Alumni Profile: A Career in Consulting

Deb Pfisterer (‘00): A Career in Consulting

Interview Conducted By Jacqueline Ridberg Larabee, VU MA '23 student

Deb began, like most college students, not quite sure what path she would pursue after graduation. She started her time at Villanova by majoring in Accounting. While she felt that business was always in her future (she says half-jokingly “I know I was meant to be in business because even as a kid a three-ring binder from my Dad excited me”), she also says she was unexplainably miserable as an Accounting major. Deb then decided to follow her bliss and become an English major where she “became who [she] was.”

After graduating in 2000, her first job was for Boeing in military aircraft as a procedure writer. At Boeing, she was originally tasked with the mission to “get everyone into the 21st century”. By updating their systems from paper to digital files and asking the questions that others were afraid to ask, Deb created a consulting position for herself. She begins by saying that she didn’t know what consulting was at first, but she learned by doing.

Deb Pfisterer '00

Deb discovered the skills she developed as an English major were vital to her success in the world of business. As an interpreter, Deb spends a lot of time translating the quantitative (facts and data) into the qualitative (words), weighing the needs of the customer with the technically correct jargon. She recounts her first interview with Boeing, where she was concerned about her qualifications: “And that’s why the Boeing guy, when he interviewed me, I said, ‘Well why hire an English major?’ And he said, ‘You can read, write, and communicate, which is more than most people can do.’” Deb has found that to be enormously true. Much of her time is spent as a writer—writing emails, contracts, negotiations. But to write accurately and with the correct style, she finds that it all comes down to ruthlessly asking questions. 

Consulting, to Deb, “means asking questions, that others may not ask or are afraid to ask. I believe in the Socratic method, right, because that’s the way it was in the English Department.” At Boeing, her initial inability to understand the technical jargon served as an advantage because it allowed her to ask questions others didn’t. “When you don’t know anything, you don’t have anything to lose.”  This fearlessness in the corporate environment allowed her to demonstrate her expertise as a consultant, which she believes is in “reading, writing, and describing.”

But ultimately, Deb found that you need passion to consult, which she feels is one thing English majors bring to the table. “It’s not so much a passion to be a consultant; it’s a passion to want to help, to want to create, to want to write... that’s what it really means.”

Presently, she works for the firm Booz Allen and in her free time, when she isn’t spending time with her two cats Coco & Chanel, she mentors current Villanova students. Deb says that students have reached out to her primarily via LinkedIn and that she allows the students to take the lead. She emphasizes that she’s “always open to networking... I never say no.” The advice she gives to anyone graduating today (as someone who has no regrets herself) is: “Be okay with making as many mistakes as possible.” Deb believes they will make you the person you are supposed to be.