Navigator Management Partners

Rank: No. 8
City: Columbus, Ohio
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Chief Executive: Dave Schoettmer
Workers: 50
2008 revenue: $9.8 million
2008 growth rate: 78%
Estimated 2009 growth rate: 10%

Schoettmer started his management and IT consulting firm in 2001 after leaving Accenture. Schoettmer says Accenture frustrated him because he felt the expense associated with using the global management consulting firm forced clients to minimize their contracts. At Navigator he believes he can spend more time and dig deeper into client problems because the firm is smaller and charges lower fees. As for locating in the inner city, Schoettmer says this was a business decision. “It wasn’t necessarily out of some benevolent feeling of wanting to help the inner city,” Schoettmer says. “It offered a central location for us and a reasonable cost for space.”