One on One With Sage Partner's Thomas Doorley

Upon approaching the mandatory retirement age at Deloitte, Thomas Doorley decided he wasn't ready to quit the profession. He instead set out to found a new firm, Sage Partners. He has experience building a successful firm. He co-founded Braxton, which he sold to Deloitte in 1984. He then spent the next two decades integrating it into the firm's strategy and operations management practice. (Braxton's brand remained so strong that when Deloitte Consulting considered breaking away from its parent company in 2002, it was going to change its name to Braxton.) Consulting One on One sat down with Doorley, Sage's CEO and Chairman, to find out about his newest firm.

Consulting: Beyond size – Deloitte has 165,000-plus professionals, Sage has 13—how is Sage different from your prior firm?

Doorley: It's a completely different model. Everyone here has run a company, or a division of a large company, or has been a consultant to senior management. We don't have a minimum age, but we're looking for consultants with enough experience that they've bumped into almost every issue before.