"What makes your firm different is that your people think differently. And they listen. They deliver what I want, and then they tell me the eight other things I need to be thinking about. You stimulate growth in your clients."
~ a recent client
Our clients love us
We surveyed all of our clients and asked them on a scale of 1 - 10 how likely it is that they would refer us to a friend or colleague. Our lowest score was an 8 and 90% answered 9 or 10.
That means our Net Promoter Score is 90, which is incredibly high, especially when compared to national averages and well-known consulting firms like Bain (-14), Accenture (14), KPMG (24), PwC (32), and Deloitte (41).
We also asked them why they scored us the way they did and what we can do better. Here are just a few of the answers we got:
"Pepper Foster is one company that knows exactly what they are doing and have put together the perfect team."
"The consulting team are professionals with diverse and experienced background in business strategy, planning, organizing, and process implementation. All of the things that can help any business scale."
"I was very impressed with Pepper Foster's processes and results... they delivered on 100% of what we asked for and exceeded expectations in many ways."
"The consultant team at Pepper Foster really do pay attention to the client. From my experience, they showed genuine interest, accompanied with strategic planning to help my business succeed."
"All the consultants we have hired have been high performers and have been able to make an immediate impact to our mission."
"The Pepper Foster consultants I have worked with are all very knowledgeable, add tremendous value, and are always going above and beyond their roles to ensure success and that goals are met."
"The Pepper Foster consultants have generated great value."
"Superb consultants."
"Exceptional service."
"Excellent quality of work."
"It's clear Pepper Foster finds quality talent."
"Our experience was so excellent... just keep doing what you are doing - you do it so well."
"Staff are so well organized and prompt. They demonstrate integrity and creative problem-solving at all times."
"PFC has done an amazing job helping with our strategic planning"
"Excellent resources, responsive and mindful management."
"I really like Pepper Foster from a values and mission perspective. They also understand our markets."
"Great partners"
We’re fun to work with, because our people are amazing & love what they do
Our consultants live and breathe our core values; they’re humble, thoughtful, flexible, confident, generous, and happy. They’re committed to excellence, to always going above and beyond, and to always making a difference. We trust our people to do the right thing, because we hire people we can trust.
Our people are amazing because we've built a culture and environment that is attractive to top talent. We have been recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the Best Companies to work for in America and our Employee Net Promoter Score is 90. Our people love working at Pepper Foster Consulting.
Here are a few of the things our employees said about why working at Pepper Foster is so great:
"I'm proud of working for this company. I feel confident recommending PFC to others (which I've done a few times already), knowing that they will enter into a supportive, fair, and transparent work environment."
"The culture is incredibly positive."
"PFC very strongly resonates with my core values and what is important in a company. A culture of fairness and respect for everyone's voice regardless of level is something I've felt has always been lacking in a big 5 culture."
"The quality of the team. The transparency and integrity of the leadership. The way they treat their colleagues and clients."
"PFC is filled with great people, who also are great consultants. My colleagues are dedicated to building careers, community, and culture. I love being a member of this team!"
"Pepper Foster continues to cultivate a supportive and intellectually challenging work environment. The leadership team is authentic and leads by example stressing transparency across the firm."
"Ease of access to stellar leadership, mentorship, career development and growth opportunities, transparency, open communication; it's an honor to be part of a team that holds up its integrity, inclusivity, respect, humility and fun."
"Great people, great culture, transparent leaders that truly care about people and are honest about the trade-offs and realities of business."
"The firm philosophy is not just words on a wall or a website; it is actively lived and reflected through each and every associate."
"An amazing firm with great leadership, values, and people who all really care about each other and their clients, how they show up, and making this world a better place for everyone."
We turn concepts and ideas into transformative realities.
Like most consultants, we are experts in managing and executing well defined projects and programs, but, unlike most other firms, we can also take a nebulous and unformulated thought, challenge, or opportunity, and drive it through a process of elaboration, analysis, planning, and execution, to turn it something tangible, that makes a real difference.
We’ve been trusted to advise, elaborate, and lead the strategies, analyses, and execution of a host of mission-critical initiatives and projects, for a wide variety of clients.
Our unique approach has resulted in major new products, services and revenue streams, huge cost savings, substantial productivity improvements, and broad gains in customer experience, goodwill, revenue, margin, and market share for our clients.
Read about our services →We care about our clients, our community, and our city.
We’re not just in business to make our partners and owners rich. We’re here to make a difference; to make things better; for our clients, our people and our community.
Our success is 100% dependent on the results we deliver for our local clients and the reputation we develop as a result. We’re going to bump into you in the grocery store, soccer practice, local charity fundraisers, and networking events.
Unlike other firms that travel in to deliver work, or sell and travel to deliver work in other cities, our consultants live and work where they, and you live.
Because we care about our community, our people are expected, and paid to volunteer with local charities and we invest and support local startups and non-profits with pro-bono, reduced rate, and shared risk reward consulting arrangements.
We're also dreaming big for our communities. We inspire & lead huge community projects that will make a difference for everybody, like working to develop sustainable happiness within our communities.
Pepper Foster Consulting is a strategy and project execution consulting firm with offices in Portland, Oregon and Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota. We specialize in helping our clients turn their ideas and concepts into transformative realities and we exist to make a difference; for our clients, for our people, and for our community.
Our Clients
Pepper Foster consultants have been trusted to advise, elaborate, and lead the strategy, analysis, and execution of a host of mission critical initiatives and projects for a wide variety of clients. Clients like Adidas, Ameriprise, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cambia Health, Daimler, FLIR, GrainCorp Malt, Hanna Andersen, Interject Data Systems, KLC, Microsoft, Nautilus, NWEA, OIA Global, PGE, Piper Jaffray, US Bank, Viewpoint, Wacom, Xcel Energy, XPO Logistics, and many others. Projects that involved investments totaling from one to hundreds of millions of dollars and resulted in major new products, services and revenue streams, huge cost savings, substantial productivity improvements, and broad gains in customer experience, goodwill, revenue, margin, and market share.
Our Community
In addition, Pepper Foster consultants also use their expertise and passion to drive and help with projects that impact our community. Projects that range in scope from volunteering to clean up beaches and trails, through helping a local non-profit develop its 5 year vision and strategy, to leading the effort to improve the happiness of all people withing the communities we operate within.
We believe the role of business in society is changing, and we intend to be at the forefront of those changes. Our goal is not only to be the best consulting firm in the cities we operate within, but to also be the company that has the largest positive impact on the lives of the people who live in those communities.
Over the next few years Pepper Foster Consulting will become not only the best consulting firm in the cities we operate within, but also the best company to work for in those cities, and a firm renowned for the positive impact it has on its clients & communities.
We’ll achieve this by hiring and partnering with great people. People who are smart, honest, passionate and collaborative. People that share and exhibit our company values:
Humble
Pepper Foster Consultants understand that to be truly great, they must also be humble. Humility ensures they remain open to the opinions and ideas of others, and to the possibility they may be wrong. It also means they understand and compensate for their own weaknesses pro-actively and that We work with our clients, rather than to them or for them, and their goals are our goals.
Thoughtful
Humility allows our people to consider all options and to seek out different opinions and data to support or discount hypotheses. Thoughtfulness allows our people to ensure that the path we are recommending or executing for our clients is the right one. It means our people are considerate of others, careful, reflective, and mindful of impacts, risks, opportunities, and the future.
Flexible
Flexibility is a critical success factor in consulting and in business. Our people must be flexible to working with different clients, in different industries, and on different types of projects. They must be aware of, open to, and take advantage of change and to changing markets and opportunities. They must adapt to and change their approach to match different environments, cultures, and situations.
Confident
Confidence without humility is arrogant and dangerous. But, confidence with humility is a valuable and essential strength in consulting. It means you are confident in your ability to recognize, analyze, and resolve difficult and challenging situations. It means you are confident in your ability to figure stuff out and get stuff done. It means that you can inspire confidence in your client's team and lead them to success.
Generous
We hire consultants and leaders that are generous. Generous with their time. Generous with their knowledge. Generous with their skills. People that naturally share with others, that value and get inspired by helping others grow and be successful. People who want their clients and their teams to be better and more successful than they are.
Happy
When you enjoy what you do, work is easy, so you achieve more. A large part of that enjoyment comes from the attitude and approach of the people you work with. At Pepper Foster, we hire people that are happy and fun to work with because we want our clients to enjoy working with us, and to achieve more. And because happiness is contagious.
We're dreaming big.
Our biggest goal is to be recognized as the company that has the largest positive impact on the lives of people who live within the communities we operate
How we’ll achieve that isn’t clear yet. And it doesn’t have to be. What’s important is that we are focused on something bigger than ourselves. That we aspire to do something amazing. Something our grandchildren will talk about.
Maybe we’ll have helped create lots of high paying jobs by working with local government and industry to attract and support the most successful businesses and start-ups. Maybe we’ll have helped impact quality of life by inspiring, supporting and nurturing brilliant people with big ideas. Maybe we’ll have helped solve the homelessness crisis, or leveraged the Olympics to fund and build affordable housing and community infrastructure. Or maybe we'll have helped create an environment and culture within which the pursuit and achievement of happiness is easy!
Our other goals are a little more modest:
Establish Pepper Foster as the best consulting FIRM In each CITY WE OPERATE
MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR OUR CLIENTS, OUR CITies, AND OUR COMMUNITIES
CREATE A COMPANY CULTURE THAT IS OPEN, RESPECTFUL, HUMBLE, GENEROUS, THOUGHTFUL & HAPPY
Great ideas can come from anywhere – from established global corporations, small start-ups, or from individuals. Sometimes an idea may be small and come from a project to simplify a business process, or implement a new system. Other times an idea may be big and borne of necessity, as a result of facing a challenge or threat. And occasionally, a great idea just comes to somebody out of the blue. At Pepper Foster we are always on the look-out for great ideas. And for opportunities to inspire and nurture them. In fact, that’s where our name comes from:
Pepper stimulates and inspires the taste buds, and enhances natural flavors by adding heat and excitement. It also has amazing health benefits, like fighting inflammation and reducing stress.
Foster means to help something grow and develop, to provide care and nurturing.
That’s what we do at Pepper Foster. We stimulate and inspire our clients and their ideas. And then we help to enhance, grow, develop and nurture them into amazing realities. Along the way, we also help fight the stress, anger, and doubt that often accompanies doing something new, hard, and different.
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Meet Nate Caskey, Pepper Foster Consulting’s newest member and our partner in charge of the Minneapolis–St. Paul office. To give a better sense of who Nate is, PFC sat down with him to learn about his journey, what led him to Pepper Foster, and his goals for the Minneapolis–St. Paul office.
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