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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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2023 Best Boutique Consulting Firms

#1
SCORE 9.757
2022 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 Jobs
#2
SCORE 9.582
2022 Not Ranked

Aminad Consulting

Aminad is a boutique management consulting firm dedicated to generating realistic and implementable change. The firm is focused on supply chain and operations strategy, and works with federal agencies, with a specific focus on the Department of...

Overview Survey Says Employee Reviews
#3
SCORE 9.203
2022 Rank 13

Kenway Consulting

Kenway exists to help companies that need help. More importantly, Kenway wants to provide help to people at those companies who want it. The firm operates in the nexus between clients’ technology and business organizations—bringing together...

Overview Survey Says Employee Reviews
#4
SCORE 9.140
2022 Rank 9

Back Bay Life Science Advisors

Back Bay Life Science Advisors provides life science strategy and investment banking to pharma, biotech, medtech, and healthtech companies around the globe. Back Bay collaborates with investors, banks, academia, and government to advance...

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#5
SCORE 9.034
2022 Rank 7

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 offices...

Overview Survey Says Why Work Here Employee Reviews
#6
SCORE 9.002
2022 Rank 11

The Cambridge Group, LLC

If the consultants at The Cambridge Group were your Economics 101 professor, you would not have learned supply and demand, but rather demand and supply. The simple belief that demand should be placed before supply is the principle that...

Overview Survey Says Employee Reviews
#7
SCORE 8.986
2022 Rank 2

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
#8
SCORE 8.962
2022 Not Ranked

Stern Value Management

Stern Value Management is a top management consulting firm specializing in helping organizations unlock their strategic potential and drive profitable growth. The firm is known for being the value creation partner of choice for leaders and...

Overview Survey Says Employee Reviews
#9
SCORE 8.958
2022 Rank 23

DayBlink Consulting

Founded in 2013, DayBlink Consulting is a boutique management consulting firm that has achieved incredible growth and established a strong reputation for consistently delivering strategic advisory, execution, and transformative solutions in...

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#10
SCORE 8.950
2022 Rank 8

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