Booz Allen
Hamilton’s Dr. Ralph Shrader has the CEO look. 

Neatly
coiffed silver hair.  Check.  Well tailored dark suit, pressed shirt and
bold tie.  Check…check…check.  Cufflinks embossed with the corporate
logo.  You got it…check.

Dr. Shrader
(http://www.boozallen.com/about/leadership/40026730/shrader?lpid=7246290)
is no mere figure head though.  As chairman
and CEO of Booz Allen Hamilton, he leads a professional services firm with $4
billion in annual revenue, more than 100 partners and 20,000 employees.  The company provides program management,
technology, strategy and operations consulting services to Federal civilian,
defense, intelligence and homeland security government agencies.

Times are
good for Dr. Shrader and Booz Allen Hamilton. 
The company’s top-line revenue will grow organically 20 percent this
year and the firm sports a contract backlog of $2B.

Yet, the
past few years have been anything but easy. 
In fact, during his recent presentation to the National Capital Chapter
of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) Dr. Shrader dropped the word
“resilience” about a dozen times.

This story
of perseverance dates back to 1940 when the Secretary of the Navy asked the
Booz Allen Hamilton to help the service prepare for the coming war.  The firm’s government business prodded along
for the next 60 years as a nice complement to its commercial consulting
work. 

That is until
the terrorist attacks of September 11th led to a flood of funding
for homeland security and defense programs. 
Booz Allen Hamilton’s government business exploded and grew to nearly 75
percent of total firm revenue.

Government
work wasn’t the only thing exploding at Booz Allen Hamilton.  Everything was different in public sector
consulting.  The length of contracts…the
margins…the number of employees required to deliver service. 

Booz Allen
Hamilton had effectively morphed into two firms (commercial and government),
each with its own distinct business model. 
Partners and line employees began to clash.

Dr. Shrader
championed a “One Firm Evolution” reorganization in 2006 to try to bring the
warring factions together.  No dice.  It’s safe to say that Booz Allen Hamilton was
akin to a dysfunctional marriage bound together only by institutional history.

It was
agreed the best path was to break the firm into two, yet a financial partner
was required to fund the transaction.  In
stepped global private equity powerhouse Carlyle Group (http://www.carlyle.com/) and the transaction
came together with more than 99 percent of shares voting in favor.

Today, Booz
Allen Hamilton and Booz & Company (http://www.booz.com/)
exist as separate firms that collaborate when appropriate.  Dr. Shrader is now free to plot corporate
strategy and manage growth, while fondly telling the firm’s story of
resilience.

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Marc Hausman is president/CEO of Strategic Communications Group, a public relations consultancy based in Silver Spring, MD.  Read more at http://www.strategicguy.blogspot.com.