Associate Consultant (June 2022)

Webster Pacific LLC is looking for an intelligent, eager and energetic person to work as an Associate Consultant for 2-3 years. The responsibilities for this position will include strategic research, analysis and general problem solving for client solutions. This position comes with opportunity for promotion.

Webster Pacific is a strategy consulting firm focused on site selection and education. Recent projects have included market assessments of over 30 global cities, development of data visualization tools for High Net Worth Individual (HNWI) information in 100 global cities, and distance-based enrollment funnel analysis for a client's existing school. Case studies can be found on the Webster Pacific website.

Core consulting responsibilities:

Anticipated start date is June 2022. This position is intended to be a 2-3 year position for a recent college graduate. Webster Pacific’s offices are in downtown San Francisco and the Associate Consultant will be expected to work from the office 1-2 days per week. This position does not involve travel. Applicants should address their cover letter and resume to Tom Paper.

The ideal candidate:

For more information on Webster Pacific, see http://www.websterpacific.com.

In our consulting work, we often have a client that wants to establish a retail presence in city. The first question we ask is about our client’s strategy: what is their unique combination of market position and activities undertaken to support that position? Then we ask a series of basic questions: what is the market for that client’s product in the city? The product might be education, fitness or apparel. Who would be the customers? What is the overall demand? Who are the competitors (suppliers) and how much of the demand are they able to meet? Then we will ask more specific questions that involve geo-analytics. What is the demand and supply on a very micro-geographic basis in that city? Where is there an imbalance between demand and supply? Ultimately, what are the best locations for our clients to consider? To answer these questions, we do several things: we conduct a series of reference interviews with our clients to determine their data needs, both organizational and visual. Then, we research where data, public or private, is available to supplement our client’s internally available data. Finding all of this data, however, is only the beginning. After gathering required data sources, we use information architecture to design how the data will be presented and navigated for consumption by the client. We will often interview our client’s customers using a scripted interview. Finally, we visualize answers using a combination of tables, charts, graphs, descriptive text, always being mindful of layout, coloring, specific language and other aesthetics, with all due deference to Tufte.

Our firm works at a fast pace with a variety of tools, but the process is careful and orderly. We are at the cutting edge of data visualization and data organization methods and we spend significant time thinking through how to clearly present an answer as well as how to research it and how to analyze it.

We currently use a variety of tools including Excel, Google Sheets, Python, ArcGIS, Tableau, as well as written prose to reflect our careful research and conclusions. Knowledge management or “curation” is critical to our value-added. Upon completion of projects, we create systematic notes and “finding aids” within our work so that, at some point in the future, we can quickly access, comprehend and use the prior work that was completed. A major part of the first couple months in this role is understanding (and being able to locate) all of the relevant prior analyses.