Meet Abhik Banerjee
Consultant, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Faces of Industry is a series of articles exploring the personal histories of our practitioners, sharing the key experiences that defined their values and exploring why they do what they do. In this story, Abhik Banerjee tells us how working in industry helped build his Deloitte network.
People are very approachable, and you can see their passion for the industry and their clients.
Abhik Banerjee has always been passionate about the consumer industry. The Rotterdam-based consultant calls it “a very tangible industry—you touch the products every single day.” He also thrives on its rapid pace of change compared to most other industries because the changes are driven by all of us as consumers. “These organizations always need to be ahead of the game and anticipate behavior,” he observes. “That’s what I love about it.”
Abhik grew up in Kolkata, India, and joined Deloitte from the consumer industry. He relocated to the Rotterdam office where he found the consumer practice community in the Netherlands to be at once a very large and very tight knit. “People are very approachable,” he says, “and you can see their passion for the industry and their particular clients.” Indeed, you could say that Deloitte’s international network is family to him—literally. While not in the same industry, Abhik’s older brother and sister-in-law are both with Deloitte Consulting in Canada.
Busy as he is with clients, Abhik continues to work on his industry certification and views learning as critical for keeping consultants up-to-date on their industry, whatever the sector. He also finds time to work with the recruitment team to mentor students about consulting.
He says that being part of the consumer industry has helped him to grow personally and become a more conscious consumer. “When I go to the market,” he says, “I try to buy things that are sourced locally as opposed to something that’s traveled 1,000 miles to get to the local superstore.”
Deeply concerned about food waste, Abhik regularly asks himself, for example, “Why buy two of these items just because they’re on sale when I only need one?” While he sees the contradictions in consumer behavior between wanting convenience and acting sustainably, Abkik is delighted to be part of the process. “The good thing is that the conversation takes place,” he says.
Why Industry?
“No question,” says Abhik, “industry was the tool for me to build my Deloitte network.” That network was by its nature global, with much collaboration across geographies: many consumer companies, while registered in the Netherlands, are headquartered elsewhere. He cites working with accounts that require collaboration between Netherlands-based practitioners like him and Deloitte colleagues in Sweden and the US. He’s thankful that when he first came to Deloitte Netherlands senior practitioners were always happy to take him on projects, which helped him to rapidly connect with people and get a view of opportunities.
