Paving a successful career pathway is challenging. Having unique background experience, moving into a new industry or simply joining a new organization at any point in your career — any of these factors can have a massive impact on someone’s professional trajectory.
At Point B, one common denominator helps associates navigate and achieve their career goals while staying aligned as a team: a growth mindset. With the goal of growth and continuous learning, all associates are encouraged to reach across the table and collaborate with peers and leaders, according to three Point B team members who spoke to Built In. They also noted that Point B associates are supported through their relationships with their one-on-one managers and other organizational leaders.
For Technology Analyst Hannah Brooks, the connection she’s developed with her one-on-one manager has made all the difference as an early-career professional.
“Our one-on-one managers act as sounding boards and offer opportunities for discussions that transcend our delivery teams, focusing solely on our career progression,” said Brooks. “My journey at Point B has been a positive experience, impacting my professional and personal growth.”
Built In sat down with Brooks, Managing Consultant of Data and Analytics Chris Lau and Managing Principal of Solutions Joanna Fry to learn more about the impacts of Point B’s companywide growth mindset and how it encourages associates to work together to achieve even bigger goals.
Learning from Senior Leadership
Early-career technologists like Brooks have a unique opportunity at Point B to work on large-scale projects with a focused and nimble team.
Brooks noted that, unlike peers in larger consulting firms — many of whom spend significant amounts of time on the bench without training or substantive roles — her experience is markedly different.
The company’s commitment to developing expertise through hands-on experience and collaboration allows employees like Brooks to work closely with senior team members and engage directly with customers, curating specific skills aligned with their ongoing and potential client projects. The combination means that Point B team members can ask questions and contribute to impactful projects at a make-or-break moment in their career.
“As a recent graduate, I have been lucky to begin my career with Point B,” said Brooks. “The culture emphasizes empowerment, encouraging us to take ownership of projects and fostering a deep sense of engagement in our work. This environment has created a genuine passion within me for the work I do.”
After studying math and computer science at Boston College, Brooks came to Point B where she was able to utilize the technical and critical-thinking skills she developed in college. As an analyst, her primary focus is maintaining and improving Point B’s Insights Generator product for a large software company and a multinational food service company.
“I monitor our programs as they run and constantly work to refine our code base to maximize efficiency and minimize errors,” said Brooks.
Brooks noted how Point B has significantly contributed to her career goals as both a programmer and a consultant.
“I have had exposure to new technologies and methodologies that continue to positively influence how I think and work as a programmer, while direct client interactions have shaped me into a more adept consultant,” she added.
For Brooks, having a direct line to senior members of the team was instrumental in her professional development. “Interacting with seasoned consultants and having the opportunity to seek guidance and insights from individuals with extensive consulting experience has been invaluable,” she said.
“Their mentorship allows me to take advice and knowledge from the best in the field,” continued Brooks. “Additionally, the formal learning and development programs tailored for first-year analysts have been great.”
Their mentorship allows me to take advice and knowledge from the best in the field.”
Initiatives like the learning and development programs allowed Brooks to see real-world examples of what she was taught in school. In these sessions, Brooks had the opportunity to learn from those dedicated to growing Point B's business and be involved in new client pursuits. Each session provided her with resources, offering practical solutions for common analyst challenges, giving her a foundation for success.
“These pursuits have allowed me to develop hard skills in creating presentation materials and developing prototypes for unique solutions, as well as soft skills such as interacting with customers and giving presentations,” she noted. “The people at Point B have provided a phenomenal foundation to grow professionally as an early-career analyst.”
Rising Heights
The culture of career growth doesn’t fizzle out mid-career for those working at Point B. Instead, employees like Lau have experienced nothing but support as his career scales up.
Lau is a managing consultant of data and analytics who started his career in the healthcare provider space. “I really valued and was driven by the mission to make our society and the world a better place,” said Lau. “I was fortunate enough to be placed with a mentor who taught me the power of data curated for the purpose of delivering relevant, usable insights that drive action and decisions.”
Through their continued partnership, Lau learned technical skills and got invaluable feedback on how his work would impact the consumers of data. “A technically elegant solution can still have little, or no, value for its users,” added Lau.
I was fortunate enough to be placed with a mentor who taught me the power of data.”
Lau’s current role involves applying that consumer-centric focus to designing, developing and operationalizing analytic platforms.
“Point B has enabled me to engage with organizations facing a variety of objectives and struggles,” he added. “The velocity of different challenges has enabled me to quickly hone my technical skills and my ability to deconstruct ambiguous objectives into core business imperatives that clarify and drive our design and development efforts.”
Lau sees his experience being mentored as directly impacting his skill set in the data modeling and architecture space.
“I’ve grown immensely,” said Lau. “Point B maintains its focus on the business and its people. Taking something as abstract and technical as data modeling and architecture and contextualizing it in a meaningful way that drives value for our customers would have been challenging at other firms.”
The balance between learning technical skills and “soft” people skills is what Lau now feels like sets him apart.
AWARD-WINNING GROWTH
Lau was named “Rising Star of the Profession Award” from Consulting Magazine in 2021. “Point B has enabled me to grow professionally at a pace that is unmatched,” he said. “I frequently tell potential candidates, friends, and family that the growth I’ve experienced at Point B would have taken more than twice as long with other employers.”
“There’s no experience like hands-on experience,” he added. “Point B has a culture and history of pairing subject-matter experts with those still learning a field or discipline on projects. This is a very efficient and effective way to learn how to wield a new skill in the ‘real world.’”
Lau also noted that Point B has a culture of helping each other out when needed. The company has an open-door policy that facilitates discussions across different teams and industries, helping associates learn and grow together.
Continuously Learning
Fry has worked in technology for the last 30 years alongside government and consulting organizations. At Point B, she leads the enterprise applications team, which allows her to focus on helping customers use technology to improve their overall work and customer experiences.
“Our customers vary from nonprofits to Fortune 500s, from local impact investing to global firms, with challenges to solve that are just as unique,” said Fry. While Fry brings years of expertise to Point B, she noted how the company continuously helps her learn and grow.
The projects that stretch her the most are those that work across the strategy-to-technology connection, allowing her to collaborate on a transformation that encompasses enterprise tech.
“Point B is supportive of my personal technology interests,” said Fry. “And we have a lot of latitude in our yearly professional development stipend.”
Fry’s most recent personal interest in technology is in IoT and how it will change the working world. Leaders at Point B encourage team members like Fry to continuously learn about new technology, often reminding employees to use their training stipend to its fullest potential.
“We meet quarterly with our team members to discuss career goals and, informally, we create connections to support the growth of our peers,” said Fry.
To stay attuned to developments in the field, Fry uses a combination of attending conferences, meeting with fellow technologists, listening to podcasts and writing research papers that require deep diving into a specific subject.
“I’ve significantly grown my strategy and management consulting skills at Point B, which complement my technology skills,” said Fry. “Point B teams work collaboratively to share knowledge. We all bring varying experiences and interests, so if we need to dive deep into a specific area of technology or industry, we can simply connect with our team members.”
I’ve significantly grown my strategy and management consulting skills at Point B, which complement my technology skills.”
Fry notes that if she is interested in something that is outside of her team’s area of expertise, Point B has a companywide knowledge-request process to help meet her needs.
Advancing With Technology
Accessing cutting-edge technology and training isn’t limited to those with Fry’s level of expertise. Newer professionals like Brooks have stories ready to go when you ask them about how Point B supports their pursuit of new technology. For example, Brooks was able to earn an AWS certification.
“Leveraging AWS infrastructure and our expertise in language models and interactive AI interfaces, many of our team members developed an interactive platform of training materials for the customer,” said Brooks. She added that her team had a successful bid to develop a training platform for a major pharmaceutical company — to her, the AWS knowledge base set them apart as a top pick for the contract.
“This win showcased our expanded capabilities in emerging sectors, demonstrating how our commitment to exploring new technologies resulted in tangible, high-impact solutions for our customers, positioning Point B as an innovative leader in the industry,” said Brooks.
Continuous growth is what unites the product team and keeps employees like Brooks connected to their work.
“As a member of the tech build team, we prioritize innovation and growth,” concluded Brooks. “We are positioned uniquely within the company. Our team harnesses the latest technologies to integrate them seamlessly into Point B's existing framework while exploring avenues for expansion.”
