Inside Kearney – More Than Just Operations Consulting, with Partner Dominique Harris (Podcast)

Dominique Harris, a Partner in Kearney’s Leadership, Change, & Organization Practice, joins the podcast on to share:

• The type of work Kearney specializes in (and it’s not just ops consulting!)
• Who the firm is looking to hire
• Kearney’s core values and how that shapes culture
• The interview process at the firm
• Case prep tips
• Application timelines for MBA candidates (get ready to apply in December!)
• & more!

If you’re looking to start or continue your career in consulting for an established player, Kearney is hiring. Explore current opportunities to see if you’re the right fit for Kearney.

Additional Links:

• Learn more about Kearney careers: Careers
• Follow Kearney on LinkedIn: Follow
• Get all your Thanksgiving feast ingredients brought to your door with free delivery on 1st Instacart order: Order Now
• Strategy Sprint virtual consulting project: Learn More and Apply

Transcription: Inside Kearney – More Than Just Operations Consulting (with Dominique Harris, Partner)

Stephanie Knight 

Welcome back to Strategy Simplified. Today I’m excited to bring you a conversation with Dominique Harris of Kearney. Dominique is based out of Chicago and a partner in Kearney’s leadership change and organization practice. She has extensive experience in retail, consumer goods, health care, government and transportation sectors and expertise on various people focused topics like up model design, learning and development, DEI, culture, and change management. Kearney is more than just an operations firm. So stay tuned to learn more about this growing midsize consultancy, what the interview process includes, and her top tips for interview prep. I hope you enjoyed the discussion. Dominique, we are so excited to have you on the Strategy Simplified podcast representing Kearney. Thank you for joining us.

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

I’m happy to be here. Stephanie.

Stephanie Knight 

I would love if you would start us off with a little bit of background and bring us all the way up to the current day. How did you get where you’re at now?

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

Absolutely. It’s been quite a journey, but an exciting journey. So I started out as a business analyst intern at Kearney. I thought I would be a teacher. Thought I would teach business to high schoolers who wanted to get an internship and learning a bit more about business so I would have real-world experiences. And in going through my initial internships, I really was challenged in new ways, met new people, tried new things. And I’m like, hey, why not try this out for the long term and see where it takes me. And so 15 years later, I’m still at the firm. I’ve never officially taught in the classroom outside of my undergrad years. But I teach clients every day because I’m a partner in our leadership change organization practice. So I focus a lot on people, culture, change and capability building. Really exciting topics. And I’ve worked across industries in my years at Kearney. Initially, I was a generalist. But as I aligned to our leadership change and organization practice, I focus a bit more on our healthcare industry, our automotive, transportation and defense, and then a bit of our consumer goods and retail. So very, very exciting for me. I’ve been with the Chicago office my entire journey. I’m born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago. So Chicago has always been dear to my heart. So I’ve traveled to many of our offices around the world. So hopefully that shows you a bit more about my journey so far.

Stephanie Knight 

Oh, absolutely. And I saw that you went to Kellogg?

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

I did.

Stephanie Knight 

I spent like four or five years in Evanston as well with an undergrad degree from Northwestern. So we all you know, just kind of looked in awe at that Kellogg building like that was the place to be. So you decided to stick around Chicago land. I’m excited to learn more and dive in, we will in a few minutes about your particular work. But before we do, would you just help our audience understand more about Kearney as a firm? What’s your value proposition, how do you serve your clients, what type of clients do you serve, etc.

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

Yeah, absolutely. So our value proposition is multifaceted, but one I would say is our entrepreneurial spirit. So with Kearney, we’re a small but agile firm. You could be a big fish in a small pond, however you want to think about it. We have 4000 people, over 4000 people globally, who work for the firm. Which sounds big, but really, it’s easy to build your own path, build your reputation, really start to follow your passions. And that’s what we really encourage all of our employees, teammates to do. Figure out what your passion is, and follow it. We do so much across the firm, known a lot for operations. But we really have a matrix organization where like I said, I do stuff in people, but we also have digital transformation. We also have transformations in transactions, which gets a bit more into M&A. And that’s across industries where we work across every industry there is out there. Energy, health, etc, etc. like I was mentioning. Many of our clients are repeat clients. So 80% of our work is done with repeat clients. And we work with over half of the Fortune 500. So you get to work with the big names out there the names that you probably buy from or that you see in the news. I just got done with a due diligence that was recently announced in the news. And you know, it’s always a good feeling when you’re like you know what, I worked on that and helped make that successful.

Stephanie Knight 

Absolutely, and you know, you hit one of my questions which was going to be when some people might think of Kearney they might even think AT Kearney, they may think operations, they make supply chain, they may think procurement, but you do a broad set of work for your clients, and that led you to leadership change and organization. Tell us more about that area of the business.

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

Yeah, absolutely. So for that area of the business, really we do that work in every project engagement that we do with our clients. But some of that work will entail organization design or operating model design. So looking at your people, the structure of governance, looking at the capabilities, how resources are allocated, and are you able to grow to scale as an organization, do you need to reduce in order to survive as an organization. And then just like, what are the capabilities needed to really support the business needs or your client needs. And so leadership change organization focuses on all aspects of that, and then throw in some processes and some technology, And then we have a whole bunch of things that we really look at across the operating model. And then lastly, I would just say, specializing in change management, change management starts from day one. And, and that’s something that we really like to make sure we emphasize, and we’re bringing people along for the journey. I’ll highlight two more things that are near and dear to my heart is, as I mentioned, I was going to be a teacher. Well, I lead our learning and development offerings as part of the LTL practice. So when it comes to training programs, or even capability development programs, I help to structure what those are, and I helped to build out that commercialization that we have with our clients. So one project I’ve done is with the Chicago Police Department, looking at their training program for police officers. Very impactful work, but also tied to my passion.

Stephanie Knight 

I love that. And it’s not that you’re helping lead the charge just of internal training. It sounds like that’s external training with your clients in a way that they educate and upscale themselves. Got you.

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

Absolutely. It ties my point around having an entrepreneurial spirit. And going back to your question about our value proposition, you have an opportunity to make your mark, to charter your path. If you had asked me when I was coming back from Kellogg as an associate, you know, would I be a partner? Would I be focused on this area of work? I couldn’t answer that completely. But I had the resources around me and the support around me to figure out well asking the right questions, so I could get to my passion and then align that to what we do as a business and as a firm.

Stephanie Knight 

What has kept you there for so long? I know it sounds like you’ve gotten to build your own thing. You’ve talked about entrepreneurial spirit. Yeah. But I’m sure that there’s more issues in addition to that, what are some of those for you?

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

There’s definitely more. So people is number one, right? And so starting now, at such a young age, that was really important because I was getting the support but also getting challenged. But if I think about it, also in terms of going to Kellogg, many times I say that the Kellogg spirit is something that was very similar to what I found at Kearney. Very supportive. You know, many universities or MBA programs are student led. And this is tied to the entrepreneurs of Kearney If you have an idea, you have something you’re passionate about, you can go and speak with partners, they connect with us. And we have many different avenues to invest in various ideas. And so building these relationships over the years, with consulting being the people business that it is that made it very easy for me to want to continue to come back, continueto invest and dive deeper.

Stephanie Knight 

Absolutely, absolutely. Now, over time, you’ve already talked to us a little bit about the differences in your journey, the the breadth of exposure and experience that you’ve gotten to work with. Different offices, different clients, different industries, different functional areas. Is that a common experience for those that decide to join the firm? Do they get that breadth of experience and client work?

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

Yeah, absolutely. When you join the firm as an associate, or at any point in your journey you join as a generalist unless you specifically interviewed for a certain practice. And so as a generalist, you have the opportunity to work across our practices, whether it be an industry practice or the service practice. The leadership change organization practice is considered a service practice. The beauty of joining a service practice is that I work across industries all the time, right? And it will be vice verson. If I join it industry practice, I will work across service lines. So you can continuously get that I would say breadth of experiences as you progress throughout your career, even when you go beyond generalist.

Stephanie Knight 

Is it common at Kearney to choose one of those pathways, industry, or practice area? or is it more like a major and a minor? How has that thought about?

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

Yeah, I would say both. And so you first and, and many times as an associate, and many coming from MBA schools, like I just want to learn, I’m going into consulting because I want to try new things. And we give you the space to do that. We have people experience managers who really helped to cultivate that experience for you, so that we’re understanding what you’re interested in, and helping to connect that with the projects that we have in the pipeline. And so as you continue to progress as an associate, you do want to start to build your platform. You want to be known for something, have an expertise somewhere. And that’s where you started to consider your alignment to either an industry or a service line. Now, as you continue to progress from associate to manager and to principal, you do want to start to narrow that platform to some degree. Now, when I introduced myself, I still said three industries. So it was a little hard for me to choose. And it’s okay. You have to be a bit flexible with the projects that are coming down the pipeline. But we do more than the three industries that I highlighted that I focus on. So you find some area to focus and that’s kind of like having a minor.

Stephanie Knight 

In addition to talking about leadership change in organizations, and the fact that Kearney is not only an operations firm anymore, are there any growth areas that you want to speak to either from the practice or industry angle?

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

Absolutely. Now, I’m not going to deny it. Operations is our bread and butter. We are number one in understanding operations. And in strategic operations. Everything from the plan through to the deliver of the whole value chain, if you think about supply chain, and operations management, and we’re very proud of that. That is a major growth area for us. That is an area that we’re investing in, in every part of that plan, make, source and deliver. And even at times, I will say service lines partner together to deliver to a client. A very simple example would be if a supply chain organization wants to train up their employees, well, they’ll bring in someone from LCL to help with that. And it could be in the retail industry. And so practices are always working together in different ways. So other area, that’s a huge area of a huge area of growth and investment for this firm will be our transformations and transactions practice. So this is a practice that has continued to evolve. And what it does is it brings together what used to be our Pima, our Private Equity and M&A practice, as well as our advanced or accelerated transformations practice. It brings it together into one big practice, where we see there’s a lot of movement in the market, with our clients in this area. And we know that we have the expertise to really help clients successfully come together as businesses and launch into their next project. So that’s the area that we’re investing in.

Stephanie Knight 

That’s a lot of exciting different areas. And it sounds like a great opportunity of just a great season for for growth and expansion at Kearney. And I understand that that’s also representative in the fact that you are hiring right now.

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

Absolutley.

Stephanie Knight 

So what kind of people are you looking for, Dominique? Who makes a good Kearney consultant?

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

Yes, yes. Excellent question. So one thing I would say just going back to our people, we have core values here at the firm. And so I’m just gonna rattle them off. And when we think about our people, when I go through and I’m conducting interviews, I am looking for some of these values. And do you excude them in some way, detail stories that exuce them. Curiosity, generosity, boldness, solidarity, and passion. We have these five values that are areas that are core to being a great person, and I’m sorry, not great person, but great person and a great consultant, I should say. Because consulting is so personalble and includes so much of building relationships with people. A couple of other things, I would just say in terms of what we’re looking for. We’re not saying you need to know it all, but we want to know do you have that curiosity or that intellectual curiosity to continue to learn. Consultants are kind of lifelong learners. There’s always something new that we’re doing. There’s always a learning curve. So do you have that will to really get into the details. And then do you have the will to build skills to be a great consultant. And so thinking about coming out of MBA school, that means you probably did something prior to where you bring some asset to the firm. And are you able to articulate that. So if you were a teacher, your ability to communicate. If you worked in I-banking, your analytical and problem solving skills. You have something that you’re bringing, and we want to hear that, because that makes our firm better. Our people are our greatest asset to our clients.

Stephanie Knight 

Absolutely. It’s the name of the game. It’s the lifeblood of the business. Right?

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

It is, it is.

Stephanie Knight 

So at this point in time, we’re just before Thanksgiving here. There are certainly a lot of MBAs that are starting to think really long and hard about summer internship recruiting process. So what are the timelines and opportunities available this season for MBAs at Kearney?

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

Absolutely, we’re in the thick of things. I know, just a few weeks ago, I was at a corporate presentation, and it was really energizeing to be back in person. And so I’m hoping that whatever campus you’re on, you’re looking at our website. We have on our website the various schools that we go to in person. And then we also have a lot of virtual events. So you can still engage with us virtually through those webinars, etc, or just reaching out to some of the people who you see on the website. So to your point about timelines, etc, there’s events going on right now. We will have a time I would say coming up towards the end of November, mid-December, where it’ll be an opportunity to drop or submit your resume. For our core schools, we have again, we have our website, and it highlights those job deadlines. And so I encourage you to go to our website, go to where we have our recruiting timelines in schools that we’re focused on, and be ready to drop around mid-December. And then I would say interviews will start in, I would say, early 2023. So January, a little bit of February, but by February, you should know if you’ve gotten through our interview round. And so I’ll just say really quickly interviews. Our interviews are two faceted. So one is behavioral, two is around the casing. And so we have two rounds of interviews that take place. And both types of interviews happen in each round. So the first round will include one behavioral and one case interview. In the second round, we’ll have one behavioral and two case interviews. And so the casing heart is really important because it’s your opportunity to showcase your ability to problem solve, from an analytical standpoint, from just a thoughtful, intentional, qualitative problem solving standpoint as well. So check your numbers, get your numbers, right, there’s always, don’t mess up the zeros, right. So drill that in now. Keep practicing the casing now. But then also, how are you able to communicate your recommendation? Are you asking questions when you’re going through the case for us framework. Do you have some level of structure. These are all things that are running through our head during these case interviews. And so I highlight that just a bit more just because I know everyone’s so nervous about that. And I want to make it clear what do we expect. I guess the last thing I just mentioned is that usually when someone on our side is doing it or giving a case interview, it’s usually a case that we’ve done before so always ask what’s the story behind that, what really happened.

Stephanie Knight 

Oh, I love it. I love it. Just microcosms representation of the type of work that you do every day, right, because you’re testing to see if that person is ready to join the team, like they got to be ready to jump into the conversation. Thank you so much for walking through all of that. I wanted to ask you kind of midway in between there as people are getting to know the firm and thinking about Kearney. How important is it to you as a firm that people try to get to know you before they apply. Is that kind of networking process, is that important or not too much anymore?

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

It is absolutely important. And that’s why even though it’s just a few weeks out from the resume drop, still engage on our website, look at whatever interview we have coming out, whether in person or virtually, because you get to learn more about people in our culture, the type of work that we do a bit deeper and more than what you will find just on the website. It’s good to do your research. I’ts interesting when I have an interview where it’s clear that the person doesn’t really know the firm at all in terms of just how did they even decipher us on one firm to another at the basic level. And so try to make sure you’ve done some level of research as you go into your interview, so that your questions at your interview don’t come off as maybe too surface level. We want to know that you’re interested in the firm. We know that people are casting a wide net. But we want to know you invested something to get to know us a little bit.

Stephanie Knight 

Absolutely. Yeah, it’s not that you want to work anywhere in consulting, but it makes sense for you to work at Kearney.

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

Exactly, exactly.

Stephanie Knight 

I’m sure at this point, Dominique, that you have led through hundreds of interviews. What are some of the things that make people stand out? What are those top qualities that just rock stars always seem to have?

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

Well, one area I will mention this is really being able to channel your nerves or your nervousness for energy. And so when someone comes to the interview is able to show up as their true selves as much as possible, where I’m able to get the vibe off of them, if I want to use some new generation language, but really start to understand what are they passionate about, what makes them perk up, get them to smile, and just get deeper into the story that they have to tell that answer the questions that I’m giving them. Answer the questions around behavioral or fit for the firm and fit for consulting. Or even as they work through the casing how they’re able to lean in and show that they’re energized about it versus that and like not interested, right. And so some of that, I will say as some of the rockstars I’ve seen. Ability to communicate. You don’t know what questions that you’re going to get asked when you’re coming into the interview. But I can tell someone who’s prepared versus unprepared from a behavioral standpoint. Someone who’s thought through their experiences, how they can answer different questions or bring various stories. And it’s less about studying every single question that you may get. And it’s more about thinking through your experiences, and how do you articulate your stories to best share what you’re bringing to the firm, what you what you’ve experienced in the past and things like that. So rock stars are able to articulate that in a great way. So I’ll layer on to that articulating that means that they practice it, right. So it’s one thing to think about it, it’s another thing to practice it with a peer, say it out loud in the mirror. Speak and look at your facial expressions, things like that. All of that matters in a few basics that you are able to control. And then the last thing I’ll say, the last thing I’ll say is related to the case interview. And ones that have proceeded to stick out for me are ones that kind of go two steps beyond what is asked for in the case, in a sense of one being creative with some of their solutioning. So go ahead and hit the basics are the foundational things that you know we should talk about, or that you know, should be in a structure. But then what’s the one or two creative pieces you could add on to there that’s either related to your previous experience, or what you just know will be relevant for this case. And two, taking notes enough to know when to circle back to maybe a piece of information that was given that doesn’t get left hanging at the end of the interview. So those would be all of my tips for the rockstars. You don’t have to do everything but you can do a few of those.

Stephanie Knight 

Absolutely. Oh my gosh, you’ve shared so many great prep tips there. As candidates are thinking about this preparation process and Kearney specifically, any any other thoughts you have from that candidate mindset research preparation?

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

Yeah, I will say that practice, practice, practice. Practice with your peers. So with the behavioral and the casing. Don’t think you just like read it on your own and kind of hide the answer from yourself. Like really practice speaking with someone else, engaging with someone else, making that eye contact. And then in terms of research, there’s like the Case in Point books, some of those foundational case books, making sure you take advantage of those. And lastly, the resources that your clubs provide in your clubs. Fun fact that hopefully you know, we have scholars. I was a scholar for Kearney when I went to Kellogg, and so that means I’m sponsored by the firm. But that means I’m also an ambassador for the firm on site, on campus. So we have many, many scholars at campuses across the country. Engage them. Get to know a little bit more about the firm through them. And they can also give you some tips for interviewing.

Stephanie Knight 

Absolutely. Well, Dominique, you mentioned going to the website, understanding in person virtual events, maybe reaching out to your scholar if you’re part of a campus program. Any other thoughts you have about kind of what people need to know about Kearney or how they could get to know you even better?

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

Yeah, so in terms of other things people should know about Kearney or to get to know us better. I have cold outreach via LinkedIn all the time. When I can I respond, we set up time and we talk. So don’t discount the cold outreach at times. We are people firm, we work side by side with our clients who really value that aspect of our firm. And so being able to bring your true self to any interaction you’re having for whether it be events or interviews is so important, because we want to see that you will be able to mold with us with the clients, and you’ll be able to bring a similar culture. And so I just wouldn’t proceed to encourage that in terms of figuring out how you prepare for this recruiting season.

Stephanie Knight 

I want to pivot to some fun questions to get to know you on a personal level, that’s a Strategy, Simplified tradition. But anything else you want to say about the firm, the work you do and the type of people you’re looking for before we go there?

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

We’re looking for people who are interested in learning, who have curiosity for various industries, building different strategies, who want to drive an impact, right? You know, one thing I didn’t get to mention as much about is the work that we do from a social impact standpoint, the commitments we have, from an ESG standpoint. We love to give back. Before ESG was ESG, we were working deep in our communities already. And though social impact isn’t a practice, per se, we have a huge community where we bring in a pipeline of various projects, like I mentioned with that training project with Chicago PD was part of our social impact work. And now we have commitments from all of our practices to focus there. And so I just wanted to highlight that is something that we’re very committed to as a firm, and I know many candidates out there are pretty interested in being able to make an impact. And so there’s an opportunity to do that here while you’re at Kearney.

Stephanie Knight 

Thank you for mentioning that. And actually, this first personal question, I do want to have you reflect on your your time at the firm. Is there a particularly favorite moment, or memory that you’d like to share with the audience about your time at the firm?

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

Yeah, you know, I have so many awesome memories here at the really special, special times. And so I’ll try to pick one maybe, it’s so hard. But I would say early on in my career, I actually never had the opportunity to travel internationally. And I was working on a mega supplier deal focused on cocoa for a consumer products company. And we needed to go into some workshops with suppliers and with the clients, and we needed to travel to Zurich. I had a passport, just never had use it. My manager at the time was from Norway. And when he found out that I had never been able to travel internationally, he said Paris is on the way to Zurich. So why don’t we fly to Paris and work all day Friday. And then go out and you get to see Paris for the weekend. And Sunday, we could go to Zurich and be ready for the client workshop. And I was like, that sounds great. So it wasn’t just myself, it was the whole team. And that’s what we did. And so, you know, that’s an example of our values in its truest form of people caring for other people and creating opportunities, showing generosity and solidarity. So that’s one of my favorite memories, and really has influenced how I lead my team as a partner.

Stephanie Knight 

Oh, my gosh, what a fun story. And I totally agree. It just echoes the values that you spoke to, to be able to offer that to not only you but the rest of the team. Well, and then finally here, Dominique, we’ve got Thanksgiving right around the corner. So do you have a favorite meal, or is there a part of that that not only the table, but maybe even your time together with friends or family that you reflect on and would love to share with us?

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

Absolutely. Well, I’m the oldest of five. Family is very important to me, and I really like to cook and bake and whatnot. That’s a way of just releasing and being able to do something that’s non-work related. So many times I will cook the full Thanksgiving spread. But I do have a go-to dish that I like to make, which is lasagna. But regardless of what I would make, I will always, always ask my mom to make her sweet potato pie. That is what I always love to have for Thanksgiving.

Stephanie Knight 

I’m looking for it. That’s on my mom’s listed this year is sweet potato pie. So I’m looking forward to it. Dominique, it has been a pleasure to get to know more about you and the firm. We’ll put some links in the show notes to let people get to some of those resources you mentioned before. And yeah, just thanks so much for being with us today.

Kearney: Dominique Harris 

Thank you for having me. It was a joy, and I look forward to meeting people.

Stephanie Knight 

Thanks for joining us today. Make sure to check out the link in the show notes to learn more about Kearney, their upcoming events, how to apply and what open positions are available. And consider working with us here at Management Consulted in your preparation process before you apply.