Marc Mendelson

I worked with Marc on the CARES Paycheck Protection Program for a major bank in 2020, where he was a group lead for KPMG. Despite the harsh working hours (night shifts from 1800-0600) he showed the leadership qualities and empathy that one can only hope for.

Marc cares for his people that were assembled from all org units of KPMG (in teams where people never had worked together), and tries to remove all impediments that come up to allow team members to do their best work. Despite some challenging situations -a complete virtual project delivery for example- he always kept his humor and supporting attitude that had the team success in focus as the first priority.

It was a pleasure to work with Marc on this project.

In Phase 1 and Phase 2 PPP Engagement, KPMG supported one of the firm’ s large bank clients to assist in processing loan applications from small business as part of the Paycheck Protection Program, in support of small businesses negatively impacted by COVID-19. Marc was a very strong Group Lead and he exemplified KPMG core values.

Integrity. Marc always acted with integrity as our group lead. He did what was right and was right by always being an advocate for loan processors who were mostly associates and senior associates. He truly cared about the well-being of loan processors as he realized from the get go they are the pillar for the success of this engagement. Loan Processors noted having an advocate in Marc and always came to work extra motivated despite the challenges of the engagement.

Excellence. Marc never stopped learning and improving as group. During the engagement, there were numerous times Marc spent time with Loan Processors to go through a loan application to ensure he is in the weeds as Team Leads. As Group Lead, I noted this was very much appreciated by the Loan Processors as they felt senior leadership took an interest in their daily task. By doing so, he noted challenges loan processors faced and was able to raise these concerns to engagement leadership.

Courage. Marc thought and acted boldly as a Group Lead. As noted above, he was the constant voice for Loan Processors at engagement leadership meetings. This went without notice by loan processors. It was no surprise our group consistently produced high quality deliverables as Loan processors were always motivated to put their best foot forward. As a Team Lead, I truly appreciated the bold leadership as it made my job easier and was able to get the best out of my team.

Together. Marc had a very difficult task being a group lead for Team leads that were directors. The group had various differences in opinions and most of the time were set in their ways. However, Marc found a way for us to respect each other and draw strength from our differences. He was very inclusive and ensured every Team Leads point of view was heard before making a final decision for the group. Right from the onset of the engagement, he created an inclusive environment that brought positive energy for the group. As noted above, our group consistently produced high quality deliverables due to our sharing of ideas on a group level.

For Better. In performing his role as a group lead, Marc did what mattered most to ensure we were all successful as individuals which brought about  overall success of the group and entire PPP engagement. As the Team Lead, we really appreciate Marc’ s leadership.

The company I work for was tasked with completing a physical inventory for a customer earlier this spring. KPMG was hired to audit the process and results. Marc’s communication and leadership abilities made it possible for the physical inventory and the audit to be completed on time. It was a pleasure to get to know Marc and his team along the way.

I had the opportunity to work with Marc on the Paycheck Protection Program engagement that was well known to be challenging on several counts. Marc was our group lead on the first and second phases. We worked the night shift from 6 pm to 6 am in phase 1, and from 2 pm to 10 pm on phase 2.

During both the phases, the teams faced challenging situations with technology, ever changing instructions and difficult shift schedules. Despite the unfavorable environment, Marc managed to keep the flock together. He was instrumental in passing along instructions and upward reporting any issues that the team leads and team members were experiencing. I recall a certain instance when one of the team leads seemed a little sour, but Marc managed the person well in time to stop the sourness from spreading. This tells me he is a great people person who can navigate through the most challenging situations and keep up the morale of the team. The team has performed very well under his leadership. He also held periodic calls with the team leads and was involved in the chat groups of the teams contributing where necessary. Marc also took the time to have a call with me to personally know me. I appreciate the involvement he has shown on the engagement. It has been a pleasure to work with Marc and we look
forward to continuing to do so in Phase 3 that just commenced.

As a Group Lead (GL), Marc had what I believe was the toughest role in the Bank of America SBA PPP team hierarchy. Positioned between engagement leadership and his Team Leads (TLs), Marc had to communicate marching orders and guidance from engagement leadership down to the TLs and ensure that information was being properly relayed to the individual processors on each team to be executed. Complicating the process was the fact that procedures and guidelines were constantly changing- sometimes multiple times in a single shift- and were often not fully fleshed out by bank stakeholders and engagement leadership in advance, resulting in process gaps and confusion on how to close them. Consequently, Marc had to manage the daily tidal wave of questions and concerns sent upward by his TLs and processors, having to delineate between items to be handled himself, escalated to leadership, and routed to other SMEs on the engagement team.

Marc also needed to oversee, navigate, and align a group of TLs with a spectrum of different personalities, professional backgrounds, and management styles. Some TLs were “hands off” with their teams, lightly critiquing processor and QA output and quickly turning around results. Other TLs preferred to more tightly manage the work of their staff, reviewing each loan and sometimes staying late to “put eyes on” everything. Certain TLs were quiet and laid back in their demeanor while others were more aggressive, attempting to circumvent the chain of command and go straight to leadership over minor issues and concerns. Some TLs were transparent about providing team status and performance updates while others were not as forthcoming.

In the midst of this bustle and variety of characters, Marc was the perfect unifying but calming presence that our group required. He did an outstanding job of keeping us informed about what we needed to know to move forward with our assignments while insulating us from the fray of client stakeholders, whose shifting requirements kept KPMG engagement leadership, PMO, and GLs like Marc perpetually scrambling to satisfy their demands. In so doing, he freed up his TLs to focus on mastering the nuances of bank procedures and guidance, assisting our teams in absorbing and applying that information, and ensuring that our work product was of the highest possible quality. The success of Marc’s leadership approach was manifested in our results- on a day-in, day-out basis, his group consistently delivered one of the lowest error rates of any group across the entire engagement team and, on many shifts, were the best.

Just as importantly, Marc fostered a fun, welcoming atmosphere within the group and transformed what could have been a difficult assignment- considering the nighttime / weekend hours, unpredictability of assignments, and challenging client- into a truly pleasant experience. With his warm, contagious personality, Marc made a point of cultivating strong relationships with each of his TLs and most of his processors by proactively joining team calls, scheduling one-on-one catch-up sessions, and jumping on chats each day to engage in discussions about team members’ lives, interests, and concerns. Knowing how much Marc genuinely cared about each of us, we reciprocated that bond and wanted to work the much harder to make him, our group, and the entire project successful. And, with such a great tone coming “from the top”, his TLs emulated Marc’s example in leading their teams, resulting in a group of individuals who looked forward to working together each day despite the difficult circumstances.
I have sincerely enjoyed working with Marc and he has made this project one of the most gratifying I’ve had in my 15 years with the firm. I hope I’m fortunate enough to be able to continue working with him during this coming phase of the BOA project and on future engagements as well.

I reported to Marc as part of the PPP project that wrapped up on
Saturday. I’m providing the below feedback based on my experience working for Marc on this unique engagement.

Marc was a great group lead to work for. He was obviously in a difficult position on a regular basis due to the many unanticipated changes the Bank requested as well as overseeing dozens of KPMG’ers. He handled these challenges in stride and had a positive attitude that helped keep the team leads from sweating the small stuff. He kept us focused on important items
instead of wading into the minutiae of edge cases that appeared. He also took the time to reach out to me 1:1. This was especially noteworthy given the more challenging hours for him,

As my time on the PPP engagement is coming to an end, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you and provide some upward feedback. First and foremost, thank you for your leadership, transparency, and guidance throughout the engagement. Blue Group 1 was lucky to have an understanding and caring Group Lead, like you. I know that your role as a Group Lead was not always easy and you were often the middleman between Leadership and the Team
Leads.

Your leadership has enabled Blue Group 1 to excel throughout the engagement. I have found it valuable that you have a team-oriented attitude and have encouraged collaboration with the Team Leads, instead of taking an authoritarian management style. It has fostered an environment of knowledge sharing, allowed all of our points of view to be heard, and made me feel like a valued member of the team. This lead to an environment of trust among the Team Leads. None of this would have been possible without your leadership.

As you are well aware, we had to tackle ever-changing guidance/directions, challenging hours, and technical complications. However, throughout the engagement you consistently demonstrated transparency and kept us in the loop, sharing both the good and the bad with the Team Leads. It enabled us to have the same level of transparency with the Loan Processors, which helped them to feel valued and allowed the Team Leads to have open and honest communications with our teams.

Further, your transparency helped to ensure that both Team Leads and Loan Processors expectations were appropriately set and achieve higher performance levels which were evident in the QC files, and the limited number of Blue Group 1 loans in them. Your guidance and support helped me to deal with challenging situations and have tough conversations with a few Loan Processors. No matter the time or the issue, you were always accessible and willing to help point me in the right direction. I especially appreciated your willingness to join the call with one the of the Loan Processor’s PML and Resource Management, so the messaging wasn’t coming from just me and lead me to feel supported.

In the short time I worked with Marc, I got to know him very well because of his outgoing, engaging personality. Marc is an advocate for teamwork, transparency and trust. He genuinely cares about coworkers, clients and customers and has a great desire to collaborate with them to improve their lives.

If you are seeking a direct and intelligent leader with strong industry experience, great care for his clients and a knack for aligning business capabilities to best serve customer needs, you should get to know Marc.

I just finished a Physical Inventory audit with Marc as the lead with the KPMG auditors. Marc did an amazing job leading his team in different time zones and schedule to ensure that my company was able to achieve our objective. Resolutions were swift and concise and communication was always professional and personal.

I had the opportunity to work with Marc closely on large deal opportunity where he was tasked with creating the call center solution. I was impressed with Marc’s professionalism, knowledge and drive to complete the work. He brings years of relevant experience and has the ability to craft a solution specific to the customer’s needs is second to none.

Marc shows great thought leadership in his work. He has and continues to bring forth original thinking, and ideas that have a meaningful impact to his clients through clear and executable strategy. He has tremendous business leadership and acumen sets a high bar for others to follow.

Marc was a pleasure to work with at PwC in NYC. He has a collaborative style, is very clever and has strong expertise.

I had the good fortune to work with Marc on several engagements at EY. I was continually impressed with Marc’s managerial skills as he always able to lead our teams to success, despite some very challenging obstacles. Marc was phenomenal at fostering the growth and development of our team members, and has become a trusted mentor. Marc has a unique skill in encouraging everyone to reach beyond their potential, and tailored his approach to each of us to provide the right support and guidance. In client settings, Marc excelled at developing relationships and delivering value. He was fantastic at building on his past experience and innovating to develop solutions that exceed expectations. I would happily work with Marc again in the future.

“Marc worked at a Senior Manager level in pursuing the eChannels project at Exelon”… “Marc served the Exelon team at a SM level throughout this pursuit and it was great to watch him in action. I urge our team to provide Marc with more opportunities for him to grow his capabilities and demonstrate his ability to lead a team and own client relationships at executive levels.”

“Being new to EY I was not clear on peoples formal roles; however, it was clear that Marc was an experienced leader of the team. He listened to feedback, asked great questions and contributed to us refining our presentation so we were best positioned to meet our client needs. He is very client focused as well as people focused… I have seen and experienced, firsthand, Marc’s natural ability to coach and mentor… I know he also meets other team members to mentor them on the weekends when he is not on site at the client. He takes the time to listen and understand people’s needs and provides constructive feedback to encourage their development… From my observations of Marc’s behavior and leadership I had assumed he was a Senior Manager.”

Marc has taken a leadership role within the CE LOS. His work in the Utilities practice around customer experience has been ground breaking. His team’s work has been presented in several forums and is highly leverageable and repeatable…. Marc has taken a “teaching” role in the LOS and it has now been extended to the ExE work. Marc is easy to work with and can rally folks behind him.

In his review of Marc’s work. Brian Hurst, Engagement Partner for the engagement, commented, “Serve as the day-to-day project lead, stepping up into what was really a very senior manager role, in delivering a very high profile engagement for ComEd… Marc has a great deal of range in both front-line employees to the EVP of customer operations… Marc demonstrated that he is able to impact, influence, and develop his team in a ‘safe’ learning environment. They looked to his guidance and feedback outside of simply delivering the role objectives.… The best way to demonstrate Marc’s impact is the following quote / email from the EVP of Customer Care, our buyer and key influencer in the organization”.

Marc made key contributions to the development of our Customer Experience Learning Week content in October. Through her efforts, the LOS was able to standardize its approach to CE projects and communicate it to the team effectively.

Few people have the opportunity to report to a line manager who is also a coach and mentor—but I did when I worked for Marc. I had the pleasure of meeting Marc when I joined EY and since, he has always been an impressive and inclusive leader. On an eChannels strategy project that we worked on together, I witnessed first hand Marc’s ability to effectively manage client relationships, conduct workshops, strategize and lead the team to much success. Marc’s ability to efficiently manage deadlines and his team without ever losing the personal touch was unlike any I’ve ever seen before and made a dramatic difference in the productivity and morale level on our project. I look forward to being able to work with Marc again!

I worked with Marc on several assignments at EY in both business pursuits, thought leadership development and client service delivery. Marc is natural leader who operates from a position of trust and respect, thereby inspiring his team to perform above and beyond. Marc has exceptional client and program management skills and is very effective in uniting clients towards a common vision and set objectives regardless of agendas and personalities. He has deep expertise in both customer operations and customer experience strategy, which is quickly demonstrated and enables him to rapidly become a trusted advisor to his clients. I enjoyed the insights and innovation that Marc brought to his assignments, and look forward to working with him again!!

I had the pleasure of working for Marc for over a year on multiple projects at EY. I am always impressed with the energy and leadership he brings to work every day. Marc has a unique ability to bring out the best of his team and leverage individual talents to achieve a common goal. Recently, on a customer experience project, Marc led a team to define a roadmap to improve customer satisfaction at a large utility. Marc taught me how to lead workshops, manage deadlines, and work collaboratively with the client to consistently exceed expectations. It’s not surprising that his leadership led to the project being nominated by EY for the Association of Management Consulting Awards. Marc, I hope we get the chance to work together again soon!

“I can say that Anne [Pramaggiore, President of ComEd] and Terry[ Donnely, COO] were extremely pleased / excited with the work that was done. I am extremely grateful to you and your team or helping us get to this point. I think it is great work. V.” Val Jensen, Senior Vice President, Customer Operations”

Marc is a trusted leader, advisor, mentor, and coach who is well respected by clients and peers alike. Over the span of 3 years, I watched Marc develop deep and trusting relationships with his colleagues and clients based not only on his expertise and knowledge in customer experience, but also on his empathy and genuine desire to help them find winning solutions and achieve their objectives.

As Sr. Leader in the organization, Marc demonstrated his leadership abilities consistently by driving individuals and teams to deliver results time and again while remaining compassionate to their needs and building mutual trust.

Marc’s expertise and work in Customer Experience helped to define and drive the space for EY while improving the experiences of his customer’s customers and delivering bottom line results for his clients.

In short, working alongside Marc, is a great experience.

“I was pleased with Marc’s ability to quickly build a relationship with myself and the team, and how fast he came up the ramp on understanding the project and issues, and in finding ways to be of service. Marc took over the PMO aspects for change management and training, and did an excellent
job in driving the planning and implementation of the communications required for the project. It was great to have Marc step in wherever I needed help, and his background aided him in both transaction and interpersonal project management. I also feel that we somewhat underutilized his ability, and could have done more with his skill set, but the timing on the project dictated the requirements, and he did what was required without a complaint.”

“All the feedback I have received from the numerous interviews you have conducted has been positive. Everyone has been very pleased with your approach and your ability to listen and understand.”

“the AVS work track was behind schedule and Marc was instrumental in getting this effort back on track”.  “the net effort of this <managing EY, client and third party resources> was we were, with few exceptions, able to deliver the agreed upon AVS solution for review during CRP3, as communicated to the stakeholders, which no small task was given all of these dynamics”.   

“Marc did an outstanding job of turning around the ailing AVS work track and making it a success. His ability to build rapport with the client, understand their needs, and get them to a mutually agreeable outcome was outstanding work and an indication of the deep levels of experience that Marc brings to bear.” 

“Marc’s presence was critical to the success of the Electronic Sales Order – AVS Project. His ability to keep the project focused and on target allowed the Project Core Team to meet significant milestones for the business stakeholders despite an aggressive schedule. Both the Project Core Team and business stake holders were very pleased with Marc’s individual accomplishments and commitment to the project. Any future project or organization would greatly benefit from having Marc as a team member.”

“Your report was excellent really.  I was very impressed.”

” As a Manager, Marc clearly communicated his expectations of tasks and timing. This resulted in fewer revisions to documents and more time creating value for the client. His clear direction contributed to productivity and ultimately allowed us to meet an aggressive timeline at ADP.
Marc excelled at coaching and developing team members on the project. After discussing my goals with him, he identified opportunities to achieve those goals…

Importantly, Marc was empathetic to life situations outside of client work and showed understanding. I believe this is a differentiator among Managers this Senior has worked with previously at EY.”

Another senior I worked with provided the following feedback through my counselor, “…I was highly impressed with Marc during my experience of working with him… His working style included setting clear expectations both with the client and project team. He spoke his mind and openly shared his opinion and ideas with the team. He was very direct and provided guidance and support to me for successfully completed the assigned tasks. He genuinely cares about the client and the problem at hand and works towards resolving those.

Marc has exceptional people skills. He was able to quickly get on the good side of our aggressive client using his personality. He is very personable and easy to work with…. He genuinely cares for team member’s development and success in professional world. He was able to connect to  the team using his own personal experiences and wisdom. I found him to be an extremely valuable supervisor… “

I received a Bravo Award for the work I completed at ADP:  On behalf of the ADP project team leadership, we want to thank you for your hard work on the AVS track of the ADP ESO project. We appreciate your dedication and engagement over the past months.

Marc proved to be a great manager. He shared many insightful things as I embark on my consulting career. It is obvious that he knows how to manage.