Adam Decter, Vice President
Path to Analysis Group
For me, the road here was certainly not a straight line! I started out with a B.A. and M.A. in economics and finance from Brandeis and then joined an economic consulting firm. I ended up going back to school, to Wharton, to study strategy and operations and to get an M.B.A. I then went the corporate route for awhile, but after several years in the telecommunications industry, I was looking for more of an intellectual challenge.
I ran into Richard Starfield, one of Analysis Group’s managing principals, at the dentist – he was wearing a shirt with the firm's logo on it. We started talking about the firm and our common acquaintances in Analysis Group’s Washington, D.C. office, such as John Jarosz and Carla Mulhern – the people I had worked with years ago! Soon after that, I joined Analysis Group's business strategy practice.
Strategy vs. litigation
I started out at the firm working solely on business strategy engagements, but I now work on both strategy and litigation cases. I like the diversity of working on both – for me, specialization is limiting. About 80 percent of what I do is applicable to both strategy and litigation; while the questions and clients are different, the work is similar.
On the strategy side, the problems we address are more focused on forward-looking growth questions, the teams are smaller, and there tends to be more client interaction. On the litigation side, cases can involve analyzing a lot of different kinds of data as well as business economics and strategy issues. I've worked on some pretty big cases, one involving bid rigging allegations in the insurance industry, and also several MasterCard cases.
Molding a team
People at Analysis Group have a lot of energy and are extremely bright. As a vice president, I enjoy the challenge of helping to shape a team – finding the right people for the right positions, and then encouraging the open exchange of ideas across the team. Along with a healthy dose of fun, that's a big part of working together successfully.