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Best Boutique Consulting Firms

Which are the best small, mid-sized and specialist consulting firms to work for?
Survey Methodology

What is a boutique firm?

While there is no hard and fast definition, the term is generally understood within the consulting industry to refer to firms that are narrower in focus and smaller in size than the larger, generalist firms that can offer advice across a wide range of practice areas and industries. Thus, each of the firms on this ranking are specialists in their practice areas--some have, in fact, just one area of specialization, and all had fewer than 750 consultants at the time of publication.

Why work for a boutique?

There are many reasons why someone would choose to work for a boutique consulting firm over one of the larger competitors in the industry. For example, boutiques tend to offer better work-life balance opportunities. Some staff employees locally, as opposed to firms that operate on 100% travel models. And sometimes, it just comes down to specialization: if you're only interested in economics or public sector consulting, it might not make sense to work at a firm where you'll be expected to rotate through a variety of practice areas in your first two years.

Every year, we look at our consulting survey data from a number of angles, trying to find insights and takeaways about the consulting industry that we haven't seen before. One of those insights led directly to the creation of the Best Boutique Firms ranking--that when you compare responses of employees from large firms and those who work for boutiques, one major factor stands out: big firm consultants are much more likely to value the prestige of their organization than those who work for boutiques.

Interestingly, the remaining factors that motivate employees at the two groups of firms are almost identical and, when prestige is excluded, are also weighted almost identically.

As a result, we decided to examine our data from that perspective: to eliminate prestige as a concern, and simply rank the boutique firms based on the remaining factors that consultants identified as being important to them, weighted as closely as possible to their relative importance in our survey data. The result is this ranking, which is weighted as follows:

25% Firm Culture
20% Satisfaction
20% Work/Life Balance
10% Level of Challenge
10% Compensation
10% Overall Business Outlook
5% Promotion Policies

As ever, our survey is only open to consultants who are currently employed at reputable firms in the industry. When rating quality of life issues, consultants are only permitted to rate their own firm. For prestige and practice area rankings, however, consultants are only allowed to rate competitors, and NOT their own firms.

Take Our Survey

Each year Vault invites eligible consulting firms to participate in our annual Consulting Survey. Please contact us if you’re interested in having your firm considered for inclusion.

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2022 Best Boutique Consulting Firms

#1
SCORE 9.511
2021 Rank 1

ghSMART

ghSMART Founder Dr. Geoff Smart’s Psychology PhD dissertation found that those private equity firms best at choosing teams made the most money. Equipped with an expertise in human behavior, he and his early colleagues went on to advise private...

Overview Survey Says Why Work Here Employee Reviews
#2
SCORE 9.190
2021 Rank 9

The Bridgespan Group

Co-founder and managing partner of The Bridgespan Group, Jeffrey L. Bradach left his post at Harvard  Business School’s Organizational Behavior and Social Enterprise Initiative department, where he was a  professor, to start the firm. Bradach is...

Overview Survey Says Employee Reviews
#3
SCORE 9.188
2021 Rank 7

Potomac Point Group

Potomac Point Group is a boutique management consulting firm. Since 2011, the firm has worked closely together with its clients to help them innovate, tackle change, and make lasting enhancements to their businesses. Some of Potomac Point...

Overview Survey Says Employee Reviews
#4
SCORE 9.151
2021 Rank 11

DeciBio Consulting

DeciBio Consulting is a boutique strategy consulting firm focusing on the life science industry. DeciBio's mission is to provide the strategic insights that accelerate the development, adoption, and accessibility of precision medicine.  ...

Overview Survey Says Employee Reviews
#5
SCORE 9.097
2021 Rank 3

Putnam

For more than 30 years Putnam Associates operated independently, growing into a premier strategy consulting firm serving biopharmaceutical, biotechnology (cell, gene and tissue therapies), diagnostics, medical device, and related clients in the...

Overview Survey Says Why Work Here Employee Reviews
#6
SCORE 9.044
2021 Rank 27

Triangle Insights Group, LLC

Triangle Insights Group is a strategy consulting firm that provides strategic guidance on the most critical business issues to leaders in life sciences organizations. The company supports clients in the therapeutics, diagnostics, and medical...

Overview Survey Says Employee Reviews
#7
SCORE 9.034
2021 Rank 8

Eagle Hill Consulting

Billing itself as a "family-run, woman-owned company," Eagle Hill Consulting serves clients in five distinct  sectors: financial services; public service; nonprofit; health and life sciences; and media, technology and  entertainment. With...

Overview Survey Says Why Work Here Employee Reviews
#8
SCORE 9.015
2021 Rank 4

The Keystone Group

With offices in Atlanta, Chicago and L.A., The Keystone Group provides services related to growth strategy, operational improvement, turnaround, and M&A, across a wide range of industries. Small wonder, then, that its tagline is “making a...

Overview Survey Says Employee Reviews
#9
SCORE 9.011
2021 Not Ranked

Back Bay Life Science Advisors

Back Bay Life Science Advisors provides life science strategy and investment banking to the global life science industry, including pharma, biotech, MedTech, startups, academia, and investors. From its offices in Boston, Toronto and Frankfurt,...

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#10
SCORE 9.002
2021 Rank 6

Kx Advisors

Kx Advisors (previously operating as Kaiser Associates’ Healthcare Practice) has provided strategy consulting services to help healthcare executives achieve critical business growth goals for more than forty years. With a highly collaborative...

Overview Employee Reviews