Meet Our Leadership: Alex Goldenberg, Founder and CEO

At AG Consulting Partners, we value the growth and career development of everyone on our team and recognize this starts with transparent and supportive leadership. Our AGCP Leadership Spotlight series sheds light on the work and experiences of our leadership team, providing a glimpse of who we are as a company and how we stand out in the consulting industry.

For the second installment of our AGCP Leadership Spotlight series, we spoke with our President, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner, Alex Goldenberg.

The Journey of a Consulting Career

As CEO, Alex is involved in every aspect of our company’s growth – from client delivery to strategic direction. With over 20 years of experience in consulting, Alex’s passion and focus are driven by his desire to cultivate lasting relationships with both clients and employees alike.

Following his graduation from Georgetown University, Alex began his consulting career with Andersen Consulting (known today as Accenture). Although consulting was not his original intended career path, he decided to pursue it on the advice of a peer. The exposure to a variety of projects and industries initially attracted Alex to consulting, and he has never looked back.

“[In University] I basically got recruited, through Georgetown University’s recruiting program, to work for Accenture. From there I went through a six-week training program and was thrown into testing for Y2K. At the time I could barely turn on a computer, so it was a big transition, but forced me to adjust, and I did.”

Alex spent his first three years at Andersen Consulting in Washington DC supporting the Department of Education student loan program. From there he transferred to Seattle and began working on projects at Microsoft while continuing to develop his consulting expertise. By 2009, Alex was responsible for a breadth of sales and marketing work for Microsoft and was eligible to become a Managing Director at the firm.

“I started in ’98 and worked at Accenture until 2009. [During that time] the company transformed tremendously, from 56,000 to 300,000 employees and became a public company.”

The exponential growth brought a change in Alex’s perspective and shifting of his role. His work began to revolve around outsourced agreements rather than relationship-based management consulting. Alex realized he needed to make a change and decided to leave Accenture.

From the Ground Up

The global economic crisis of 2009 left businesses scrambling to heal. After leaving his job at Accenture, Alex planned to take a year off. Just six months later, he was lured to an opportunity to help a company build its management consulting practice with a promise of equity in the firm. Within 3 months, Alex sold half a million dollars in consulting work.

“[Throughout my career] I developed a lot of strong relationships with clients…they trusted me to do the work and knew that I would take care of them.”

With this realization, Alex was drawn to build a company with core values and principles more aligned to his own.

Amid a massive economic recession, Alex and a former Accenture colleague decided to risk building their own consulting firm. With business license in hand, a $1000 laptop, and the relationships they had developed over their careers, AG Consulting Partners was established. Now, eleven years later, our company has grown to over 80 employees and contractors.

When asked how AG differentiates from its competitors, Alex always goes back to the importance of relationships with employees and clients.

“There are a lot of companies who do project management and many of them can do what we do. Projects will come and go. Jobs will come and go. But people will remember how you made them feel. So, to me, it’s about relationships.”

As he looks to the future, of the firm, Alex maintains his founding principle that a lean client-focused firm can improve the consulting experience through stronger partnerships and more flexible solutions. Alex seeks to expand our client base, regionally and beyond, to increase our impact and provide a greater breadth of opportunities to our consultants.

“I think growth is not for the sake of growth, but rather to provide more opportunities to our people.”

At AG Consulting Partners, we believe in taking care of our people first to enable them to bring their best to every client project. Our employees embrace the entrepreneurial spirit and embody our core values: transparency, stewardship, and intention. Founded in 2009, and headquartered in the Greater Seattle area, AG Consulting Partners is recognized as one of Inc 5000 and Puget Sound Business Journal’s fastest growing private companies.