An entrepreneur at heart, Steven has launched and led successful consulting companies, offices, and practices, creating solutions with the CXOs of the world’s leading brands in high-tech, finance, healthcare, retail, and consumer packaged goods. Today, he applies that experience in his role as leader of our San Francisco office and the leader of Operations Excellence – our largest practice.
Steven’s aim is simple: maximize competitive advantage for clients through innovative technology solutions and uniquely successful partnerships with their suppliers. His knack for establishing leverage in negotiations where none exists, designing deals that work in the short and long-term while reducing client risk, and achieving those deals in record time has generated significant value for his clients for over a generation. His solutions typically deliver a 10 to 20-times return on his team’s consulting fees. For example, one of his teams recently helped one of the world’s top-five technology companies save more than $1 billion – more than 50 times the fees.
Steven’s formula for success? A laser focus on making everyone around him successful across clients, colleagues, and suppliers. He brings strategy development and negotiation experience across multiple industries and disciplines– with a focus on how best to leverage talent across complex IT and business services, application development and maintenance. His subject matter expertise helps clients understand the art of the possible, and his experience leading complex negotiations allows his clients to achieve and implement stretch goals that last.
Steven joined West Monroe from Pace Harmon, where he was a managing director. He opened and led Pace Harmon’s San Francisco office, launching its Application Development and Maintenance, Managed Print, IT Hardware Leasing, and Wireless Sourcing practices. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Haverford College and an MBA in finance from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
What makes Steven different
The son of two refugees, he is skilled at building understanding across different cultures and spent five years of his career living overseas before returning to his home state of California to start a family.
How Steven delivers work has influenced clients and colleagues as much as what he delivers. Clients attracted to his working style have added him to their ‘personal board of directors’, and colleagues have emulated his approach to work-life balance; multiple colleagues have asked him to officiate their wedding ceremonies.
Where Steven makes an impact
Steven is deeply committed to developing consulting leaders. He strives to personify integrity, authenticity, collegiality, empathy, and enthusiasm so colleagues feel like family, and the office feels like home.
Steven inspires colleagues to apply the same qualities as volunteers. He regularly volunteers with the National Park Service in the Bay Area, and for over a decade, he has led an annual volunteer trip to Yosemite National Park in support of the initiatives that matter most to park rangers there.
