Aaron
Principal, Los Angeles Office
Education
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, Haas School of Business
M.B.A., June 2001
Memories of Haas: Since the Evening MBA cohort at Haas was small, I had the opportunity to develop close relationships with a number of people in my class. Even though we were all working full time while going to school, we still found time to go to football games or ski weekends together. Even now, I still spend my weekends hanging out with the many good friends that I met at Haas.
UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY
B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, 1994
Hometown
Eaton, OH
ZS Career Path
Consultant, 2003, San Mateo office
Manager, 2004
Principal, 2006
- Moved to the Los Angeles office, November 2006
On the work
"When I first heard about ZS, I wondered what it would be like to work for a firm that was focused on the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. I had just come from another general consulting firm where I worked on a new industry with every project. Since I started working at ZS, I have been amazed by both the depth and breadth of services that we provide to our pharmaceutical clients. My first projects were focused on forecasting the sales of new biologic products launching into a number of different therapy areas. Once I mastered new product forecasting, I had the opportunity to help design the entire forecasting methodology, processes, and IT infrastructure for a large biotech firm. Then I worked on a number of marketing mix projects that evaluated various promotional channels to include DTC advertising. My latest projects have been focused on speaking with physicians about how patients are treated within various disease states and predicting how the dynamics within each therapy area will change based on the introduction of new products. The most exciting aspect of all of these projects is watching how much my knowledge of both my clients and the industry grows. With every project, I feel that my ability to deliver value to my clients increases exponentially. I know from personal experience that consultants in other general consulting firms rarely develop the level of expertise required to provide this level of service to their clients."
On ZS values
Do the Right Thing: "New product forecasting is not only challenging from a technical perspective, but the client management perspective can also be very difficult. Typically we are working with a client team that has invested a large amount of time in the new product concept, and they are usually hoping for a 'big number' to justify there efforts. It would be easy for ZS to develop a forecast that aligns with the team's expectations based on handpicked inputs and opaque assumptions, but our firm feels that integrity is one of our most important assets. When I run into this situation I spend a lot of additional time outside of the original project scope to help the client understand the forecast results. Being both straightforward and honest in all of my projects has resulted in much better client relationships across the board."
On life outside work
"I have a wonderful wife, and two children, so family is my number one focus outside of work. The LA office doesn't have a lot of people with families, but my wife and I hope that this changes as our office grows. On the weekends, there are plenty of family friendly activities in the area. In the summer I also like to take the family to the beach and in the winter we typically head up to Tahoe for a couple of family ski trips."