One on One with Cliff Consulting's Robin Nasatir

Not many management consultancies can say they got their start during the Nixon Administration, but Cliff Consulting can. In 2012, Cliff will celebrate its 40th anniversary and President Robin Nasatir says the Oakland-based firm has big plans to celebrate the start of the firm's fifth decade in business. What's on the agenda? Here's a hint: It involves, like nearly everything Cliff does, partnering with its clients, some of which—like Wells Fargo—have been with the firm for more than 35 years. Consulting One on One sat down with Nasatir to discuss the anniversary and just what lies ahead for the niche IT operations and strategy firm.

Consulting: So, let's start with your 40th anniversary. How do you plan on celebrating that landmark?

Nasatir: Like everything we do, we wanted to do something focused on partnering with our clients. So, we'll be reaching out to all of our clients and ask them to nominate San Francisco area-focused charities. We'll choose four to six of those nominations and partner with clients to help them make an impact to the charity of their choice. These are not just financial contributions, but more time and talent contributions where we would really be able to make a considerably larger impact to an organization. So, that's one aspect of it. But we didn't want to limit ourselves to just the four or six big partnerships we end up choosing, so we're also asking all of our clients to identify a charitable organization, and then we'll donate money to the nonprofit on the client's behalf. So it's two tiered: There will be four to six big-impact partnerships with clients and their nonprofit organization; and then there will be other monetary donations on behalf of all of our clients.