Dean Fischer, president and co-founder of Chicago-headquartered West Monroe Partners, heads a firm that focuses on getting a good "gene pool." According to Fischer, that means people who fit into the positive culture at the firm, typically have a good deal of technical knowledge and probably do not have an MBA. The result? Nonstop growth—the firm, which opened in 2002, now boasts 220 billable consultants. Growth also includes a new office opening in Dallas in just a few weeks and big-name clients like Merrill Lynch and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Here, Fischer opens up about his surprise at the talent challenges before him and how happy employees in turn create happy clients.
Consulting: You just opened a New York office. Tell us about how you've been growing.
Fischer: There's a long history of firms that have grown through acquisition. If you grow though merger and acquisition, you inevitably end up with a really, really goofy gene pool because you don't end up with people who end up working well together, and it ultimately implodes. We start new offices. We don't go out as a general manner and do an acquisition, [but] we've done some smaller ones. We'll be opening up a Dallas office on Sept. 1.
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