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Donald Christian, 35
Partner, head of project consulting for the Americas
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Donald Christian felt depressed as he stared out the window of his Coopers & Lybrand office in Maryland on a cold day in January 1994. The work schedule for the six-member consulting team he was just named to lead had a disconcerting number of blank days.
“That’s when I got out of my chair and started knocking on doors, literally,” Mr. Christian says.
He embarked on a welter of meetings with staff and clients to match his team better with the marketplace. Within months, the group had doubled in size to handle the new business coming in, and Mr. Christian’s career—which revolves around helping companies decide what technology to buy and other areas, including managing nontraditional risk—was on its way.
Today, Mr. Christian is responsible for about 45 people at PricewaterhouseCoopers’ headquarters, as well as the company’s project consulting practice, which guides businesses on buying hardware and software.
“People working for him want to do the best they can,” says Megan Gradek, a senior manager who once reported to Mr. Christian. “He inspires them.”
After Mr. Christian’s Maryland stint, PricewaterhouseCoopers transferred him to Detroit to see if he could work similar magic on a dysfunctional 14-person office. He expanded the office’s geographic and market scope, picking up clients from as far away as Minneapolis.
Within months, at the tender age of 30, the native of Jamaica became one of the firm’s youngest partners. By the time he was promoted to a national position in 1999, the Detroit office had grown to 35.