Gil Mermelstein

Chief Executive Officer West Monroe

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Gil Mermelstein became Chief Executive Officer of West Monroe on 1 July 2025, only the third person to hold the job in a firm founded in 2002. His route there is the internal one taken to its logical end: he joined in 2010 as employee number one in the New York office, built that office into one of West Monroe’s largest, expanded the Financial Services practice and then the whole East Coast business, sat on the board for fourteen years, and served as chief operating officer and then president before taking over from co-founder Kevin McCarty. West Monroe is a business and technology consulting firm — the kind that gets called in when a company is trying to make an acquisition work, replace a core system or get something out of the data it already has — and the succession was presented by the firm as long-planned rather than reactive.

Career Highlights

• Chief Executive Officer and board member of West Monroe since 1 July 2025, the third chief executive in the firm’s 23-year history.
• Joined West Monroe in 2010 as employee number one in its New York office and built it into one of the firm’s largest.
• Led and significantly expanded the firm’s Financial Services practice, then the growth of its entire East Coast business.
• Served as chief operating officer and then president of West Monroe before becoming chief executive.
• A member of West Monroe’s board of directors for fourteen years before taking the top job.
• Held leadership roles at BearingPoint, A.T. Kearney and MBNA across a career of more than thirty years.
• Named a Top Consultant by Consulting Magazine.
• Member of The Partnership for New York City and a Trustee on The Committee for Economic Development for The Conference Board.
• B.S. from the University of Maryland; MBA from INSEAD.

Professional Journey

Mermelstein took a B.S. at the University of Maryland and an MBA at INSEAD, and began a career that has run for more than three decades across both consulting and industry. Before West Monroe he held roles at BearingPoint, the consultancy spun out of KPMG; at A.T. Kearney, the strategy firm; and at MBNA, the credit card bank — the last of these putting him inside the financial services industry rather than advising it, which is a useful thing for someone who would later build a financial services consulting practice. West Monroe describes these as prominent roles but does not name the titles, and none is claimed here.

He joined West Monroe in 2010, at a point when the firm was a Chicago business trying to become a national one. He was employee number one in the New York office, which is a particular kind of assignment: no infrastructure, no local reputation, and a revenue number to hit. He built it into one of West Monroe’s largest offices. In parallel he led and significantly expanded the firm’s Financial Services practice, and then took responsibility for the growth of the entire East Coast business. He joined the board around 2011 and served on it for fourteen years.

Inside the firm he then moved through the operating roles — chief operating officer, and subsequently president — before West Monroe announced in May 2025 that he would become chief executive with effect from 1 July. The firm framed it explicitly as long-term, strategic succession planning. Kevin McCarty, the co-founder who had been chief executive since 2014 and chairman since 2020, became Executive Chairman, keeping the chairmanship along with market-facing work, key client relationships, the firm’s M&A strategy and oversight of West Monroe Capital, its co-investment arm for private equity funds. McCarty’s own tenure had included ten acquisitions and, in 2021, a significant outside investment in the firm.

Mermelstein’s stated reason for taking the job points at two things at once: West Monroe’s employee ownership culture, and what he called a compelling value creation proposition for clients. The strategy he inherited is built on helping companies get more value out of technology, delivered through what the firm describes as co-creation with clients, iteration and deep industry expertise rather than a conventional deliverable-and-leave engagement model.

Outside the firm he is a member of The Partnership for New York City and a Trustee on The Committee for Economic Development for The Conference Board. West Monroe traces his entrepreneurial streak in part to his athletic background: he was a professional European handball player before his business career. He lives in New York with his wife and three children.

Education

INSEAD

MBA

University of Maryland

B.S.