Management Consulting · Chicago · Since 2004
We help operatorsmake the decisionthey have beencircling for months.
Northfield Partners works with mid-market industrial, healthcare, and financial services companies on the problems that do not fit neatly into a functional org chart.
MID-MARKET
PE-BACKED
FAMILY-HELD
POST-MERGER
Engagements delivered
Client revenue influenced
Average months to measurable impact
Repeat client rate
01 / Capabilities
What We Are Actually Good At
Operating Model Design
We redraw how decisions, budgets, and accountability actually move through a company. Usually this means fewer committees and clearer owners.
Post-Merger Integration
The first 180 days decide whether a deal creates value or quietly destroys it. We run the integration office and force the hard sequencing calls early.
Cost Transformation
Not a hiring freeze and a travel policy. We find structural cost in procurement, footprint, and span-of-control, then hold the line on delivery.
Commercial Strategy
Pricing architecture, segment prioritisation, and sales coverage models for companies whose growth has flattened without an obvious cause.
Supply Chain Resilience
Network design, supplier concentration, and inventory policy — modelled against the disruptions that are actually likely, not every theoretical one.
Performance Turnaround
For businesses with a covenant problem and a short runway. We stabilise cash first, then fix the thing that caused it.
02 / Industries
Where We Spend Our Time
Industrial Manufacturing
Plant footprint, throughput, and the operating discipline required when volume assumptions stop holding.
→ View workHealthcare Services
Multi-site provider groups navigating payer pressure, staffing economics, and consolidation.
→ View workFinancial Services
Regional banks, insurers, and asset managers under cost and regulatory strain.
→ View workPrivate Equity Portfolio Ops
Diligence support, value creation plans, and hands-on execution during the hold period.
→ View work03 / Selected Work
Selected Engagements
Full case studies available under NDA on request.
04 / Approach
Four Weeks to a Point of View
Week 1
Framing
We agree what question we are answering and what evidence would change our minds. Most engagements go wrong here, not later.
Week 2
Evidence
Interviews, data pulls, and site visits. We prefer the plant floor to the data room, and we go to both.
Week 3
Synthesis
We form a position and test it against the people who will have to live with it. Disagreement at this stage is cheap; disagreement at month six is not.
Week 4
Decision
You get a recommendation, the reasoning behind it, and an honest assessment of what could go wrong. Then we help you execute it, or we hand it over cleanly.
Most of our work is not discovering something nobody knew. It is making it impossible to keep avoiding something everybody suspected.
05 / People
The People You Will Work With
Margaret Ellison
Managing Partner
Operating model and turnaround work for industrial and family-held businesses.
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David Osei
Partner
Post-merger integration and PE portfolio operations across services platforms.
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Hana Petrova
Partner
Commercial strategy and pricing for distribution and specialty manufacturing.
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06 / Insights
Notes From The Work
Feb 2026 · Operating Model
Span of control is a symptom, not a cause
Why flattening the org chart rarely survives contact with the budget cycle.
Dec 2025 · Integration
The first ninety days of an integration are mostly about sequencing
And almost nobody sequences aggressively enough.
Oct 2025 · Pricing
Your discount policy is your real pricing strategy
What list price says versus what the deal desk actually approves.
Tell us what is not working.
A first conversation is thirty minutes, costs nothing, and usually ends with a clearer question than the one you came in with.