Horacio Rozanski, President and CEO of Booz Allen Hamilton

In this episode of Talks at GS, Booz Allen Hamilton CEO Horacio Rozanski discusses his journey from growing up under a military dictatorship in Argentina to leading one of the world’s largest consulting firms as well as his focus on digital innovation across the public and private sectors. 

On living under a military dictatorship: “The hardest thing to watch was how much [my parents] struggled just to keep up with the crises. They were jumping from crisis to crisis, trying to protect what little we [had] as the country went through convulsions, really one after the other. So when I was 18, 19, and I started college there, I was already dating my now wife and we looked at each other and we said there has to be something better out there. Not just the opportunity, the economic opportunity per se, but growing up Jewish in a country that was fundamentally anti-Semitic was hard. Seeing my parents struggle was hard and we did not feel that Argentina aligned to our values. And so, we came here seeking those values.”

On Booz Allen’s sustainability efforts: “We believe that the work that we're doing around creating sustainable communities, around creating access, around loans, and a number of commitments that we've made are a huge part of creating a more sustainable world. And then, for our clients, [they] now understand, for example, climate change, [is] a national security priority. When you think about how climate change has created migrations and increased the number of refugees and all of the issues, in addition to the human suffering that comes from that, these are issues we can impact directly by working with our clients.”

Transcript

 

This session was recorded on on February 22, 2021.