How is being a stellar strategic consultant like being a master globetrotter? We turned to none other than Eric Radzan for the answer. See what he says about it in this week’s Something Blu blog post featuring the latest Top Talent Consultant Spotlight!

Photo: Eric Radzan at Ha Long Bay in Vietnam.

Let’s face it. For those of us who spend our time crafting creative and effective marketing and communications campaigns and love what we do, compliance can be a bit of a buzzkill. Does anyone actually enjoy sifting through all the dos and don’ts of myriad laws and regulations?

Mike Golaszewski is a technology and financial services strategist with more than 30 years of experience in technology and product development, marketing, and service and operations. His job is to deliver on complex initiatives or fix things that are impaired.

Having held multiple roles in the information technology sector, including development, testing, business analysis, and business systems analysis, Kari can IT with the best of them. For instance, she recently used her experience with JIRA and Atlassian products to manage and scale the reporting of a backlog of over 200 status updates spread across more than a dozen sub-tracks while tracking the overlap with a second high-profile initiative. In doing so, she added efficiency to the status reporting by closing high-priority tasks within a specific timeframe, making it easier to highlight key achievements.

Can feminism and capitalism exist in harmony? Strictly speaking, no, says business coach and podcast host Becky Mollenkamp.

Still, she’s a long way off from carrying pictures of Chairman Mao. 

In fact, while describes herself as anti-capitalist, she firmly believes in making money. What she eschews, however, is toxic capitalism—a system that puts profits above all else.

While she has more than 30 years’ experience in her field, she’s always looking for ways to reach the next summit. One of her favorite quotes is from the comedian Kevin James: “If you’re not learning, you’re not living.” Showing just how much she takes this truth to heart, she recently attained a certificate in Technical Communication through a rigorous two-year program from the University of California Berkeley Extension.

No matter how deep and wide a project manager’s experience goes, if they’re truly great at what they do, they’ll never take a “been there/done that” approach to any job. That’s because the best consultants understand that each client is pursuing their own unique set of goals, and in doing so, they encounter their own distinct challenges.

When you’re looking for a consultant to helm a thorny, high-stakes project, you want someone who is organized and efficient, who has a great eye for detail, and is able to quickly master the intricacies of large, complex projects. And, because no consultant is an island, you hope they can do a fantastic job of working with the project managers, both giving them direction and holding them accountable for their work. Oh, and if they can save you from innumerable mistakes, all the better.

“The best thing about Friday is that it’s only 48 hours until Monday!” Said no one ever. Except, that is, Vinesh Mehta. That catchphrase became his favorite motto from the last project he worked on. And get this: He meant it!

 In his role as a senior strategic consultant for Blu Pagoda, Vinesh loves nothing more than taking on a challenge—the thornier, the better. In his capable hands, today’s complex initiatives become tomorrow’s smooth-operating systems. And he loves every minute of the process.