Experienced consulting executive Kathleen Kelly has been named partner and leader of the newly launched Minneapolis-St. Paul office of Pepper Foster Consulting, a Portland, Ore.,-based strategy and execution consulting firm that chose the Twin Cities over 25 other metros.

Kelly, most recently an independent consultant, has more than 25 years of experience with firms including Accenture and KPMG Management Consulting. She moved to the Twin Cities in the late 1990s from Chicago to run a former consulting firm's office here.

"Pepper Foster was best in line with my values, my ethics, my priorities and culture," Kelly said. "You work to make your clients succeed. If they're successful you've succeeded. The consulting company will ultimately benefit but it's driven by the client, not the company, and that's a different paradigm."

Pepper Foster managing partner Damian Smith founded the firm in 2015 after more than 25 years with firms including Hitachi Consulting and Slalom.

Smith said he chose the Twin Cities for Pepper Foster's new office in part because of the growth opportunity in a market that has more than 250 companies with more than $100 million in revenue.

He also believed Pepper Foster's culture, which values both humility and confidence, would find traction here. The firm helps clients take ideas for new products and new services and develop them through launch and beyond, Smith said. Clients include Daimler, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Adidas and Nautilus.

Kelly expects the Twin Cities office, now based in the Nordic Building in Minneapolis' North Loop, to reach 200 employees by its fourth year. The Portland office has a staff of 35 and is growing, Smith said, but in a market that has 25 companies that top $100 million in revenue.

Q: Why did you want to join Pepper Foster?

Kelly: I wanted to invest in the next chapter of my life to leave a major mark. Pepper Foster cares about their clients, about their people and the community.

I had been doing service delivery on my own for 20 years. I missed being able to grow something, to build something and wanted to get back out there and help clients at a more strategic level than a tactical level.

Q: How is Pepper Foster different from other consultancies?

Smith: The market is sort of segmented into the Nordstroms vs. the Walmarts and everybody in the middle sort of disappeared.

I think the market now is ready for a middle player to come back in. "I don't want to pay $600-700 an hour for (a high-end firm) but I don't want to bring in a staffing person at $100 an hour because they don't think the way I need them to think."

I think there's a market opportunity there, an opportunity for a culture like ours, for a community giveback model and being a company that does something a little bit different.

Q: Why should a client work with Pepper Foster?

Smith: Most companies and executives have their A team, the people that they trust to throw on the most critical things.

And that A team is normally tapped, they're overwhelmed because they get everything.

We're sort of an additional A team that gets brought in honestly to figure stuff out and get stuff done. If you boil down strategy, it's figuring stuff out. Boil down execution, it's getting stuff done.

Todd Nelson is a freelance writer in Lake Elmo. His e-mail is todd_nelson@mac.com.