West Monroe Promotes 7 New Managing Directors

Group reflects firm's mission to build the next generation of leaders for clients and the community

CHICAGO, Feb. 29, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- West Monroe, a business and technology consulting firm, today announced the promotion of seven individuals to managing director.

"In every sense, today's announcement reflects our mission to build the next generation of leaders. I am incredibly proud of these exceptional individuals who are shaping the future of their clients' organizations as well as our own," said Kevin McCarty, Chairman & CEO. "Each leader in this group has made impactful contributions to West Monroe's clients, communities, and people, and I congratulate them for reaching this well-deserved milestone in their careers."

West Monroe promoted the following leaders to managing director:

• Nate Buniva, as part of the operations excellence practice, helps clients navigate global strategic sourcing, contract negotiation, supplier and supply chain management, cost optimization, and contingent labor challenges. He's sourced more than $2.75 billion in various deals for Fortune 100 clients and saved more than $500 million through sourcing, streamlining suppliers, negotiating contracts, and early exits from transition services agreements. He is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and joined West Monroe in 2020 through the acquisition of Pace Harmon.
• Adam Drake, as part of the mergers & acquisitions practice, partners with some of the world's largest private equity firms to accelerate growth, mitigate risk, and improve efficiency of portfolio companies. He has guided dozens of companies through complex challenges such as carveouts and mergers, software consolidations, IT transformations, and cost takeouts. He has also led over 500 diligences, including take-private deals with valuations up to $6 billion. He joined West Monroe in 2016.
• Kate Festle, as part of the mergers & acquisitions practice, partners with private equity and strategic buyers in pre-acquisition due diligence, post-merger integration, and value creation to succeed in the healthcare marketplace. She is passionate about behavioral health, having led more than 50 buy-side, sell-side, and technology transformation initiatives in that space. Kate was named an Emerging Leader by M&A Advisor in 2022. She joined West Monroe in 2018.
• Carolyn Gusick, as part of the product experience & engineering lab, blends her product management expertise with her background in utilities to deliver digital solutions. She enjoys working with creative and engineering teams from product strategy through development and seeing the positive impact digital products bring. For a large utility, Carolyn supervised an intranet launch for over 15,000 employees that was selected as a top intranet by the Nielsen Norman Group. She joined West Monroe in 2016.
• Nick Kennedy, as part of the operations excellence practice, helps organizations realize anticipated benefits and manage change for their most important strategic transformations. With 15 years of experience, he continues to bring passion to every engagement by aligning executives and their teams to desired outcomes and sustain organizational goals. He joined West Monroe in 2010.
• Jeff Pehler, as part of the consumer & industrial products practice, uses a data-driven approach to help manufacturing and retail clients deliver successful growth and performance improvement initiatives. For a leading consumer services company, he developed a market-leading product launch and program tracking plan to drive over $20 million in annual sales growth. He joined West Monroe in 2021.
• Jonathan Ross, as part of the mergers & acquisitions practice, collaborates with private equity firms and strategic buyers to plan and execute global and highly complex transactions. He has advised CIOs on dozens of multi-year separation and integration projects for Fortune 500 companies and divested business units over $3 billion in revenue. He has also led over 50 diligences focusing on increasing enterprise value through digital value creation and data. He joined West Monroe in 2016.

All promotions are effective March 1, 2024.

About West Monroe

West Monroe is a digital services firm that was born in technology but built for business—partnering with companies in transformative industries to deliver quantifiable financial value. We believe that digital is a mindset—not a project, a team, or a destination—and it's something companies become, not something they do. That's why we work in diverse, multidisciplinary teams that blend management consulting, digital design, and product engineering to move companies from traditional ways of working to digital operating models—and create experiences that transcend the digital and physical worlds. Connected by the five values that drive our culture, our 2,000 employees work collaboratively across the firm with the belief that our clients' success is our success. Visit WestMonroe.com to learn more.

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SOURCE West Monroe Partners