Cliff Consulting Announces the Addition of Two Senior Consultants

Cliff Consulting Inc., a local woman-owned management consulting firm with a 40-year history of helping clients in the San Francisco Bay Area, today announced the addition of two new members of its consulting team.

Apu Gupta returns to Cliff Consulting after four years at WestEd, a San Francisco-based educational non-profit where he held senior IT leadership positions, and Laura Willoughby is a new member of the Cliff Consulting team, coming from UC Berkeley, where she led the Student Services Technology Initiatives Group. Both are seasoned experts with many years of experience planning and leading large scale projects.

“Laura and Apu bring a rare blend of deep experience and a collaborative, egoless style. These are qualities that Cliff Consulting is known for,” said Robin Nasatir, President of Cliff Consulting. “From the hundreds of resumes we review each year, we may find one or two people whose style and level of experience will bring the kind of results our clients expect. Laura and Apu both bring that unique balance and we are very excited to have these very gifted consultants join the team.”

Apu Gupta brings 25 years of experience managing business and IT consulting projects in the healthcare, enterprise software, telecommunications, non-profit, financial services, and retail industries. Gupta has worked for a variety of Fortune 500 companies in a wide range of industries, including PeopleSoft, Safeway, Kaiser Permanente, Wells Fargo Bank, WestEd, AirTouch Cellular (now Verizon Wireless), and Pacific Bell (now AT&T). He received his MBA in finance from Golden Gate University in San Francisco, and he currently resides in Fairfield, CA.

Laura Willoughby is a management consultant with more than 15 years of experience leading projects and aligning organizations’ strategic objectives and technology initiatives in a variety of industries ranging from financial services, healthcare, energy, and higher education. Prior to Cliff Consulting, Willoughby led the Student Services Technology Initiatives Group for UC Berkeley, spearheaded the training and adoption of an enterprise project prioritization process for Chevron, and re-designed and implemented PMO processes for a major initiative at Kaiser Permanente. She received her MS in Information Systems Management from Stevens Institute of Technology and currently resides in El Cerrito, CA.  

“Gupta and Willoughby both bring well-honed program leadership skills,” said Nasatir.  “Their dedication to successfully implementing business strategies will be a true asset to our clients, and we are thrilled to welcome them aboard.” 

About Cliff Consulting

Cliff Consulting, Inc. is a small, local, woman‐owned consulting firm that helps organizations leverage their internal talent to deliver mission‐critical projects such as mergers, technology implementations, business transformations and major compliance initiatives. Founded in 1972, Cliff Consulting has helped a wide variety of clients including Wells Fargo, UC Berkeley, Clorox, and Kaiser Permanente as well as select non-profit organizations and philanthropic foundations. 

The company’s success is due in large part to its unique business model, which offers clients the ability to bring in one or two senior consultants rather than a whole team, and provides seasoned professionals the opportunity to focus on exciting assignments without the politics, long hours and travel typically found in partnership and executive roles in management consulting.

For more information about the firm, please visit www.cliffconsulting.net

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