I’m a strategy consultant by trade, so I get excited about taking on challenging problems. I have had the opportunity to lead complex organizational mergers, design new operating models, develop comprehensive strategies, and support multi-dimensional transformations.
Ideas are our currency—I believe in bringing the best innovations and new approaches to my projects. As consultants, our value is measured by the ideas we bring to our clients and the impacts we have on their mission.
Frank Lee supports our U.S. Air Force Headquarters account. He has more than 20 years of experience in large-scale business transformation, business process reengineering, strategic planning and communications, and organizational structure redesign. In addition, Frank advises clients in change management, implementation, best practices and benchmarking, performance measurement, and financial analysis.
Frank is currently helping with transformation efforts for the Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force, Management and its financial management, personnel, installation and mission support, and civil engineering engagements. Frank and his team support these engagements with complete services of organizational change management, such as business process mapping, playbook development, organizational change awareness, understanding, and acceptance. Other services include strategic planning, business case analysis, modeling and simulation, cyber, performance measurement, and organizational structure and human capital management to facilitate organizational optimization.
Frank supported business transformation in other organizations including the United Mine Workers of America, NASA, the General Services Administration, Food and Drug Administration, Health and Human Services, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and Department of Homeland Security. He also helped support Washington Headquarters Services, U.S. Army Defense Telecommunications Service–Washington, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Navy, U.S. Army Information Technology Agency, U.S. Army Installation Management Command, Air Force A1, Army G1, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Contracting, Air Force Civil Engineer, and Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center, among others.
Frank holds an M.B.A. in business administration and executive leadership from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and a B.A. in business administration with a concentration in finance from Roanoke College. In addition, he has several certifications. Frank is a certified project management professional, knowledge manager, professional innovator: Practitioner level – design thinking, master of managed change, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, and human capital strategist. He is also certified in IT service management.
Why are you passionate about what you do? I get to work with talented people who have so many great ideas to learn from. I can integrate their ideas with my own to come up with collective solutions.
What are the most pressing needs in your industry today? Budget pressures. Our clients are under significant pressure to do the same with less, to do more with the same, or to do more with less.
What is the best business advice you’ve gotten in your career? If it’s good for the client, it’s good for us. Always put their mission first and make sure you’re delivering and bringing value to your clients. If you bring value to them, they will value you.
What advice would you give yourself as a young professional? Be there, and don’t back down from any challenges.
What did you want to be when you grew up? I knew I wanted to do something with business, from my lemonade stands as a child to a leveraged buyout in a high school project. I always knew I was going in this direction.
What made you interested in business as a child? It made sense to me. I couldn’t color within the lines, and I couldn’t play an instrument. How to come up with different ideas, bring them to market, corner the market, try to take over market space from competitors—all that was interesting to me.
What are your tips for managing and motivating your people? Lead from the front; be in the fight with them every day. Empower them to make their own decisions and structure their own work. Provide challenging assignments and stretch them so they continue to develop.
What advice would you give someone who just took on a new leadership role? To be comfortable learning as you go and refining your leadership style over time.
How would you say your leadership style has changed? I’ve let go and empowered people more over time. When I was more junior, I wanted to be involved in every decision. Now I’m more comfortable trusting the leadership team to handle what’s in front of them without me having to be there all the time.
How do you help your clients become more comfortable with uncertainty?
We help them work through it step by step. We help them come up with a plan to move their organization and meet those needs. Then we help them work through that plan to get there.
Does that plan change?
Constantly. To be an agile organization, we talk about dynamic strategy, so that they realize you need to be ready to adapt constantly to changes in the environment as they come up.
What would you say is your strongest character trait? Intellectual curiosity.
What motivates you? To have the best idea and add the most value to our clients.
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