organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance citizen services.
With more than 30 years of consulting experience, Silverstone specializes in diagnosing complex organizational performance issues and designing, implementing and sustaining leadership development programs, as well as large-scale journey management, human capital strategy and transformation and talent management solutions. During her 20 years at Accenture, she has held leadership roles in the firm’s talent and organization performance service line, as well as in the chemicals, life sciences, resources and products industry groups. Prior to joining Accenture, she led Gemini Consulting’s North American Human Capital practice and ran her own consultancy. Silverstone holds master’s degrees in psychology and business administration from Rand Afrikaans University and the University of the Witwatersrand.
10. Marco Vasconi
Firm: Kearney
Title: Partner
Marco is a Partner within Kearney’s Public Sector Practice based in the UAE and a founding member of the Center of Excellence for Human Capital Development at Kearney.
Vasconi has dedicated his career and passion to serving key public and private sector clients in the education and labor sectors to make a positive impact on the economy and society. He focuses on helping decision-makers design inclusive and dynamic labor markets and develop a future-ready and resilient labor force equipped with relevant skills and values to realize their socio-economic ambitions.
Vasconi has a relentless focus on driving sustainable impact through robust and practical solutions. His contributions include designing nation-wide education and labor market policies; developing human capital plans for sectors of national priority; crafting global talent attraction strategies; advising universities, academies and schools on their business plans; understanding the role of data and technology in the education and labor market; elevating the social impact of private foundations; and helping private investment groups with their investment strategies.
11. Donia Aqel
Firm: Kearney
Title: Partner
Donia is a Partner within Kearney’s Public Sector Practice, based in the UAE. She advises senior clients across GCC on areas related to labor, education and social policy. Aqel is a core member of the Center of Excellence for Human Capital Development at Kearney, where she advocates for using policy reform to create a fair and just society, with a strong focus on promoting inclusive economic growth, strengthening labor market systems, and enhancing social welfare programs.
Aqel has been at the forefront of numerous initiatives aimed at advancing these objectives, including working on technical assistance programs with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Today, she remains committed to advancing the economic progress agenda by advising clients on national and sectoral strategies for human capital development, establishing labor foresight and observatories, activating admission systems, and addressing diverse policy issues related to labor and education.
Previously, Aqel was a Director of Government and Public Sector Advisory in Labor, Education and Skills at PwC Middle East and before that a Project Manager at Qatar Financial Centre Authority. Earlier in her career she worked with UNRWA as a Project Manager. Aqel earned an MBA from The University of Manchester and an undergraduate degree in politics and economics from Georgetown University.
12. Elie El Khoury
Firm: Kearney
Title: Partner
Elie El Khoury is a Partner within Kearney’s Public Sector Practice based in Saudi Arabia and advises senior leaders within the Center of Government and across public sector organizations. El Khoury’s expertise covers economic development and localization across sectors with the key objective to yield tangible economic and social dividends through carefully crafted and executed national strategies and plans.
El Khoury is a core and founding member of the Center of Excellence for Human Capital Development at Kearney, where he focuses on ensuring the youth of the region are ready for the future of work by making sure they are equipped with the right skills, have meaningful jobs and remain engaged in the labor market.
His contributions include designing national and sectoral human capital development programs, designing and executing major employment and training programs for local citizens, activating a national labor observatory, designing academies across priority sectors, in addition to various labor and education related policy, strategy and governance related projects. El Khoury earned an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the American University of Beirut.
13. Jason Averbook
Firm: Mercer
Title: Senior Partner, Digital Transformation
Jason Averbook is a Senior Partner and Global Leader of HR and Digital Transformation at Mercer. Averbook has spent three decades advising executives, HR & People functions, and technology solution providers. He also drives Mercer’s global Generative AI strategy and services, spearheading innovative solutions across the HR technology landscape.
Averbook has guided more than 1,000 HR transformations and deployments for some of the largest, most prestigious organizations in the world. He is the accomplished author of two books illustrating innovative approaches to HR, workforce experience, and digital transformation. From 2018 to 2023, Jason co-founded and served as CEO of Leapgen, a consultancy committed to helping organizations shape the digital workplace. In his expanded role with Mercer, Jason continues to challenge executive mindsets and advocate for digital-first cultures where business and people outcomes mutually flourish.
Averbook's previous experience includes executive and strategy roles Ceridian, PeopleSoft, Knowledge Infusion (later Appirio), and The Marcus Buckingham Group. He serves as adjunct professor at universities worldwide, imparting his knowledge and insights on HR technology and digitization to future generations of leaders.
14. Simona Spelman
Firm: Deloitte Consulting
Title: US Human Capital Leader
Simona Spelman has been Deloitte’s US Human Capital National Managing Partner since 2023, with a principal focus on “making humans better at work and work better for humans.” She advises leaders in achieving their business objectives through a human-centric approach, intersecting with the latest in technology advancements and the evolving business landscape to architect future-focused growth strategies. As an integral part of the Global Human Capital Executive Leadership Team and the Deloitte US Consulting Management Committee, Spelman proactively addresses the work, workforce, and workplace challenges associated with evolving business needs to help make business decisions that maximize both business growth and human potential. Spelman is an active contributor to, and advocates for, prominent Human Capital eminence such as Deloitte’s annual Human Capital Trends report.
Spelman brings over 25 years of experience with Fortune 500 clients, leading them through complex, global transformations at the organizational and technological intersection to achieve business and human outcomes. Her deep expertise is in optimizing staffing and management of delivery models for enterprise programs, which helped her to grow and advance Deloitte’s Human Capital as a Service practice. Her experience includes hands-on experience managing several complex global projects as a single, integrated program leveraging a unified set of resources, governance, program management, quality assurance, and delivery capabilities.
15. Brandon Ledford
Firm: MGT
Title: Senior Vice President, Human Capital Consulting
Brandon Ledford has led MGT’s Human Capital team since 2017. As a senior leader in the social-impact driven company, Ledford partners with state, local, and education (SLED) clients across the United States to help tackle their toughest human capital challenges, from organizational and workforce transformation to recruitment and retention. Ledford has been an integral leader in MGT’s rapid growth journey to be the performance leader in SLED.
Ledford has been a human capital executive with more than 20 years of success in management consulting, organizational improvement, public policy, human capital, project and change management, and process improvement that generates data-driven results in people, operations, and culture.
Prior to joining MGT, Ledford got his start at the White House Office and Science and Technology Policy and has been a consultant for both Deloitte and Booz Allen Hamilton. He holds a master of public policy from George Mason University's School of Public Policy, an undergraduate degree from the Pennsylvania State University, and he is certified in Human Resources (SHRM-SCP), Project Management (PMP), Change Management (Prosci), and Artificial Intelligence (MIT).
16. Pratima Dasgupta
Firm: HCL Technologies
Title: Global Director and Head of Talent Development
Pratima Dasgupta is the Global Director and Head of Talent Development at HCL Technologies, a global technology company with over 227,000 employees across 60 countries. HCL Technologies specializes in digital, engineering, cloud, and AI, offering a broad portfolio of technology services and products. Dasgupta is an experienced consultant who strategizes and leads large-scale HR projects to drive learning transformation and deliver high-value business outcomes.
17. Michael Park
Firm: McKinsey and Company
Title: Senior Partner, People and Organizational Performance Practice Leader
Michael Park is the Senior Partner of McKinsey and Company’s people and organizational performance practice and leads its work in advanced industries. He helps leaders prepare their organizations to be more efficient, innovative, and customer-centric, often during transformations or mergers.
18. Sara Elk
Firm: Bain and Company
Title: Partner
Sara Elk is a Partner at Bain and Company, where she is the global leader of the firm’s people and organization practice. Bain operates in 65 cities across 40 countries, working with clients to achieve significant results and address industry challenges. Elk is also a Senior Leader in the energy and natural resources practice and serves as a member of Bain's global governance committee for compensation and promotion.
19. Greg Gratteau
Firm: BDO USA, LLP
Title: Managing Director
Greg Gratteau is the Managing Director of BDO USA, a global provider of assurance, tax, and financial advisory services. Gratteau focuses on creating a unified operating vision and developing integrated HR programs to support business objectives. His expertise spans business leadership, compensation and benefit design, organizational development, talent management, HRIS management, mergers and acquisitions, and labor relations. Gratteau has led teams in both Fortune 500 and mid-market companies.
20. Fran Maxwell
Firm: Protiviti
Title: Managing Director
Fran Maxwell is the Managing Director of Protiviti’s people advisory and organizational change segment. Based in Phoenix, he brings more than 21 years of experience in human resources and change management consulting to the firm. Protiviti is a global consulting firm that delivers deep expertise, objective insights, a tailored approach, and collaboration to support leaders in addressing their most critical challenges.
21. Matthew Cowell
Firm: FTI Consulting
Title: Senior Managing Director
Matthew Cowell is the Senior Managing Director of the human capital practice at FTI Consulting, a global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organizations resolve financial, legal, operational, political and regulatory, reputational, and transactional disputes.
22. Amanda Grant
Firm: Teneo
Title: Senior Managing Director
Amanda Grant is a Senior Managing Director for Teneo’s people advisory business. With over 25 years of financial services leadership, she has a distinguished track record in globally advising and recruiting C-suite leaders on corporate strategy, talent needs, DE&I, infrastructure, and growth.
23. John Schultz
Firm: Alvarez and Marsal
Title: Managing Director
John Schultz is a Managing Director for Alvarez and Marsal Tax in Denver, co-leading the compensation and benefits practice. Alvarez and Marsal provides advisory services in turnaround management, corporate restructuring, and performance improvement for high-profile businesses and stakeholders.
24. Lisa Massman
Firm: KPMG LLP
Title: Principal, US Human Capital Advisory Leader
Lisa Massman serves as leader of the Human Capital Advisory practice for KPMG, LLP, a global organization providing audit, tax, and advisory services. KPMG operates in 143 countries and territories, with more than 273,000 professionals across its member firms. Massman focuses on helping leaders solve complex human capital issues and is responsible for developing and driving HCA’s strategic priorities and growth.
With more than 30 years of experience teaming with business and technology leadership, Lisa leads teams that work to transform and modernize the Human Resources, Payroll and Learning functions with a focus on digital experience, technology modernization, service delivery and business process optimization, and the innovation of leading edge workforce and talent solutions across the enterprise so organizations can reach the overall business objectives. This includes a passion for advising clients on strategies to manage the ever changing workforce needs, enhance employee engagement, and leverage AI to significantly improve productivity of the workforce.
25. Marni Rozen
Firm: RSM US
Title: Principal and Human Capital Consulting National Leader
Marni Rozen is a Principal and Human Capital Consulting National Leader at RSM US. Rozen has experience supporting clients through M&A post-merger integrations, separations, carve-outs, delivering Human Capital focused solutions to drive transformation and design future-state operating models to meet an organization's business goals and objectives.
