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Tag: consulting

  • I lead IBM Consulting, here’s how AI-first companies must redesign work for growth | Fortune

    Across every industry, organizations are investing heavily in the potential of artificial intelligence to reshape how they operate and grow. Nearly 80% of executives expect AI to significantly contribute to revenue by 2030, yet only 24% know where that revenue might come from. 

    This isn’t an awareness gap. It’s an architecture gap.

    The companies already capturing AI’s value aren’t waiting to discover it through pilots and proofs-of-concept. They’re engineering it through deliberate choices about how work gets designed, how human and digital workers come together, and how productivity savings are reinvested. 

    From our work with enterprises across every major industry, a clear divide is emerging. 

    Some organizations are bolting AI onto legacy workflows and gaining marginal productivity. Others are redesigning how value gets created and building growth trajectories competitors can’t replicate.

    By 2030, this won’t be just a short-term positioning advantage. It will determine who remains in business. The difference comes down to three architectural choices that separate AI-first enterprises from everyone else.

    Redesign Work Itself, Don’t Just Augment It

    Most AI adoption fails because organizations are automating fundamentally broken processes. They’re making inefficient work more efficient—and wondering why transformation doesn’t happen.

    AI-first enterprises start with a different question: If we were designing this work today with no legacy constraints, what outcome do we want? And what combination of human judgment and AI capability achieves that outcome best?

    Nestlé provides a powerful example of a more than a centry-old global enterprise. The company isn’t just adding AI features to existing systems. They’re building an AI-powered enterprise architecture that understands their entire product ecosystem, supply chain, and consumer relationships in ways generic models never could. The goal isn’t incremental improvement—it’s the capability to deliver superior products faster while creating more personalized experiences for employees and customers.

    Riyadh Air represents the opposite end of the business spectrum—a startup with no legacy constraints. But the principle is identical. The airline is building an AI-native operation from day one, with a unified architecture connecting operations, employees, and customers as a single intelligent system.

    The insight both share is that the digital backbone isn’t just infrastructure. It’s the intentional architecture that allows humans and AI to work as integrated capabilities, creating adaptability that compounds over time.

    Build Proprietary Intelligence, Not Just Access to Models

    By 2030, everyone will have access to powerful AI models. The winners will have customized AI that knows their business better than any third-party AI possibly could.

    L’Oréal isn’t just using AI to accelerate R&D. They’re building a custom AI foundation model trained on their proprietary formulation data, scientific research, and sustainability requirements.
    These models will give their scientists capabilities no competitor could replicate, enabling new scientific possibilities that wouldn’t otherwise exist.

    In our recent survey, more than half of executives expect their competitive edge to come from AI model sophistication specifically. Sophistication also comes from proprietary data, custom models tuned to specific challenges, and continuous learning loops. Organizations need multi-model portfolios – some proprietary, some licensed, all integrated into architectures that evolve as quickly as their markets.

    The most valuable companies won’t be those with the most data. They’ll be the ones that turn data into AI-driven decisions at scale, with intelligence competitors can’t mimic by simply licensing better models.

    Engineer Growth Loops, Not Just Efficiency Gains

    Most AI strategies fail because they treat productivity as the destination.

    Executives expect AI to boost productivity by 42% by 2030. But if you bank those gains as cost savings, you’ve fundamentally misunderstood the opportunity. AI-first enterprises treat productivity as fuel by reinvesting efficiency gains into new products, services, and markets.

    The pattern works like this: AI-driven efficiency frees capital and talent. That freed capacity funds innovation in new markets. New markets generate new data. New data trains better AI. Better AI creates more efficiency. The loop accelerates.

    L’Oréal scientists won’t just make formulations faster—this speed will allow them to explore sustainable ingredients that were not economically feasible before. Nestlé isn’t just optimizing supply chains—they’re using those gains to build direct consumer relationships that transform how people interact with their products. Riyadh Air isn’t just building a new airline—they’re stripping out fifty years of legacy in a single stroke that will define the next decade of aviation.

    This creates exponential divergence. While laggards optimize margins, leaders accelerate into new markets, building capabilities that compound. By 2030, the gap won’t be measurable in productivity percentages. It will be measurable in entirely different business models.

    The Questions That Determine Who Wins

    The next era of growth won’t be predicted. It will be engineered. Leaders must answer three uncomfortable questions now:

    1. If we redesigned our operations with AI-first principles, what would we stop doing entirely? Not what would we do faster, rather, what would we eliminate? Most organizations discover that 30-40% of their workflows exist solely to compensate for constraints that AI removes. But elimination requires courage optimization avoids.
    2. What proprietary intelligence could we build that competitors can’t replicate? Not what AI can you license, but what AI could you engineer—built on the human expertise unique to your organization—that is so deeply tuned to your business that competitors would need a decade to catch up?
    3. Are we banking productivity gains or reinvesting them into growth loops?  Cost savings are finite, but growth loops are exponential. Which one is your strategy building?

    By 2030, the companies that can answer these questions won’t just be more productive. They’ll be operating in markets competitors didn’t know existed, with capabilities competitors can’t build, and business models competitors can’t afford.

    The real risk isn’t moving too fast on AI. It’s engineering too slowly while competitors redesign the game entirely.

    The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

    Mohamad Ali

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  • This 26-year-old was laid off from his ‘dream job’ at PwC building AI agents. He’s worried the tech he built has led to more job cuts | Fortune

    Titans of industry like Salesforce, Microsoft, and Intel have all been slashing staff, and employees are hand-wringing about being next on the chopping block. Donald King, a 26-year-old who built AI agents for PwC, never thought he’d be the next one out the door—but he soon realized why consultants are called “hatchet-men.”

    After graduating with a degree in finance from the University of Texas at Austin in 2021, King landed a job at one of the “Big Four” consulting giants: PwC. He packed his bags and moved to New York to start his role as an associate in technology consulting, working with major clients, including Oracle, during his first year. But everything changed when PwC announced a $1 billion investment in AI; King was already intrigued by the tech, so he pitched himself to join the company’s AI factory team. Working 60 to 80 hours a week, he immersed himself in the tech, even throwing knowledge-sharing AI agent block parties within the firm that drew up to 250 participants. King logged a ton of hours—sometimes at the expense of his weekends—but was confident he was excelling in his role as a product manager and data scientist.

    “I was coding and managing a team onshore and offshore. It was crazy, it’s like, ‘Give this 24-year-old millions of dollars of salary spent per month to build AI agents for Fortune 500 [companies],’” King tells Fortune. “[It was] my dream job…I won first place in this OpenAI hackathon across the entire firm.”

    Although King was proving himself as a key AI talent for PwC, he did begin to question the impact of his work. The AI agents King was building for major corporations could undoubtedly automate swaths of human roles—perhaps even entire job departments. One Microsoft Teams agent his group created mimicked an actual person, and King was a little spooked. 

    “We had a late night call with all the boys that are building this thing, like, ‘What the hell are we building right now?’” King says. “Just saying ‘Treat them like humans’ is probably not the best way to think about it.”

    Behind the scenes, a layoff was brewing—but this time, for King. In October 2024, just eight months into his final role at PwC, the Gen Zer presented his winning project from the OpenAI hackathon: a fleet of AI agents that automated manual tasks. King was proud and felt confident in his place at the firm, but two hours later, PwC called King to inform him he was being laid off. The 26-year-old recorded the meeting and posted it on TikTok, raking up more than 75,000 likes and 2.1 million views. Commenters under his videos expressed shock that King would be let go after winning the hackathon.

    “I thought I was safe, especially after I won first place,” King says. “I just got a little blindsided.”

    King clarifies he doesn’t think there were any “nefarious” intentions behind his layoff, reasoning he was likely a random staffer dismissed after the firm had overhired in previous years. However, he does connect the dots between the AI agents he built for PwC customers and the layoffs that soon ensued at those client companies. 

    Fortune reached out to PwC for comment. 

    King believes his AI agents may have been connected to layoffs 

    While King doesn’t believe his former role at PwC was automated, he recognizes that the AI agents he built likely had an impact on others. The year after his layoff, King observed that some of the Fortune 500 clients he served were implementing staffing cuts. Those AI agents he helped create may have had a hand in the layoffs. 

    “It’s 100% connected,” King says. “I knew that consulting was a hatchet-man type job, I knew you’re going in to potentially lay people off, but I didn’t think it was going to be like this.”

    While King believes AI agents are akin to the reasoning power of a five-year-old, they still know “all the corpus of information in the world” and can automate mundane tasks. Oftentimes, that means entry-level jobs are most at risk of being disrupted. 

    “It’s automating tasks, 100%, those are gone,” King says. “If your job is doing those menial types of things, if you’re just emailing a spreadsheet back and forth, you can kiss your job goodbye.”

    Pivoting to his new life purpose: founding a marketing agency 

    While being on PwC’s AI team may have once been his dream job, the layoff didn’t crush his spirit. 

    “I’m grateful for it happening…It was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but then it turned into the best thing,” King says. “Overall, [I’m] very grateful that I got laid off.”

    In the aftermath of being let go, King says he was inundated with job offers from major tech companies to join their AI operations. However, the scrappy young entrepreneur sidelined the idea of returning to a nine-to-five gig; instead, King started his own marketing agency, AMDK. The business officially launched in December last year, less than two months after being laid off from PwC. 

    So far, King says AMDK has roped in clients ranging from small companies to billion-dollar enterprises, many of whom are looking for AI agents of their own. His end goal is to build a swarm of agents that help companies with their back ends—but after his experience on PwC’s AI team, he says he’s being cautious about the ramifications of his creations. He’s still learning the ropes of entrepreneurship, but wouldn’t trade the highs and lows for a salaried corporate job.

    “This is my purpose in life, versus this is someone else’s purpose,” King says. “[I’m] way happier.”

    Emma Burleigh

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  • Meet the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, who skipped finals to make an empire out of teaching AI ‘what only humans know’ | Fortune

    In the spring of 2023, while his classmates at Georgetown were cramming for finals, Brendan Foody was busy testing out his new theory of work.

    “I knew I wanted to drop out before finals my sophomore year,” he told Fortune. “I just didn’t go to finals.”

    By then, Foody had already found something he couldn’t learn in a lecture hall. A few months earlier, at a hackathon in São Paulo, he and his co-founders had stumbled onto a simple but powerful model: match companies with skilled engineers abroad, handle the logistics, and take a small cut of each deal. Their first client agreed to pay $500 a week for a developer; Mercor paid the engineer roughly 70% and kept the rest as a service fee.

    What began as a way to connect talent soon evolved into something more ambitious: a marketplace where humans could help train the AI systems that might one day replace them. Mercor now hires professionals—consultants, lawyers, bankers, and doctors—to create “evals” and rubrics that test and refine models’ reasoning.

    “Everyone’s been focused on what models can do,” Foody said. “But the real opportunity is teaching them what only humans know—judgment, nuance, and taste.”

    Within nine months, he and his co-founders—high school friends and debate teammates Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha—had turned that fledgling idea into a company with a $1 million revenue run rate. The trio’s early success was less a fluke than a proof of concept: that the same structured reasoning they once practiced on the debate circuit could be codified to teach machines how to think.

    Two years later, Mercor has become a $10 billion company, turning the trio into the world’s youngest self-made billionaires. The product of that São Paulo experiment had transformed into one of the fastest-scaling startups of the AI era, attracting major investors who view it as a linchpin in the future of human-in-the-loop automation.

    To Foody, the leap from college dropout to billionaire founder was rational.

    “When I was in college, work was something I had to be disciplined to do,” he said. “When I started Mercor, it became something I couldn’t stop thinking about.”

    Foody still hasn’t taken a day off in three years. He says even when he’s at the dinner table with his parents, he thinks about work, which, to him, doesn’t feel like work. 

    “People burn out when they work hard on things that don’t feel compounding,” he explained. “I see the ROI of my time every day.”

    That mindset has become the philosophical core of Mercor’s mission. In Foody’s view, AI isn’t eliminating labor: it’s reallocating it. As software automates repetitive white-collar tasks, humans will move up the value chain, teaching machines how to reason, decide, and create. 

    “It’s like we have this bottleneck of only so much human labor in the economy,” he said. “That shape is going to change radically over the next decade.”

    How is Mercor alleviating the bottleneck? Its platform allows enterprises to commission thousands of micro-tasks that measure model performance in real professional contexts: writing a financial memo, drafting a legal brief, or analyzing a medical chart. Human evaluators grade each output against detailed rubrics, feeding structured feedback back into the model. Every evaluation helps AI learn how people make decisions, and how they measure quality.

    At the center of that system is APEX—the AI Productivity Index, Mercor’s proprietary benchmark for assessing how well AI performs economically valuable work. Rather than test abstract reasoning or mathematical puzzles, APEX evaluates large models on 200 tasks drawn from the workflows of investment bankers, lawyers, consultants, and physicians. To build it, Mercor enlisted a heavyweight advisory group that includes former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, ex-McKinsey managing partner Dominic Barton, legal scholar Cass Sunstein, and cardiologist Eric Topol. Each helped design the evaluation rubrics and case structures to mirror the realities of high-stakes professional labor.

    As the company puts it: “It’s great to have 10,000 PhDs in your pocket—it’s even better to have a model that can reliably do your taxes.”

    The implications of Mercor’s success are sweeping. In Foody’s eyes, this new labor market could employ millions of people globally while accelerating AI progress. 

    “We’ll automate maybe two-thirds of knowledge work,” he said. “And that’ll be incredible, because it lets us do things like cure cancer and go to Mars.”

    For investors, Mercor’s growth story is irresistible. It sits at the intersection of two seismic shifts: the mainstreaming of AI and the rise of flexible, project-based work. Each corporate client adds new evaluators, and each evaluator helps refine more models, creating a flywheel of both data and demand. 

    “We have one of the fastest revenue ramps of any company in history,” Foody said matter-of-factly.

    Foody likes to describe it as the next industrial revolution. He knows people are afraid of being replaced by AI, and constantly fields questions on the ethics of training AI to replace jobs. Foody argues we ought to just bite the bullet. 

    “It’s easy to fall into a Luddite mindset and see productivity gains as bad because they cause short-term job losses,” Foody said. “But every major technical revolution has ultimately made life better.”

    After the industrial revolution, the economy went from 75% of Americans working as farmers to about 1%, and that freed people to do everything else, Foody said. 

    “The challenge now is to be thoughtful about what comes next: the higher, better things humans will spend time on,” Foody said, “and how quickly we can help make that future real.”

    Eva Roytburg

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  • AI ‘Consulting’ Services Can Help Smaller Businesses, But Risks Persist

    Consultancy firms can be very useful for growing businesses — giving new companies guidance or financial or management advice when needed, backed by experience and expertise. But for smaller enterprises with narrow margins, the cost of hiring top-rank consulting firms can be financially out of reach.

    Enter AI, according to a new report at Business Insider. In much the same way that generative AI tools promise to add, say, coding expertise to a small team, or free up workers from mundane tasks to engage in more productive work, AI-powered “consultant” apps are emerging from a suite of Silicon Valley startups, with the goal of helping small firms carry out market research, analyze data or to smooth and optimize their business operations. 

    Business Insider quotes Thomson Nguyen, cofounder and managing partner of Wyoming-based venture capital outfit Saga, on the phenomenon. These new AI consultancy players won’t be challenging big consulting firms any time soon, he thinks, simply because if you’re a “Fortune 500 company building AI infrastructure for your call center, you’ll still hire the Big Four,” because you’ll have the budget set aside and experience in working with third-party consultancies. But the real target for these startups is smaller companies, making under $100 million a year, who are too small to hire a McKinsey or Deloitte, for example. 

    The news outlet notes that AI apps like PromptQL, from Bangalore-based AI unicorn Hasura, are directly set up to tackle typical consultant roles — including analyzing a company’s internal data, and continually adapting over time. PromptQL even has a team of engineers that’ll help craft an AI analyst agent specifically to meet the needs of a client company. Co-founder and CEO Tanmai Gopal admitted to Business Insider that it’s “not as good as a McKinsey consultant,” but it has the benefits of being “instant.” That’s the very opposite of the sometimes protracted process where a consultant learns about their client company before tackling an analysis, since an AI can just be switched on and immediately wrestle with data. 

    Among the kind of tasks that AI consultancy startups are tackling, starting and managing call centers and customer service automation is a trend, as are firms that aim at integrating software and AI into client company’s operations, as well as firms building management and operational AI systems. There are even AI tools targeting executive coaching.

    This may not be a surprise, considering that big tech names like Salesforce are already selling their own agent-based AI services aimed at automating the sales process and call center operations. AI startups offering similar options and targeting smaller companies as clients is natural.

    Gopal told Business Insider that for now these AI consultancy tools aren’t really replacing human workers — echoing many an AI evangelist’s argument about the role of AI in the workplace. Human workers have more diverse skills, and for now it’s as much about the “network” of colleagues that a human worker can access as it is about their advice. 

    What’s the takeaway from this for your company?

    If you find yourself struggling with an expertise gap, you may find that there’s an AI-powered consulting tool out there that will fit your needs.

    But as with most AI tools, perhaps the thing to remember is that (just as with human consultants, though perhaps less obviously) AIs are not infallible. AI systems regularly make mistakes, and can hallucinate analysis and advice that they then pass off as meaningful, just as if it was real advice. You’ll have seen this by now, perhaps when you asked an AI to write a snippet of code for you. The AI may insist the code works, but when you say “No, it doesn’t,” the AI may say “Oh! You’re right!” and offer a fix. Whenever you’re using AI it’s probably best to run the results past a human worker before making, say, a business critical decision based on an AI consultant’s analysis. 

    Kit Eaton

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  • Deloitte was caught using AI in $290,000 report to help the Australian government crack down on welfare after a researcher flagged hallucinations | Fortune

    Deloitte’s member firm in Australia will pay the government a partial refund for a $290,000 report that contained alleged AI-generated errors, including references to non-existent academic research papers and a fabricated quote from a federal court judgment. 

    The report was originally published on the Australian government’s Department of Employment and Workplace Relations website in July. A revised version was quietly published on Friday after Sydney University researcher of health and welfare law Chris Rudge said he alerted media outlets that the report was “full of fabricated references.”

    Deloitte reviewed the 237-page report and “confirmed some footnotes and references were incorrect,” the department said in a statement Tuesday.

    Deloitte did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

    The revised version of the report includes a disclosure that a generative AI language system, Azure OpenAI, was used in its creation. It also removes the fabricated quotes attributed to a federal court judge and references to nonexistent reports attributed to law and software engineering experts. Deloitte noted in a “Report Update” section that the updated version, dated September 26, replaced the report published in July. 

    “The updates made in no way impact or affect the substantive content, findings and recommendations in the report,” Deloitte wrote.

    In late August the Australian Financial Review first reported that the document contained multiple errors, citing Rudge as the researcher who identified the apparent AI-generated inaccuracies. 

    Rudge discovered the report’s mistakes when he read a portion incorrectly stating Lisa Burton Crawford, a Sydney University professor of public and constitutional law, had authored a non-existent book with a title outside her field of expertise.

    “I instantaneously knew it was either hallucinated by AI or the world’s best kept secret because I’d never heard of the book and it sounded preposterous,” Rudge told The Associated Press on Tuesday. 

    The Big Four consulting firms and global management firms such as McKinsey have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into AI initiatives to develop proprietary models and increase efficiency. In September, Deloitte said it would invest $3 billion in generative AI development through fiscal year 2030. 

    Anthropic also announced a Deloitte partnership on Monday that includes making Claude available to more than 470,000 Deloitte professionals.

    In June, the UK Financial Reporting Council, an accountancy regulator, warned that the Big Four firms were failing to monitor how AI and automated technologies affected the quality of their audits. 

    Though the firm will refund its last payment installment to the Australian government, Senator Barbara Pocock, the Australian Greens party’s spokesperson on the public sector, said Deloitte should refund the entire $290,000.

    Deloitte “misused AI and used it very inappropriately: misquoted a judge, used references that are non-existent,” Pocock told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “I mean, the kinds of things that a first-year university student would be in deep trouble for.”“The matter has been resolved directly with the client,” a spokesperson from Deloitte Australia told TheAssociated Press.

    Fortune Global Forum returns Oct. 26–27, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and global leaders will gather for a dynamic, invitation-only event shaping the future of business. Apply for an invitation.

    Nino Paoli

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  • BHA Strategy Expands Leadership Team With Three New Partners

    Firm Welcomes Nicole Watson and Promotes Brent Easley and Laine Arnold to Partner


    NASHVILLE, Tenn., September 29, 2025 (Newswire.com)
    –
    BHA Strategy, Tennessee’s leading public affairs firm, announced the expansion of its leadership team with the addition of Nicole Watson as Partner and the promotions of Brent Easley and Laine Arnold to Partner. Watson, based in Nashville and Chattanooga, brings over 20 years of government relations and public affairs experience. Easley, former legislative director for Gov. Bill Lee, and Arnold, former communications director and senior advisor to Gov. Lee, have been key to BHA’s growth across Tennessee.

    Watson most recently served as Public Policy & Regulatory Partner at Holland & Knight LLP, advising clients on state and local public affairs and navigating complex legislative and regulatory issues. A graduate of Regent University School of Law and recognized as one of Chattanooga’s “20 Under 40,” Watson has built her career on strategic counsel and results-driven leadership. At BHA, she will lead the firm’s multi-state government affairs efforts, expanding its reach and delivering results for clients nationwide.

    “Nicole, Brent, and Laine are among the most respected professionals in Tennessee public affairs,” said Blake Harris, CEO of BHA Strategy. “Their leadership will strengthen our services across the state and support the growth of our multi-state practice. We are thrilled to welcome Nicole and recognize Brent and Laine through their promotions.”

    “I am excited to join BHA Strategy and lead our multi-state government affairs practice,” said Watson. “BHA has an outstanding reputation for results, and I look forward to working with this talented team to serve clients and expand our reach.”

    Watson’s addition, along with Easley and Arnold’s promotion, continues BHA Strategy’s momentum following regional expansions and its growing partnership with BGR Group in Washington, D.C. “BGR’s partnership with BHA grows stronger every day as we work together to deliver results across Tennessee and in D.C.,” said Loren Monroe, Principal at BGR Group. “Nicole, Brent, and Laine bring expertise that strengthens our multi-state capabilities and ability to guide clients where public policy, politics, and risk converge.”

    ###

    About BHA Strategy (BHA Strategy):

    Based in Nashville, BHA Strategy is a full-service, strategic consulting firm providing expertise in government affairs, public relations, and corporate intelligence. With deep roots in political campaigns and public service, BHA’s team applies winning campaign strategies and senior advisor expertise to the biggest challenges facing startups, corporations, and causes. BHA retains a political skill set that includes public opinion research, digital marketing, and media production/placement. The firm’s core focus is multi-state government affairs, strategic communication, and reputation management.

    About BGR Group (www.bgrdc.com):

    Founded in 1991, BGR Group is a premier government affairs and PR firm with offices in D.C., London, Austin, Phoenix, and Atlanta. BGR specializes in three key areas: bipartisan government affairs, strategic communications, and business advisory services. BGR brings together accomplished policy experts, public opinion influencers, and issue advocates from across the political spectrum.

    Source: BHA Strategy

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  • Why Marketing Agencies Are Struggling in 2025 | Entrepreneur

    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    I run a boutique marketing agency, but despite our agency size, we work with some notable brands and growing, funded startups, but I am not going to sugarcoat it. Business has been slow. Earlier this year, we had a couple of clients who “put marketing on pause” despite the good metrics we were getting them, and a manufacturing client literally backed down from a contract because of the tariffs.

    At first, I took things a bit personally, but then when I connected with other fellow agency owners and consultants, I noticed that many of them were going through the same thing at some level, at least on the marketing side.

    The truth is that we’re at an inflection point. The forces reinventing marketing are not merely external; they’re structural. Economic shifts are the main driver, but also AI disruptions, talent trends and evolving client expectations are fundamentally altering the way value is delivered.

    Let’s analyze a bit more.

    Related: How to Grow Your Marketing Agency to 7 Figures

    Budgets are shrinking. Expectations aren’t.

    Economic indicators have been blinking yellow for a while. Persistent inflation, tariffs and international trade uncertainty, and increasing expenses are making marketing leaders hesitant to make firm, long-term commitments. In response, brands are reducing or freezing their expenditures and putting emphasis on demonstrating the worth of each dollar.

    Marketing agencies and consultants are feeling this impact across the board. Progress is no longer good enough. Clients need to see how your work is impacting the pipeline, sales and long-term growth. That equates to less experimentation and more emphasis on performance.

    AI is changing the game

    There is no question about AI’s power. It can create content and code, analyze performance and suggest campaign optimization. Several services that agencies once charged a premium for are now performed in-house or by automation software.

    Additionally, the hype around AI tends to outpace reality. This creates client doubt, price pressure and difficult questions regarding where human value still adds up. Spoiler: It still does. But you must deliver something AI can’t: strategic thought, real-world experience, subtle storytelling and intelligent execution linked to outcomes.

    Workplace models continue to evolve, and it’s generating tension

    A few clients are back in the office. A few teams are remote-first. Others are somewhere in between. And though that all sounds great in theory — but in practice, it’s proving problematic.

    Agencies are being called on to interact more face to face. Face-to-face meetings, strategy sessions and embeds are back, particularly with enterprise accounts. Meanwhile, it’s gotten harder to attract and retain top talent. People desire flexibility, yet clients want face time. It isn’t simple to balance these demands, compelling agency leaders to reconsider their hiring models and geographic scope.

    Related: A Marketing Agency Model That Actually Benefits the Client

    Commoditization is real

    A few years ago, simply having the skill and technology to launch a campaign or email program gave you an edge. That’s no longer true today.

    As martech platforms and AI tools proliferate, more brands have solid internal teams. Agencies can no longer just be functional experts. What clients really need now is insight, market context, tighter positioning, creative thinking and a point of view they can’t get in-house.

    Specialization isn’t optional anymore

    We’re seeing a strong trend away from generalist agencies and toward highly specialized partners. Whether it’s B2B SaaS, financial services, healthcare or multicultural strategy, clients desire teams that really understand their industry. You don’t necessarily need to concentrate on a single industry, but you do need to define a niche, a vertical, a channel or a methodology. The “we do it all” days are giving way to “we do this, and we do it better than anybody else.”

    Data measurement and privacy only get more complicated

    Regulatory pressure is building. With GDPR, CCPA and cookie deprecation, the traditional method of tracking performance and targeting audiences is eroding. For agencies, that creates a twofold challenge: staying compliant and delivering insights in an environment where data is harder to obtain and less precise.

    This means reimagining analytics strategies, investing in clean data practices and guiding clients through a more privacy-centric environment without sacrificing effectiveness.

    SEO and organic marketing are changing rapidly

    AI-driven results, such as Google’s SGE or AI mode, ChatGPT and Perplexity being used as search engines, are altering the way users search for and consume information. At the same time, the web is awash in AI-created copy — a little of it good, most of it bad.

    The moral is clear: Content volume is no longer enough. Brands must produce original content and produce it with skill. Agencies that help clients build genuine authority founded on quality, relevance and consistency will prosper, while those focused on quick victories will be lost in the din.

    Talent is elusive and costly

    The war for talent continues unabated. Leading strategists, creatives, media planners and analysts are costly, and they are aware of it. Meanwhile, clients are pushing back on fees.

    This reality squeezes agency margins and compels difficult discussions on staffing, automation and the degree of service actually viable. Intelligent companies are creating leaner organizations, tighter briefs and more streamlined operations without sacrificing quality.

    Sustainability and global stability are now core issues

    Clients are under growing pressure to meet obligations around sustainability, social responsibility and ethical business. That means their agency partners need to reflect those values as well. Add to that the geopolitical risks — wars, trade interruptions, regulatory shifts — strategic marketing needs to be as much about risk management as growth driving.

    Related: How I Created a Successful Marketing Agency

    Outcomes are more important than ever, even when you don’t have total control

    Clients want tangible outcomes, not just activity. However, agencies and consultants do not always have full control over what gets implemented. Internal delays, under-resourced teams and poor execution can all detract from performance. Nevertheless, external partners are still held to the same high standards of delivery.

    This is why early clarity is so essential. Clear definition of scope, realistic expectation management and agreement on timings are all critical. Those agencies that can conduct these discussions with confidence and openness will be the ones who can maintain trust when results are harder to achieve.

    If you are running a marketing agency or consulting firm, here is the takeaway: 2025 is not business as usual. It is about agility and doubling down on what you’re most valuable at, but also “back-to-school” time — catching up with AI and other trends in order to build a more sustainable business model.

    I run a boutique marketing agency, but despite our agency size, we work with some notable brands and growing, funded startups, but I am not going to sugarcoat it. Business has been slow. Earlier this year, we had a couple of clients who “put marketing on pause” despite the good metrics we were getting them, and a manufacturing client literally backed down from a contract because of the tariffs.

    At first, I took things a bit personally, but then when I connected with other fellow agency owners and consultants, I noticed that many of them were going through the same thing at some level, at least on the marketing side.

    The truth is that we’re at an inflection point. The forces reinventing marketing are not merely external; they’re structural. Economic shifts are the main driver, but also AI disruptions, talent trends and evolving client expectations are fundamentally altering the way value is delivered.

    Let’s analyze a bit more.

    The rest of this article is locked.

    Join Entrepreneur+ today for access.

    Al Sefati

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  • GMB Announces New Brand Centered on Creating Abundance in Education

    GMB Announces New Brand Centered on Creating Abundance in Education


    HOLLAND, Mich., August 13, 2024 (Newswire.com)
    –
    GMB, a planning, architecture, engineering, enrollment marketing, and branding firm serving schools and universities, has announced a new brand to support their evolving organization. GMB has recently expanded its service offerings for clients in education and is focused on equipping and empowering students to build a better future of abundance.

    GMB’s team provides a comprehensive package designed to address the multifaceted needs of educational institutions. With an integrated approach, educators receive a cohesive strategy where each service complements and strengthens the others, leading to enhanced outcomes for schools and students.

    “When you hire GMB, you receive a full range of curated services to support your brand and your buildings,” said David Bolt, GMB President and CEO. “Instead of offering a menu of services to choose from, GMB provides a full-service bundle of interconnected resources which saves schools and universities both time and money.”

    GMB has engaged in several exclusive partnerships to support this holistic evolution. Partnerships with Secure Environment Consultants (SEC) provide clients with built-in safety and security services, and with sustainability and energy experts to integrate with our engineering solutions. GMB also acquired a full-service marketing firm in 2023, providing branding, digital, and enrollment marketing services for higher education institutions across the U.S.

    To illustrate these bold organizational changes, GMB is introducing a new brand and identity that goes beyond traditional architecture and engineering. GMB’s updated logo drops the reference of only offering architecture and engineering services and embraces a new look that speaks to growth and the firm’s evolving nature. A new vibrant color palette evokes a fun and energetic nature that reflects the students we serve.

    “We are excited to expand our impact and reach a broader audience of educators and students of all ages,” added Jeff Hoag, Educational Planner with GMB. “We believe that the more we can share, the more people who have access to resources and knowledge will help all of us increase the abundance, creativity, and inventiveness in the world.”

    GMB employs more than 200 people across the country and has been serving clients for over 56 years. We are a people-centric and empowered team working together to contribute to an equitable, sustainable, and abundant future for all.

    Source: GMB

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  • Strategos Group Launches National Advocacy Management Practice, Empowers Education Companies to Navigate Dynamic Policy Landscape

    Strategos Group Launches National Advocacy Management Practice, Empowers Education Companies to Navigate Dynamic Policy Landscape


    MIAMI, June 25, 2024 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Strategos Group, a leading education management consultancy, announced that Strategos partner and former Florida State Representative Vance Aloupis will spearhead its groundbreaking National Advocacy Management (NAM) practice, which launches today. Because the education landscape is rapidly evolving, NAM offers a tailored, data-driven advocacy campaign to navigate the evolving state policies to ensure companies thrive.  

    “In today’s dynamic policy environment, education companies face unique challenges in managing the state-specific policies that impact the students they serve,” said Adam Giery, Managing Partner at Strategos Group. “The launch of our National Advocacy Management practice embodies our commitment to providing innovative solutions and unmistakable client value that empowers companies to achieve their goals, which benefits students.” 

    Aloupis brings decades of experience and insight from his tenure as a lawyer, a former Florida State Representative, and CEO of the Children’s Movement of Florida.  

    “Our National Advocacy Management practice represents a paradigm shift in education policy advocacy,” Aloupis said. “This is not a referral network. This is a comprehensive, personal approach that empowers our clients to cut through the noise and achieve meaningful results in an increasingly competitive market.” 

    Unlike traditional advocacy approaches that rely on referral networks and plug-and-play lobbyists, NAM prioritizes a dedicated team of professionals who understand each client’s unique needs and the nuances of education policy in every state. By leveraging data-driven insights, NAM matches state and company interests to identify the most suitable advocates for each client’s issues, ensuring alignment with broader national campaigns. 

    In an ever-evolving market, NAM provides the foresight and strategic guidance necessary for education solutions to navigate new market niches and adapt to changing landscapes. With its unparalleled expertise and commitment to client success, NAM sets a new standard for education policy advocacy, maximizing visibility and access for clients seeking superior solutions. 

    For more information about Strategos Group’s National Advocacy Management practice, visit this page to download a free resource. 

    About Strategos Group: 

    Founded in 2011, Strategos Group is a national education management consultancy comprised of former state education commissioners, legislators, White House appointees, school district superintendents, and recognized business leaders advising Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, startups, philanthropy, and private equity. Strategos operates at the national, state, and local levels with offices in Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Maryland, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.strategosgroup.com.  

    Source: Strategos Group

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  • Consulting Firm GNA Rebrands

    Consulting Firm GNA Rebrands

    Consulting Firm GNA Rebrands
    Gallagher

    Santa Monica consulting firm Gladstein, Neandross & Associates is well on its way to a rebrand after being acquired by TRC Cos. Inc. last year.

    The firm, which works with commercial fleet owners in their efforts to decarbonize the transportation industry, will on July 1 drop GNA entirely and adopt TRC, formally being named the company’s Clean Transportation Solutions division. Meanwhile, the operation has been busy bringing existing clients up to speed and preparing for what full integration with TRC will bring to the table.

    TRC, which is based in Connecticut, also handles low- and zero-emissions consulting, but mainly on the utility side. It purchased GNA in June.

    “Being able to put those two pieces together just made a ton of sense,” noted Sarah Gallagher, senior vice president of creative for GNA.

    Since 2020, GNA has roughly doubled its employee headcount to about 150, a hiring spree driven largely by the urgency to implement zero-emission options to transportation. Although financial terms to the acquisition were not disclosed, all of GNA’s partners and leadership team will remain in similar positions and there are no plans to lay off other workers. In fact, GNA has added about 50 hires since the acquisition.

    Locally, GNA – which is currently branded as “GNA is now TRC” – has contributed to a wealth of projects and worked with many companies. That client list includes Southern California Edison, for its Charge Ready Transport Program; electric vehicle fleet and charging station operators WattEV in Long Beach and Zeem in Inglewood; charging infrastructure developer Voltera in Palo Alto; and EV OEM manufacturers RIZON Truck and Volvo Trucks.

    GNA’s team will also continue to operate its ACT Expo, a tradeshow for clean fleets that is expected to have 15,000 attendees at this year’s event in Las Vegas.

    Hannah Madans Welk

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  • Tata Consultancy Services cuts bonuses for employees who aren’t in the office 5 days a week

    Tata Consultancy Services cuts bonuses for employees who aren’t in the office 5 days a week

    Tata Consultancy Services, the main arm of Indian industrial giant Tata, is reportedly clamping down on office-shy workers by cutting their bonuses and hovering the threat of being passed up for promotions.

    The $168 billion Indian consultancy is using a carrot-and-stick approach to lure its consultants back into the office full-time after scrapping hybrid working for most employees last October.

    The consultancy plans to narrow its bonus payouts to exclude those shunning office work five days a week, and will also begin factoring in attendance to annual performance reviews, which are vital for promotion opportunities, Indian publications Mint and The Times of India reported.

    “The last quarter has seen most of you return to the workplace, creating shared experiences, nurturing greater learning, collaboration, and camaraderie,” TCS’s CEO K Krithivasan reportedly wrote to employees in March.

    Employees working less than three days in the office will not be paid any bonus, the publications reported. 

    From there, bonuses will be tiered, with staff working between 60% and 75% of their time in the office receiving half of their potential bonus, and those working between 75% and 85% of their time in the office receiving three-quarters of their “variable pay.”

    Only staffers working more than 85% of their time in the office can expect to receive full pay. 

    In effect, that means only those coming into the office five days a week are entitled to receive 100% of their prescribed bonus.

    A representative for TCS didn’t respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

    TCS clamps down on remote workers

    TCS is a major arm of the Tata group, hiring more than 600,000 people from 152 nationalities. The company hires 20,000 people in the U.K. across 30 locations, according to a 2022 press release. The company is the main sponsor of the London Marathon. 

    It has been hailed as a progressive employer and has the accolades to prove it.

    TCS was one of 16 companies recognized as a “Global Top Employer” for 2024 by the Top Employers Institute, a certification handed out based on employee surveys. The consultancy also made Fortune’s Most Admired Companies list for 2024.

    But TCS now risks flaring tensions among staffers as it goes beyond rules and rhetoric to actively punish workers who don’t make it into the office. 

    In October last year, TCS scrapped its hybrid work policy, ordering most employees back to the office five days a week. 

    The group’s CEO Krithivasan pointed out that in February nearly 40% of his workers joined the company during the COVID, and the company had no hope of assimilating them if they stayed at home.

    TCS’s chief operating officer NG Subramaniam said: “Around 40,000 employees joined us online and quit online without any offline interaction during the pandemic and that kind of situation cannot be helpful for any organization.

    “We are very clear that we have to get our original culture back.”

    The recent memo distributed to workers shows just how serious TCS’s C-suite is taking its own rhetoric.

    In addition to capping bonuses based on appearance, office attendance will also reportedly be factored into performance-related reviews.

    “Employees’ compliance to work from home will be reviewed every quarter. In the event an employee is found to be in violation of the laid down policies, there will be implications on the annual performance review, compensation, and career progression of the employee,” the policy reportedly reads.

    Tying company bonuses to attendance is a novel approach to getting staffers back to the office, but follows a familiar tactic from tech companies that involves using financial incentives to convince workers to come in.

    In 2021, several tech giants including Meta and Google said they would cut the pay of staff who had moved to remote areas with a cheaper cost of living than in their hubs in Silicon Valley.

    These companies have now introduced stricter hybrid policies that ask workers to come in at least four days a week. 

    Ryan Hogg

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  • ITG Appraised for CMMI for Development and CMMI for Services

    ITG Appraised for CMMI for Development and CMMI for Services

    Integration Technologies Group, a leading business consulting agency for government contractors, was re-appraised for the sixth time in CMMI DEV and the fifth time in CMMI SVC


    FALLS CHURCH, Va., April 2, 2024 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Integration Technologies Group, Inc. (ITG), a leading provider of high-quality integrated computer solutions to government agencies, commercial enterprises, and non-profit educational organizations, announces that it has been reappraised at Maturity Level 3 of the CMMI Institute for Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) for Software Development Operations and Service Call Management.

    ITG was first appraised for CMMI for Development (CMMI-DEV) in 2005 and for CMMI for Services (CMMI-SVC) in 2011 by Dr. Richard Waina of Multi-Dimensional Maturity for System Engineering and Software Engineering. Since then, ITG has been successfully reappraised every three years for CMMI-DEV; this year marks its sixth completed reappraisal, and for CMMI-SVC, the fifth completed reappraisal. Dr. Waina noted that ITG is one of the few companies that has consistently continued to improve its processes and realized significant operational efficiencies and bottom-line benefits over the long term.

    ITG has expanded its CMMI-DEV reappraisal to now support all types of Software Development and Software Operations in response to the rapid growth of software services. In addition, ITG simultaneously completed its appraisal against CMMI for Services (CMMI-SVC) for the National Support Center, which offers help desk support worldwide.

    ITG Success Factors

    Two key elements were essential in this effort: ITG’s dedicated team and its enhanced software systems. The team follows all CMMI processes for Software Development from the submission of a Change Request to the final product verification, validation and acceptance.

    ITG has also heavily invested in top software solutions to support its government and commercial enterprise customers. This includes operating an internal proprietary ERP system called CENTRE (Common Enterprise Resource), which supports all IT managed and consulting business units.

    As ITG looks to the future, it strives to fully implement next-level processes beyond the appraised level. The company has already begun installing and upgrading existing systems to shift into a ‘Quantitatively Managed’ level. ITG uses systems such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales, Deltek Finance Solution, PowerBi, and Atlassian Confluence to provide daily authoritative reporting on trends, status, results, and cost.

    About ITG

    Integration Technologies Group, Inc. is one of few government contractors that is certified for ISO 9001, ISO 27001, ISO 20000-1, ISO 20243, CMMI DEV, CMMI Services. Today, ITG focuses on IT Systems Integration, Warranty Services and Product Lifecycle Management, Video Teleconference Solutions, Management Consulting Services and Certifications, Assistive Products and Technologies, COTS Software Solutions, Enterprise Wireless & RFID Asset Management Services.

    Source: Integration Technologies Group, Inc

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  • Mark Zuckerberg could pay millions to the IRS on Meta dividends. He still might be getting ‘a major break’.

    Mark Zuckerberg could pay millions to the IRS on Meta dividends. He still might be getting ‘a major break’.


    Mark Zuckerberg delighted Meta shareholders and Wall Street this week with news of the social media giant’s first-ever dividend.

    The IRS may also be happy, now that it’s staring at millions in taxes on the Meta stock dividends bound for Zuckerberg’s portfolio.

    Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta Platforms Inc.
    META,
    +20.32%    ,
    is poised to make $700 million in dividends yearly. He owns nearly 350 million shares, according to FactSet, and the company will start paying a quarterly dividend of 50 cents a share.

    That would yield nearly $167 million in federal taxes yearly, after a qualified-dividend tax of 20% and another 3.8% tax on the investment returns of rich households, two accounting experts said.

    California income taxes of 13.3% on the dividends could cost Zuckerberg another $93.1 million, said Andrew Belnap, an accounting professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business.

    All in, that’s a combined $259.7 million in federal and state taxes annually on the Meta dividends, Belnap estimated.

    For context, U.S. taxpayers reported over $285 billion in qualified-dividend income to the IRS though mid-November 2023, according to agency statistics. Nearly 30 million tax returns reported qualified dividends through that time.

    Meta said it plans a quarterly cash dividend going forward, with the first such payment in March.

    Meta shares soared 20.5% on Friday, ending with a record-high close of $474.99. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
    DJIA,
    S&P 500
    SPX
    and Nasdaq Composite
    COMP
    all closed higher Friday.

    ‘Zuck is getting a major break’

    Meta announced the dividend payment in its earnings results Thursday, on the same week that Americans began filing their income taxes.

    A look at Zuckerberg’s dividends and their tax implications offer a peek at the debate about the varying ways wages and wealth are taxed.

    “Zuck is getting a major break,” said Andrew Schmidt, an accounting professor at North Carolina State University’s Poole School of Management who also crunched the numbers for MarketWatch.

    Approximately $167 million “seems like a high tax bill,” he said. But if Zuckerberg received the $700 million as a straight salary, Schmidt estimated he’d be looking at a roughly $259 million tax bill on the wages after they were taxed at the top marginal rate of 37%.

    Federal income tax brackets run from 10% to 37%.

    Meanwhile, the IRS taxes qualified dividends and capital gains at 0%, 15% and 20%, depending on income and household status. The net investment income tax adds another 3.8% for individuals making at least $200,000 or married couples worth $250,000.

    For federal and state taxes on the Meta dividends, Zuckerberg would face a combined rate of 37.1%, Belnap noted. “His tax rate on this is actually fairly high,” he said.

    The gap in tax rates on income derived from wages and investments “has been a big criticism with U.S. tax policy,” Schmidt said, especially as lawmakers look for ways to come up with more tax revenue.

    Regular retail investors enjoy the same preferential rates on capital gains and dividends as the top 1% of taxpayers, Schmidt added. The issue is that those dividends and stock profits are a smaller part of their income while salaries, taxed at higher rates, are a bigger proportion.

    Belnap noted that California’s state tax rules don’t provide special treatment to dividends.

    Read also: Where Trump, Biden and Haley stand on capital gains, the child tax credit and other key tax questions

    Zuckerberg received a $1 base salary in 2022, a figure that hasn’t changed in several years. He is now worth $142 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making him the fifth-richest person in the world.

    Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Taxes on the Meta dividends will not be something Zuckerberg, or any Meta shareholders big or small, need to deal with until next year’s tax season, Belnap and Schmidt observed.

    But as taxpayers amass their 1099-DIV forms on dividend income, IRS figures show that it’s mostly upper-echelon taxpayers reaping the rewards on the preferential rates for qualified dividends.

    Households worth at least $1 million accounted for 40% of the approximate $285.3 billion in qualified dividends reported through mid-November, according to agency figures.

    For less affluent investors, “it’s usually a nice supplement, but I’d say very few people are living off dividends,” Belnap said.



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  • Trump says Powell is being ‘political’ with interest rates

    Trump says Powell is being ‘political’ with interest rates


    Former President Donald Trump on Friday criticized Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and said he’s playing politics with interest-rate policy.

    “It looks to me like he’s trying to lower interest rates for the sake of maybe getting people elected,” Trump said, in an interview on the Fox Business Network.

    “I think he’s political,” added Trump, the likely 2024 Republican nominee for president.

    Asked if he would reappoint Powell to a third four-year term, Trump replied “no.”

    Trump said he has a couple of choices in mind to replace Powell, but wouldn’t say who.

    Trump said he thinks lowering interest rates would lead to massive inflation. The conflict in the Middle East is likely to lead to “big inflation” from a spike in oil prices, he added.

    “Trump said he thinks lowering interest rates would lead to massive inflation. The conflict in the Middle East is likely to lead to “big inflation” from a spike in oil prices, he added.”

    Powell “is not going to be able to do anything,” Trump said.

    On Wednesday, Powell said he wasn’t giving a potential third term any thought. Powell’s current term expires in early 2026.

    Speculation on a third term “is not something I’m focused on,” Powell said.

    “We’re focused on doing our jobs. This year is going to be a highly consequential year for the Fed and monetary policy. We’re, all of us, very buckled down, focused on doing our jobs,” Powell said.

    Analysts say that the Fed will be criticized by both parties in the election year.

    On Sunday, Powell will appear on the CBS News program “60 Minutes” and will likely face more questions about the election.

    Earlier this week, top Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee urged the Fed to cut rates quickly, saying they were too high and hurting the housing market.

    “Keeping interest rates high will be detrimental to American workers and their families and do little to bring down prices or promote moderate economic growth,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, and the chairman of the Banking Committee, in a letter to Powell prior to Wednesday’s Fed meeting.

    At the meeting on Wednesday, the Fed kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged in a range of 5.25%-5.5%.

    Asked about the letter from the Democrats on Wednesday, Powell said Congress has given the Fed the job of stable prices. High inflation hurts people at the lower end of the income spectrum, he added.

    “It’s what society has asked us to do is to get inflation down. The tools we use to do it are interest rates,” he said.

    The Fed has penciled in three rate cuts for 2024. Powell said that a cut at the Fed’s next meeting in March was unlikely. He said the Fed wants to see more good inflation reports so it can have greater confidence that inflation is coming down to the 2% target.



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  • When Colorado removed Trump from the ballot, a Supreme Court showdown looked likely. Maine removed all doubt.

    When Colorado removed Trump from the ballot, a Supreme Court showdown looked likely. Maine removed all doubt.

    DENVER (AP) — First, Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled that former President Donald Trump wasn’t eligible to run for his old job in that state. Then, Maine’s secretary of state ruled the same for her state.

    Both decisions are historic. The Colorado court was the first court to apply to a presidential candidate a rarely used constitutional ban against those who “engaged in insurrection.” Maine’s secretary of state was the first top election official to unilaterally strike a presidential candidate from the ballot under that provision.

    What’s next? Can Trump be put back on the ballot?

    Both decisions are on hold while the legal process plays out. That means that Trump remains on the ballot in Colorado and Maine and that his political fate is now in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court.

    The Maine ruling will likely never take effect on its own. Its central impact is increasing pressure on the nation’s highest court to state clearly whether Trump remains eligible to run for president after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

    What’s the legal issue that could keep Trump off the ballot?

    After the Civil War, the U.S. ratified the 14th Amendment to guarantee rights to former slaves and more. It also included a two-sentence clause called Section 3, designed to keep former Confederates from regaining government power after the war.

    “Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution doesn’t require a criminal conviction to take effect.”

    The measure reads: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

    Congress did remove that disability from most Confederates in 1872, and the provision fell into disuse. But it was rediscovered after Jan. 6.

    See: Nikki Haley was asked by N.H. voter to name Civil War cause. Slavery was absent from her answer.

    How does this apply to former president Trump exactly?

    Trump is already being prosecuted for the attempt to overturn his 2020 loss that culminated with Jan. 6, but Section 3 doesn’t require a criminal conviction to take effect. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed to disqualify Trump, claiming he engaged in insurrection on Jan. 6 and is no longer qualified to run for office.

    All the suits failed until the Colorado ruling. And dozens of secretaries of state have been asked to remove him from the ballot. All said they didn’t have the authority to do so without a court order — until Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’s decision.

    See: As Colorado court bars Trump from ballot, poll finds 62% of GOP voters would want him as nominee even with more legal woes

    Also: Police investigating ‘incidents’ against Colorado justices after Trump removed from state’s ballot

    The Supreme Court has never ruled on Section 3. It’s likely to do so in considering appeals of the Colorado decision — the state Republican Party has already appealed, and Trump is expected to file his own shortly.

    Bellows’s ruling cannot be appealed straight to the U.S. Supreme Court — it has to be appealed up the judicial chain first, starting with a trial court in Maine.

    The Maine decision does force the high court’s hand, though. It was already highly likely the justices would hear the Colorado case, but Maine removes any doubt.

    Trump lost Colorado in 2020, and he doesn’t need to win it again to garner an Electoral College majority next year. But he won one of Maine’s four Electoral College votes in 2020 by winning the state’s 2nd Congressional District, so Bellows’s decision would have a direct impact on his odds next November.

    Until the high court rules, any state could adopt its own standard on whether Trump, or anyone else, can be on the ballot. That’s the sort of legal chaos the court is supposed to prevent.

    What is Trump’s argument?

    Trump’s lawyers have several arguments against the push to disqualify him. First, it’s not clear Section 3 applies to the president — an early draft mentioned the office, but it was taken out, and the language “an officer of the United States” elsewhere in the Constitution doesn’t mean the president, they contend.

    Second, even if it does apply to the presidency, they say, this is a “political” question best decided by voters, not unelected judges. Third, if judges do want to get involved, the lawyers assert, they’re violating Trump’s rights to a fair legal procedure by flatly ruling he’s ineligible without some sort of fact-finding process like a lengthy criminal trial. Fourth, they argue, Jan. 6 wasn’t an insurrection under the meaning of Section 3 — it was more like a riot. Finally, even if it was an insurrection, they say, Trump wasn’t involved in it — he was merely using his free speech rights.

    Of course, the lawyers who want to disqualify Trump have arguments, too.

    The main one is that the case is actually very simple: Jan. 6 was an insurrection, Trump incited it, and he’s disqualified.

    Why has this process taken so long?

    The attack of Jan. 6, 2021, occurred nearly three years ago, but the challenges weren’t “ripe,” to use the legal term, until Trump petitioned to get onto state ballots this fall.

    But the length of time also gets at another issue — no one has really wanted to rule on the merits of the case. Most judges have dismissed the lawsuits because of technical issues, including that courts don’t have the authority to tell parties whom to put on their primary ballots. Secretaries of state have dodged, too, usually telling those who ask them to ban Trump that they don’t have the authority to do so unless ordered by a court.

    No one can dodge anymore. Legal experts have cautioned that, if the Supreme Court doesn’t clearly resolve the issue, it could lead to chaos in November — or in January 2025, if Trump wins the election. Imagine, they say, if the high court ducks the issue or says it’s not a decision for the courts to make, and Democrats win a narrow majority in Congress. Would they seat Trump or declare he’s ineligible under Section 3?

    Why was this action taken in Maine?

    Maine has an unusual process in which a secretary of state is required to hold a public hearing on challenges to politicians’ spots on the ballot and then issue a ruling. Multiple groups of Maine voters, including a bipartisan clutch of former state lawmakers, filed such a challenge, triggering Bellows’s decision.

    Bellows is a Democrat and the former head of the Maine chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Trump’s attorneys asked her to recuse herself from the case, citing social-media posts calling Jan. 6 an “insurrection” and bemoaning Trump’s acquittal in his impeachment trial over the attack.

    She refused, saying she wasn’t ruling based on personal opinions. But the precedent she sets is notable, critics say. In theory, election officials in every state could decide a candidate is ineligible based on a novel legal theory about Section 3 and end their candidacies.

    Conservatives argue that Section 3 could apply to Vice President Kamala Harris, for example — it was used to block from office even those who donated small sums to individual Confederates. Couldn’t it be used against Harris, they say, because she raised money for those arrested in the unrest after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020?

    Is this a partisan issue?

    Bellows is a Democrat, and all the justices on the Colorado Supreme Court were appointed by Democrats. Six of the 9 U.S. Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republicans, three by Trump himself.

    But courts don’t always split on predictable partisan lines. The Colorado ruling was 4-3 — so three Democratic appointees disagreed with barring Trump. Several prominent legal conservatives have championed the use of Section 3 against the former president.

    Now we’ll see how the high court handles it.

    Read on:

    Trump’s name can appear on ballot in Michigan, says state’s top court

    Georgia election workers sue Rudy Giuliani again, seek to bar him from repeating lies about them

    Trump’s Republican rivals rally to his defense after Colorado ballot ruling

    Supreme Court to hear case that could undermine obstruction charges against hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants

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  • Don’t ruin Thanksgiving by making these rookie mistakes

    Don’t ruin Thanksgiving by making these rookie mistakes

    A friend calls this day “Thanksscrapping.” He may have a point. 

    My favorite Thanksgiving story happened at a dinner on Park Avenue about 20 years ago when a lady with a large bouffant and a genial manner — let’s call her Mrs. Anders — raised a glass. Knowing I grew up in Dublin in a Catholic family, she said: “…and I’d like to raise a glass to Fair Eire and hope that the six counties of Northern Ireland are one day free from the British!” She did not realize that the host’s in-laws were Ulster Protestants. They were not amused.

    …

    Master your money.

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  • You can save up to $23,000 in your 401(k) next year, IRS says

    You can save up to $23,000 in your 401(k) next year, IRS says

    Retirement savers can tuck away slightly more in 2024 than in 2023, but this year’s contribution increases are more modest than last year’s, according to new inflation-related adjustments released by the IRS.

    People who are building up their 401(k) accounts will be able to contribute a maximum of $23,000, a more than 2% increase from the $22,500 maximum for 2023.

    IRA contribution limits will climb to $7,000 for 2024, a 7.6% increase over the $6,500 limit in 2023.

    When the IRS announced its adjustments for 2023, 401(k) savers got a big increase of nearly 10% year over year, and the IRA contribution limit went up more than 8%.

    The 2024 adjustments reflect an economy where inflation rates, although cooling, are still warm.

    For 2024, the catch-up amount for workers 50 and older is holding at a maximum of $1,000 on IRA contributions and of $7,500 for people with 401(k)s and other defined-contribution plans, the IRS said.

    The IRS numbers set a limit on how much people can set aside each year in 401(k) accounts, but data suggest many people fall far short of those maximums.

    In 2022, people with retirement accounts through Vanguard had an average account balance of $112,572. The median account balance was $27,376, the wealth-management giant reported.

    The new retirement-account contribution limits are part of the tax code’s yearly changes to account for inflation.

    Taxpayers are still awaiting the IRS adjustments for tax brackets, standard-deduction amounts and other provisions for tax year 2024.

    The tax agency adjusted the ranges on income-tax brackets last year by 7%.

    Roth IRA rules and the Saver’s Credit

    The numbers on 401(K) and IRA contributions were just one part of the IRS announcement Wednesday.

    The tax agency also lifted the income thresholds for people making Roth IRA contributions. Roth IRAs are funded with after-tax dollars, so they aren’t taxed when account holders pull out the money.

    Read also: If saving $23,000 in your 401(k) next year isn’t enough, you can double that (or more) with the right strategy — and it’s legal

    But Roth IRA contributions hinge on household income. In 2024, individuals and people filing as head of household who make between $146,00 and $161,000 must limit their Roth IRA contributions. People with incomes above $161,000 won’t be able to contribute to a Roth IRA.

    That’s up from a 2023 phase-out range of $138,000 to $153,000.

    For married couples filing jointly, the phase-out range climbs to $230,000 – $240,000. That’s an increase from this year’s range of $218,000 to $228,000.

    Other retirement tax rules are also slated for 2024 updates.

    For example, there’s the “saver’s credit” which is designed to help low- and moderate-income households that are finding a way to put aside money for retirement. It pays up to $1,000 for individuals and up to $2,000 for married couples. The amount depends on income and contribution amounts.

    For 2024, married couples saving for retirement are eligible for the credit if their income stays under $76,500, up from $73,000. The income maximum is $38,250 for individuals, up from $36,500.

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  • Financial advisers make rich people richer. But is that all there is?

    Financial advisers make rich people richer. But is that all there is?

    In 1989, author Marsha Sinetar wrote a bestselling book, “Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow.” She urges readers to pursue a career that stokes their passion.

    Many advisers take that advice. They love what they do. And the money follows: Median pay for U.S. financial advisers was $95,390 in 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    Lately, though, the passion is waning for some advisers. They still love the practice of wealth management — customizing financial plans, constructing client portfolios and analyzing the ever-growing menu of investment products.

    They’re just not as enamored of their clients’ wealth. Reassuring wealthy retirees that they can afford to buy a second (or third) vacation home has its merits. But helping them accumulate more and more wealth rings hollow after awhile.

    Steve Oniya, a Houston-based certified financial planner, works with a diverse mix of clients. He enjoys helping them achieve their goals, regardless of their net worth. “It’s more gratifying helping them get over some hurdles to get to the life that they really want,” he said. “You make more of an impact that way.”

    He compares his work to a firefighter’s job. Some days, they rescue people from burning buildings. Other days, they put out a dumpster fire. Yet they’re always driven to excel and perform at a high level.

    Nevertheless, if an adviser serves rich clients who hoard their money, don’t give to charity and lack perspective on what matters most in life, a day at the office can feel dispiriting. “Sometimes advisers may be passionately opposed to certain clients’ values,” Oniya said. “In those instances, end the relationship or limit the scope.”

    Oniya said he does not find clients’ wealth objectionable. He sees his role as an ally who seeks to understand — and not judge — others’ beliefs and values.

    “I like to stay in the neutral camp,” Oniya said. “It’s easy to empathize with another person and see they are a person who needs help just like others. We’re generally here to advise them on how to be more efficient and effective financially in attaining their goals.”

    The arc of an adviser’s career comes into play as well. To build a practice, newly minted financial planners might welcome pretty much anyone with sufficient assets.

    Once they establish a stable book of business, advisers may get picky in deciding whom to serve. Their onboarding process might get more rigorous in an effort to determine if they’re aligned with a potential client’s aspirations, goals and priorities.

    Some advisers shift gears as they gain experience working with different types of clients. They come to realize what they like most about the job and adjust their practice — and the type of clients they serve — accordingly.

    “Everyone evolves,” said Angeli Gianchandani, a professor of marketing at University of New Haven’s Pompea College of Business. “Advisers may see there’s a greater reward and opportunity helping people in a different income bracket.”

    As a self-test, advisers at a career crossroads might want to ask themselves how they’d respond to two clients. The first one says, “You saved me $5 million. Now I want to save $10 million to buy a bigger yacht.”

    The other says, “You helped me pay off my student debt” or “You helped me save enough for a down payment to buy my first house.”

    “You may feel more valued and appreciated as an adviser” if you pave the way for someone who lacks vast wealth to build a nest egg for the future, Gianchandani says.

    Advisers who have misgivings about helping wealthy people attain greater wealth are not alone. Brooke Harrington, a sociology professor at Dartmouth College, interviewed 65 wealth managers between 2007 and 2015. About one-quarter expressed qualms about helping lower ultra-wealthy clients’ tax liabilities.

    Still, another 25% did not feel such qualms. They saw their role as defending their clients from an unjust tax code.

    More: Wall Street legend Byron Wien dies at 90. Here are his ’20 life lessons’

    Also read: The IRS is auditing the rich. Can you fly under the radar if you’re not wealthy?

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  • These 20 Companies Produce the Most CEOs | Entrepreneur

    These 20 Companies Produce the Most CEOs | Entrepreneur

    Becoming a CEO takes a combination of determination, strong managerial skills and a hunger for growth. But a surprising factor could statistically determine your chances of ascending to the top post — where you previously worked.

    According to data from Santa Clara University, between 1992 and 2010, more than 20% of CEOs at S&P 1500 companies had previously worked at one of just 36 high-achieving companies. Colloquially known as “CEO factories,” these competitive firms are a breeding ground for future top executives.

    Related: I’m EY’s Global Chairman and CEO. Here Are the 3 Most Important Lessons I’ve Learned Through My Career.

    In a recent study, OnDeck used LinkedIn data to determine which companies stand above the rest when it comes to producing CEOs. Not surprisingly, the top five are management consulting firms — and McKinsey & Company tops the list. More than 7% of McKinsey employees go on to be CEOs. Bain & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Kearney and Oliver Wyman round out the top five.

    Related: These Are the Highest Paid CEOs — And 9 Make More Than $100 Million a Year, According to a New Report

    The National Football League follows these top consulting firms, with nearly 5% of its former employees going on to become CEOs — not surprising considering how many former athletes found and lead companies post-retirement.

    Goldman Sachs, Procter & Gamble and Porsche Cars North America also made the top 20. Read on to see the full list of the top 20 CEO factories.

    Image Credit: OnDeck

    Related: 7 Books Every CEO Should Read

    Entrepreneur Staff

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