Senior Consultant, Family Enterprises and Owner-Led Businesses

Department: Consulting

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: Philadelphia

Description

Our family enterprises and owner-led businesses practice partners with business founders, owners, leaders, and families to locate and amplify both the will and the skill to make choices that propel themselves toward their chosen futures. Our work focuses on transitions that require expert understanding of the systems at play in the business and in the family. Our engagements include succession planning, strategy development, establishing family governance and/or foundations, creating a board of directors, next generation development, readying a business for sale, and partnering where the stakes are high-both personally and professionally.

Senior Consultants are seasoned professionals with a passion for helping CFAR make an impact in our markets as we build our growing business. In this role, you will make significant contributions to business development, cultivate client relationships, and work collaboratively with CFAR Principals and other members of the CFAR team to deliver exceptional services.

The Family Enterprises and Owner-Led Businesses Senior Consultant will bring relevant expertise applicable to the field and can get "up to speed" quickly when working with clients. They will demonstrate the capacity to develop effective and collegial consulting relationships with clients, and work respectfully and productively with people at all levels of the organization. Senior Consultants are comfortable with the complexities and dynamics of business and enterprise performance, including but not limited to general management, financial management, strategy, culture, operations, family dynamics, and/or marketing and communications. Senior Consultants have a track record of developing new business and demonstrate the ability to prospect clients, explore organizational needs, develop tailored project designs, lead sales calls, and write winning proposals.

Senior Consultants will be active in translating ideas from client work and their own experience into opportunities to write and present, building on CFAR's foundation of thought leadership.

This role also holds the potential to "fast-track" to ownership as a Principal owner of the firm.

Location: Flexible. Ideally, we seek individuals in Philadelphia or Boston. Our current work environment is hybrid.
Travel: 20% to 40% travel to client sites.

Our goal is to hire people whom we can imagine will one day become principal owners of the firm. Compensation will be dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case, and will include a combination of base salary, competitive benefits, time off, and performance-based bonus and incentives.

The Person

• Ideal candidates have worked directly with family-owned or founder-led businesses, or family offices as a strategist, consultant, or advisor to such organizations, or from within one as an owner, family member, or enterprise leader, coming to us with an ability to quickly develop business or to bring your own practice into CFAR.
• We seek candidates with a solid, practical sense of how to work with, provide guidance to, and support clients in complex organizational environments, and an attunement to human behavior.
  • This is particularly important, as our work demands a keen ability to distinguish between and interpret both what is explicitly stated and the tacit dynamics at play in any given situation, which we find can often point to a deeper issue at play.
• Above all, we are looking for dynamic people who can exhibit presence, confidence, and humility in the face of complicated client problems.

How we work together internally is just as important to us as how we work with our clients, and we strive to find individuals who fit our culture and share our values. These are people who display a natural curiosity and a commitment to putting good ideas to work, have a demonstrated record of leadership within and outside the workplace, enjoy working in an entrepreneurial environment, and are fun to be around.

Key Responsibilities

Client Project Work

• Manage day-to-day execution across multiple client engagements, ensuring quality, timeliness, and attention to detail
• Translate insights from client work into thought leadership and firm-building contributions

Team Collaboration

• Work collaboratively with CFAR Principals and team members to deliver exceptional service
• Contribute to CFAR's growing practice and community of thought leaders in the family enterprise and owner-led business space

Relationship and Business Development

• Cultivate client relationships and develop tailored project designs, with particular emphasis on family enterprises and owner-led businesses
• Lead sales calls and write winning proposals, drawing on direct experience with the dynamics of family and founder-led organizations
• Build and expand CFAR's book of business in the family enterprise and owner-led business space

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

Required

• Direct experience consulting to, advising, working within, or leading a family-owned or founder-led business or family office
• A track record of developing new business, including prospecting clients, exploring organizational needs, and writing winning proposals
• 10 or more years of professional experience, with a graduate degree in a relevant field (e.g., business, psychology)
• Outstanding intellectual abilities and analytic rigor
• The ability to read both what is explicitly stated and what is tacitly at play in organizational settings
• Comfort with ambiguity and the ability to multi-task across projects

Preferred

• Deep business acumen
• Demonstrated collaborative working style, including experience developing others
• Familiarity with systems thinking and psychodynamics