TalentThought is a management consulting firm founded by Allen Jacobs based in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA focused on helping clients create competitive advantage by maximizing the effectiveness and efficiency of talent in their organization.
Our Story
Allen Jacobs formed TalentThought on the premise that large, mid-size and emerging businesses can benefit from outside expertise on topics such as strategy, transformation initiatives and global expansion in a collaborative consulting approach that builds & transfers knowledge. We can work with clients from conceptual strategy development to initiative formation & solution development and through implementation enabling realization of envisioned results.
TalentThought expertise is a product of Allen Jacobs' extensive business experience having worked as a management consultant and in senior corporate leadership roles at Accenture, PepsiCo, A.T. Kearney and IBM as well as a senior executive at a start-up company.
As a management consultant, Allen has worked with Fortune 500 clients such as Avon, BP Amoco, Circle K, Citibank, CVS Caremark, General Motors, IBM, Kellogg, Sanyo, Singapore Airlines, SONY, P&G, Prudential, Taco Bell and Unilever. He has also work extensively with Private Equity owned small/mid-market companies on consulting projects to improve EBITDA margins and revenue growth. In addition to working with clients in North America, Allen has also worked extensively around the world having lived in Singapore while on international assignment with IBM covering the Asia Pacific region. Latin America has also been a focus of Allen's international work having worked with clients in Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile and Argentina.
Allen's consulting work has been comprehensive and spanned corporate strategy and across multiple functional disciplines such as HR, Sales & Marketing, Human Resources, Finance, Procurement & Supply Chain and Information Technology. Examples of Allen's projects include:
Developed market expansion strategy, refined channels to market and customer value propositions for key new markets in Asia Pacific and Latin America for a global technology company increasing revenue by 105% within 12 months.
Established a shared services organization reducing costs 35% annually by centralizing global finance, HR and procurement activities for a multinational oil & gas company, vastly improving efficiency and service quality/consistency through clarity of objectives, process and technology improvements.
Turned around a financially challenged health care business and repackaged it for profitable sale. Designed and implemented a customer contact center and claims processing workforce productivity improvement strategy and reengineered core processes resulting in annual reduced costs of over $250 million.
Leadership roles in the integration of IBM acquisitions of PWC Consulting and Kenexa that resulted in rapid growth of new service, content and technology business units. Also consulted in numerous mergers & acquisitions integrations with clients globally to help them capture synergies.
Led global transformation and standardization initiatives and LEAN Six Sigma solutions that improved effectiveness and efficiency in HR shared centers in the Hungary, Costa Rica, Philippines, China and Australia resulting in improved productivity of 30%+ while improving overall HR service quality metrics.
Biography
Allen Jacobs
Recent Experience
Principal and Founder - TalentThought, LLC - Charlotte - 2016 to present
Management consulting focused on strategy, transformation, talent & human capital optimization
Working with both publicly traded and Private Equity owned small/mid-market companies to improve EBITDA and revenue growth
Partner & Director - IBM Corporation - Charlotte, Singapore, Seattle - 1999 to 2016
Worked with leading global clients to transform businesses resulting in order of magnitude improvements in revenue, cost optimization as well as more effective talent acquisition and management of their human capital.
Roles at IBM included Partner in Global Business Services (management consulting), Director of Business Development, Director of HR Sales & Solutions Asia Pacific, Program Executive in Global Process Services (Business Process Outsourcing).
Senior Manager - A.T. Kearney - Seattle, Chicago - 1995 to 1999
Management consultant to Fortune 100 clients to develop strategies, design solutions & tactics and leading implementation of key initiatives across consumer products, retail, financial services and manufacturing industries.
Started at A.T. Kearney as an Associate, promoted to Manager and Senior Manager leading progressively larger & more complex consulting engagements.
Education
M.B.A., Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia
B.S. Finance, San Diego State University
Additional biography and background information is available via Allen's social media links below.