and try to anticipate what's next."
Kevin Vigilante
, Vice PresidentWhy did you choose Booz Allen?
For me, it was the intellectual appeal. I had been practicing medicine for 20 years when someone at Booz Allen asked me to work as an independent consultant to help win and execute a very strategic project at the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA). I found that I enjoyed it tremendously. I was then asked to work on several other projects, and I continued to find the work very enjoyable, especially the variety of intellectual problems we were working on and the company’s interdisciplinary approach to problem solving. I never planned to leave medicine, but I liked the Booz Allen work so much that, after 3 years of consulting for the company, I decided to make the shift to full-time work.
Why have you chosen to stay at Booz Allen?
The nature of the work, the intellectual stimulation associated with it, and the loyalty to my team and my colleagues are the main drivers keeping me here. I’ve become very attached to my team and to the people I work with. They have become like a family to me, fostering very strong attachments and loyalties.
What type of work do you do at Booz Allen?
Our team works to bring our clients a deep understanding of healthcare delivery and research and helps them think through their most vexing problems in this space. We help clients with research and analysis, IT strategies, organizational change, and process redesign. Of course we work closely with other Booz Allen functional teams such as Information Technology, Organizational Strategies, Economic and Business Analysis, Modeling and Simulation, and Assurance and Resilience to name a few.
For example, we have a large presence in the Wounded Warrior space, helping current veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with mild traumatic brain injury, post traumatic stress disorder, and other diagnoses related to blast injuries. We are working with the VA and Department of Defense (DoD) to figure out, among other goals, how to provide services to veterans in a more efficient and effective way—including helping the DoD establish the Defense Center of Excellence for Psychiatric Health and Traumatic Brain Injury and helping them determine what activities they should be funding in the future.
What excites you about your work?
I’m excited about always facing fresh and different problems that require original thought and innovative approaches and bringing together multiple disciplines and capabilities to solve them. This is very different from the way problem solving works in the academic environment I came from. Both approaches yield important but different kinds of results, and I’ve come to enjoy the Booz Allen approach of using various types of expertise to find solutions.
Do you have a mentor at Booz Allen?
I have a number of mentors here at Booz Allen. Because I came into the company as a Principal, it was very important for me to have mentors to help me navigate the company’s culture, which was different from the medical culture I came from. My mentors gave me cultural guidance and helped me understand the company’s cultural cues, how things are done around here. They also help me plot my future course, which has been very helpful.
What differentiates Booz Allen from other companies that you could work for—what makes Booz Allen special?
I came out of academic medicine, where I had responsibilities for patient care, teaching, and research. This was the only area I’d worked in since completing my residency. I never considered doing anything but medicine until I decided to come to Booz Allen, and I’d not considered any other companies. From what I’ve seen of other firms through my work here, however, I feel Booz Allen offers a unique blend of strategic thinking and practical application. Because we are a matrixed organization, we can also bring a lot of capabilities to the table. I’ve not seen another company quite like this.
How has Booz Allen helped you be ready for what’s next in your career?
Booz Allen has exposed me to an incredibly broad spectrum of work in healthcare and has helped me acquire a broad set of tools to help me think about healthcare in ways I couldn’t have before coming here. Although I’ve worked in medicine for almost 30 years, I have a broader, deeper, and more sophisticated understanding of the field now than I did before, and that knowledge will stand me in good stead no matter what I do in the future.
How does the work you do help your clients be ready for what’s next? How has your and your team’s work made an impact for your clients?
Our job is to look into the future and try to anticipate what’s next. We can extend this information to our clients as well, helping them think strategically about their options and plans. We can provide them with a broad view of healthcare and where they fit into it—in relation to the broader industry, in relation to other areas within their agency, and across different agencies as well. This helps them to see and understand the big picture, to see opportunities they might otherwise miss, and helps them be prepared for what’s next.
Can you talk about a time that you saw one or more of our Core Values displayed?
I see all our Core Values displayed all the time—we are all immersed in them—we live and breathe them. I have heard great stories of client service where people have gone above and beyond—driving across entire states to find an open Federal Express office to ensure that packages are delivered to clients on time, working through sickness and adversity to meet client needs. The Core Values are our ethos here, an integral part of the firm’s culture, and the firm works hard to keep them flourishing.
