Since 2020, Snider Consulting Group (SCG) has supported over 25 on-campus clubs and programs by providing quality consulting services. Founded by QUEST alumnus Joseph Houghton (Cohort 34) and supported by a growing number of QUEST students, SCG continues to thrive, offering students invaluable real-world experience in consulting.

Snider Consulting Group (SCG) is a student organization that provides consulting services to UMD organizations. Their mission is to help on-campus clubs and programs succeed and to consult for them so that students can explore professional interests while in college. SCG was co-founded by QUEST alum (Cohort 34) Joseph Houghton back in 2020, and many QUEST students continue his legacy today with current involvements.

Joseph Houghton graduated from the University of Maryland in 2022 with a double major in business management and supply chain management. In addition to co-founding SCG, Houghton was involved in many student organizations such as the Business, Society, and the Economy Scholars Program, Global Consulting Fellows Program, Supply Chain Consulting Fellows Program, the Writing Center, and the Smith Undergraduate Student Association (SUSA). 

Houghton first saw the need for on-campus consulting while he was a vice president for SUSA. During the organization’s monthly meetings with executives from other clubs in the Smith School, he noticed that a lot of the clubs were facing similar challenges: member retention, corporate sponsorships, and alumni outreach. 

Houghton started SCG with a focus on leadership development, from training incoming leaders to providing guidance on how to run clubs and teams. Snider Consulting Group started out with 8 students, including Houghton, who knew each other from classes, QUEST, and other clubs. These members were passionate about consulting or leadership in their own organizations. After realizing that consulting can hit at the roots of many deeper issues, they decided to transition SCG into a program that would achieve long-lasting success.

As co-founder and chairman of SCG, Houghton played an influential role in getting Snider Consulting Group to where it is today. He recognized that SCG needed qualifications to provide valuable consulting services to their clients. This led to him securing a strong partnership with Ernst & Young (EY), an international consulting and professional services firm. Through this partnership, consultants from EY mentor and partner with students on various projects, which added credibility to Snider Consulting Group and helped establish the organization on campus. As a leader, Houghton gained an important perspective on what it is like to open and run a business, from considering how to retain and attract members to increasing the quality of its services and number of clients. Being open to suggestions, knowing how to operate a team as a single unit, drawing ideas from multiple areas of experience and the people around him, and leveraging different skillsets effectively were key leadership skills that Houghton employed to chart a strong course and trajectory for SCG.

A lot of these skills were fostered through QUEST. The honors program aided Houghton in developing SCG and in his overall undergraduate experience by exposing him to interdisciplinary collaboration across different backgrounds, mindsets, and majors. “It’s programs like QUEST that really show what the real world is like”, says Houghton. The soft skills that QUEST teaches are a “direct translation to everything [he’s] done in SCG and after graduating.”

Angie McGonigle, an information systems major and business analytics minor in QUEST Cohort 39, has always aspired to work in the consulting industry. As a principal consultant in Snider Consulting Group, McGonigle works with SCG’s leaders to maintain and support the club. A valuable skill she has drawn from QUEST in her consulting work has been agile development. Through learning about agile methodologies in BMGT/ENES 190H, she was able to apply those skills in her internships and other consulting projects. QUEST and SCG have provided her with meaningful experiences in consulting, allowing her to gain exposure with solving real-world business challenges before graduating.

Faith LeBrun, an information systems and business management double major in QUEST Cohort 41, joined SCG because she wanted to be in an extracurricular that focused on gaining real-world experience in consulting.  A few semesters ago, one of Snider Consulting Group’s clients was Terps Racing EV. As the team lead for this project, LeBrun worked with a cross-functional team to deliver data-driven and actionable insights for the client. “This was an exciting opportunity,” she said, to solve her clients’ challenges in a multidisciplinary environment. Through QUEST’s own client projects, she has strengthened her collaboration, communication, and data analysis skills.

Now as a consultant at EY, Houghton is still involved in giving back to Snider Consulting Group. He has partnered with and mentored two analysts in SCG, guiding them through the onboarding process, interview preparation, and providing knowledge from his own experiences in consulting. He enjoys helping his mentees with networking, navigating the consulting industry, and transitioning from graduating to applying their skills to the real world. 

For any student interested in consulting, Houghton encourages you to think critically about your surroundings, seek ways to make a positive impact in your community, and build connections–especially by engaging with QUEST’s extensive alumni network and supportive faculty!