Consultant, Strategy & Leadership Advisory

Ferguson Partners; Illinois; On-site; USD 80,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading consulting firm in Illinois is looking for a Consultant to join their Strategy & Leadership Advisory team. The ideal candidate will have 4-7 years of consulting experience, strong client engagement abilities, and excellent PowerPoint skills. Responsibilities include managing client workstreams, leading deliverables, and supporting business development efforts. This role offers the opportunity to contribute to high-quality client work in a collaborative environment.

Qualifications

• 4–7 years of relevant consulting or human capital experience.
• Strong client presence with senior HR and business leaders.
• Demonstrated business development aptitude.

Responsibilities

• Lead design and production of executive client materials.
• Manage engagement components, owning scope and timelines.
• Act as a client contact and support working meetings.

Skills

Consulting experience

Client engagement

PowerPoint skills

Data analysis

Communication skills

Education

Bachelor's degree

MBA or relevant master's degree

Job description

Ferguson Partners is a global talent management firm with a strong concentration in the real estate and finance industries. Our committed senior leaders bring a wealth of expertise and category-specific knowledge to Board of Directors and executives in the industry. Ferguson Partners is comprised of two primary operating companies that work together to serve a common client base. Ferguson Partners Consulting provides a range of specialized compensation and management consulting services and Ferguson Partners provides executive, director, and professional search services. Through our complementary practice areas, we work with our clients to develop the right talent, leadership, structures, and strategies for success in today’s intensely competitive marketplace. Headquartered in Chicago, the firm also has US offices in Charlotte, Los Angeles and New York and international offices in London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney and Singapore.

The Role

Ferguson Partners is hiring a Consultant to join the Strategy & Leadership Advisory team. The Consultant will be a practical, client‑facing senior consultant who can run end‑to‑end workstreams (from scoping and proposal through delivery), lead client conversations with senior stakeholders, and produce polished, executive‑grade deliverables. The role is equal parts client‑facing and delivery‑oriented: the successful candidate will be comfortable as the “right‑hand” to partners and directors — facilitating senior conversations, designing and building pitch decks and readouts, and owning the detail work required to move opportunities from sold to delivered with minimal oversight. This role is intended to up‑level delivery capability on the team — a generalist with specialist tendencies (succession & leadership continuity, assessment and talent strategy, and change acceleration/operational excellence) who can both lead projects and execute high‑quality materials and sessions.

Key responsibilities include:

Client Impact

You will play a key role in delivering high‑quality client work and building trusted relationships with senior leaders.

• End-to-end deliverable ownership: Lead the design, drafting, and production of executive‑level client materials, including pitch decks, proposals, assessment summaries, and implementation roadmaps, in line with Ferguson Partners’ quality and storytelling standards.
• Workstream leadership: Manage discrete engagement components, owning scope, timelines, and outputs while escalating key risks and decisions as needed.
• Client facilitation: Lead and co‑facilitate client workshops and working sessions (e.g., succession planning, assessment debriefs, change acceleration), increasingly operating independently.
• Insight synthesis & recommendations: Translate qualitative and quantitative inputs into clear, actionable insights and prioritized recommendations for clients.
• Day-to-day client engagement: Act as a client contact in partnership with senior team members, supporting discovery, debriefs, and working meetings while building credibility with CHROs and senior executives.
• Issue & opportunity identification: Identify and surface client needs, risks, and opportunities to help shape engagement direction and next steps.

You will help raise the quality, consistency, and scalability of the firm’s work.

• Quality control & standards: Ensure client deliverables meet Ferguson Partners’ standards for analytical rigor, structure, and visual excellence, leading peer reviews and final polish before delivery.
• Matrixed resource coordination: Coordinate internal and external contributors — including associates, subject‑matter experts, and vendors — to deliver high‑quality work.
• Informal coaching & mentoring: Provide facilitation coaching, tactical guidance, and on‑the‑job support to junior team members without formal people‑management responsibility.
• Tools & template development: Contribute to the development and scaling of reusable tools, templates, diagnostics, and workshop materials to improve efficiency and repeatability across engagements.

Firm Growth

You will support the firm’s continued growth through solution development and commercial efforts.

• Solution & playbook development: Contribute to the refinement of Ferguson Partners’ solution offerings, particularly across succession and leadership continuity, assessment and talent strategy, and change acceleration.
• Thought leadership & IP: Produce client‑ready points of view, proposals, and intellectual capital that differentiate the firm in the market.
• Business development support: Draft pitch materials and proposals, contribute to SOW and pricing inputs, and participate in pitches and client meetings alongside partners and directors.
• Account expansion support: Build account knowledge and help identify opportunities to expand existing client relationships.
• Pipeline & CRM management: Maintain accurate pipeline data and CRM records to support effective opportunity tracking and pursuit.

What Success Looks Like

• Leads assigned client work with limited oversight and consistently produces executive‑grade deliverables that enable client decisions and action.
• Runs multiple engagements or workstreams concurrently, provides practical coaching to junior colleagues, and contributes to team business wins.
• Functions as a high‑quality, highly leveraged partner to senior staff — facilitating key conversations, influencing client stakeholders, and managing delivery end‑to‑end.
• Builds pipeline and supports origination activity that meaningfully grows the practice.
• Demonstrates strong ownership and follow‑through, anticipating risks, driving momentum, and ensuring engagements stay on track from kickoff through delivery; operates with a high degree of autonomy and initiative.

Qualifications

• 4–7 years of relevant consulting or in‑house human capital / leadership advisory experience
• Demonstrated experience with succession planning, talent strategy, leadership assessment/debriefs, and/or change acceleration.
• Strong client and executive presence — comfortable engaging senior HR and business leaders and facilitating executive sessions.
• Outstanding PowerPoint and visual storytelling skills; advanced ability to synthesize complex information into clear, compelling executive materials.
• Excellent quantitative and qualitative analysis capabilities; comfortable with data synthesis and business cases.
• Strong writing and verbal communication skills; confident presenting to senior audiences.
• Track record leading projects or standalone workstreams and delivering against timelines.
• Demonstrated BD aptitude: drafting proposals, supporting pricing, participating in pitches and building client relationships.
• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree (MBA, Masters in Organizational Psychology / HR) is a plus.
• Travel: up to ~20% (typical for client work).

Preferred / Differentiating Experience

• Experience in real estate / real assets or related financial services is helpful.
• Familiarity with leadership assessment tools (Hogan, Insights Discovery, etc.) and frameworks and experience debriefing executives.
• Background combining strategy design and hands‑on implementation (comfortable designing approaches and executing session materials).
• Experience with pricing/packaging advisory offerings and managing margin on fixed‑price engagements.

Behaviors & Attributes

• Entrepreneurial, “roll‑up‑your‑sleeves” orientation — hands‑on delivery while partnering with senior client owners.
• Learning mindset — asks for and acts on feedback; brings points of view and continuous improvement.
• High standards for quality and an obsessive attention to detail.
• Collaborative team player who can also operate autonomously amid ambiguity.
• Self‑starter who demonstrates strong initiative and a high degree of personal accountability, anticipating needs and acting proactively. Balanced generalist: curious and enthusiastic across solution sets with a practical tilt toward succession & leadership continuity.