Please note this article was published before OEE Consulting and gobeyond joined forces to become Gobeyond Partners.

We continue our profiles of the people who work at OEE Consulting with Beulah Selvaraj, as she shares her latest projects and her achievements as our diversity and inclusion representative for the Management Consultancies Association.

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Role: Senior Consultant
Location: London
Experience: Petroleum Economist and Production Surveillance Engineer at Petronas; Technical Service/Sales Engineer at Shell
Education: MBA (Merit) from Imperial College Business School; B.Eng. Chemical Engineering (First Class) from University of Technology Petronas
Worked with OEE Consulting since: January 2016

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Describe OEE Consulting in three words.

Diverse. Friendly. Zealous.

What was your route into consulting with us?

After five years in the oil and gas industry, I left for London to complete an MBA. It was only during my MBA that I was encouraged by my career coach at Imperial College to pursue a career in consulting. One of my classmates who did not get accepted into OEE Consulting spoke very highly of them and said I would be a good fit. So I applied and the rest, as they say, is history.

What has surprised you most about the company since joining?

It doesn’t matter who you are or what level you are at, you are always valued and heard. Having come from a very hierarchical culture, this was indeed a pleasant surprise!

What sort of projects have you been working on?

I’ve been with OEE Consulting for about 18 months and have worked across multiple projects, clients, industries and countries. I’ve worked with a recruitment trade body improving their processes and operations management, redesigned end-to-end processes at a consulting firm, and set up a new way of registering customers for internet banking to enhance the customer journey.

I have also worked with a leading financial advisory, broking and solutions company: coaching the C-suite, executive team and team leaders in regional locations, and developing a set of operational standards for consistent deployment of operational excellence across their offices.

Apart from working on client projects, I’ve also been fortunate to be on the Management Consultancies Association steering committee for its ‘Year of Diversity’ initiative. In line with this, I was selected to be the company diversity and inclusion representative and, together with OEE Consulting’s Diversity Forum, have:

• reviewed salaries of employees and resolved all possible pay gaps
• enhanced our parental leave policy to allow more flexibility
• analysed our job advertisements and website content to ensure they are ‘diversity friendly’
• ensured our annual conference on the future of service is made up of a diverse line up of speakers
• evaluated the diversity statistics of various UK universities and added institutions for our annual recruitment visits

How do you start a project?

For the first one or two days, I take the time to go around and meet as many people as I can from across the business. After that, it’s like skydiving. Every time you jump out of the plane, it’s a different experience. Depending on the project or client, you adapt and get going.

The three most important things for me on any project are to always be curious, have an end goal in mind, and bring people on the journey.

What have you learnt?

Every project is unique: there is no one solution that fits all. And getting to grips with the real problem is key so listen to people from across the business, including the people who are running the show on the ground.

What have you most enjoyed?

Working with very smart people and learning and growing together with them. Also getting to see your hard work come to life; I find that extremely rewarding.

I still get emails from my previous clients updating me on their progress and thanking me for the work I’ve done together with them.

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About Beulah

Beulah has over six years’ technical and commercial experience managing stakeholders, multinational business partners and multidisciplinary teams. She delivers value through a combination of commercial and innovative thinking, whilst her considerable experience of training and coaching results in a significant uplift in capabilities.

Recent projects include setting standards for consistent deployment of operational excellence across a leading advisory, broking and solutions company, re-designing registration for online banking customers with potential cost savings of up to £300,000, and operational excellence coaching.

When Beulah is not on projects, she enjoys travelling and meeting people from various walks of life, cultures and backgrounds. She has so far visited 5 continents, 40 countries and over 100 cities. She is also a huge Manchester United fan.