West Monroe promotes seven partners to regional and practice leadership roles

West Monroe Partners, a national management and technology consulting firm, has promoted seven of its partners to regional and practice leadership roles. The firm also promoted eight partners to managing or senior partner level.

“As we help clients prepare to be increasingly digital through repeatable offerings, we will need to continue expanding our management team. We look to these leaders to fill critical executive roles and provide leadership for scaling our ability to serve clients and delivering on strategy," said Doug Armstrong, West Monroe's chief operating officer.

Three of West Monroe’s partners were in March appointed to lead the firm’s regions, where they work with office and market leads to achieve strategic goals.

Tom Ewers, managing partner, now leads the Central region, which includes the Minneapolis, Chicago, and Dallas offices. Ewers joined the firm in 2002 from Arthur Andersen, where he was a consultant in the advanced technology group. Ewers in 2013 launched the firm’s Minneapolis office, and previously served as managing director in the M&A and consumer & industrial practices.

Gil Mermelstein, managing partner, leads the East Coast region, which includes the firm’s New York and DC offices. He joined the firm in 2010 to launch the New York office, which is now one of the consultancy’s largest locations. Mermelstein has extensive experience advising financial services and private equity firms on growth and transformation. Before joining West Monroe, he was a partner at BearingPoint and a senior manager at Kearney.

Brian Paulen, managing partner, leads the West Coast region, including Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Paulen previously led the firm’s Seattle office. He joined West Monroe in 2014 when it acquired Salesforce consultancy Madrona Solutions, where he served as CEO for more than eight years. Before that, he was a director in the CRM practice of Slalom Consulting and a consultant at Accenture.

West Monroe also named four partners to national practice leadership roles:

Dan Belmont, managing partner, will lead the energy & utilities practice. He specializes in helping utilities firms adopt smart grid solutions via wireless and other networks. Belmont joined the firm in 2008 after he sold db3 Broadband, a wireless internet service provider he founded in 2003. Before that, he was regional sales and marketing manager at National Starch & Chemical.

Chris Caulfield, senior partner, will lead the financial services practice. Caulfield joined West Monroe in 2017 when it acquired Cast Management Consultants, where he spent 14 years and was latterly an executive vice president. At Cast, Caulfield focused on supporting financial services clients with process improvement, sales and relationship management programs, compliance audit planning, and staffing analysis. He also previously spent more than a year at Slalom Consulting as a client service partner.

Andrew Gaeckle, senior partner, will lead the customer solutions practice. He joined West Monroe in 2015 when the firm acquired Etherios, a cloud consultancy where he served as VP for the North region. An experienced IT professional, Gaecle was also previously senior manager of global sales operations at Tellabs Operations, an IT director at HSN, and a consultant at Accenture.

Mazen Ghalayini, managing partner, will lead the products & experiences lab, a new practice focused on digital innovation and leadership. He joined West Monroe in 2004 and previously launched and led the customer experience practice. Before joining the firm, he was a client business manager at AT&T Business.

West Monroe also promoted eight partners to managing or senior partner:

• Michael Amiot, in the M&A practice, to managing partner
• Jodi Bednar, in the energy & utilities practice, to senior partner
• Keith Campbell, in the M&A practice, to senior partner
• Cory Chaplin, in the technology practice, to managing partner
• Kaumil Dalal, in the technology practice, to senior partner
• Scott Fuzer, in the M&A practice, to senior partner to senior partner
• Adam Gersting, Dallas office lead, to managing partner
• Will Wu, leader of the high-tech & software practice and San Francisco office lead, to managing partner

West Monroe is headquartered in Chicago and has 1,300 employees across eight US offices.

The firm earlier this year promoted seven team members to managing director.