Patrick Petitti

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Catalant Technologies

Last Reviewed: September 28, 2026

Executive Summary

Patrick “Pat” Petitti is co-founder and CEO of Catalant Technologies, the Boston company that connects large corporations and private equity firms with experienced independent consultants. It began in 2013 as HourlyNerd, a Harvard Business School class project that let small businesses hire MBA students by the hour. Under his leadership it has since moved up-market to serve the Fortune 500, and Catalant now presents itself as an alternative to traditional strategy consulting, which it calls Consulting 2.0. He led the company as co-CEO through its 2016 rebrand and has been its sole CEO since at least 2020.

Career Highlights

• Co-founder and CEO of Catalant Technologies, which reports more than 16,000 projects completed and says 30% of the Fortune 500 use it.
• Co-founded HourlyNerd in February 2013 with fellow Harvard Business School students, through a course that gives each team $5,000 to start a business.
• Co-CEO at the time of the July 2016 rebrand from HourlyNerd to Catalant.
• Announced a $35 million Series E in January 2020 and a further $35 million investment in March 2021.
• In 2026 appointed a new chief product officer, a chief financial officer and a managing partner for private equity, and in September 2026 launched a Forward Deployed Experts offering that pairs experienced operators with AI engineers.

Professional Journey

Petitti was a student at Harvard Business School in early 2013 when he, Rob Biederman and Peter Maglathlin started HourlyNerd through the school’s Field Immersion Experiences for Leadership Development course, which puts students in teams, gives them $5,000 and tells them to start a business. The idea was a marketplace where small businesses that could never afford McKinsey, Bain or BCG could hire current MBA students for a few hundred dollars. By April 2013 it had recruited almost 500 MBAs and completed about 30 projects. “For MBAs, $50 an hour is nice, but the real value is it helps you build up your resume,” he told SFGate at the time.

The marketplace grew quickly. By July 2016, when the Boston Globe reported a $22 million round, HourlyNerd had raised more than $33 million and built a network of 25,000 consultants. Its customers had shifted from small businesses to large enterprises, and that month the company renamed itself Catalant, a blend of catalyst, brilliant and talent. Petitti was then co-CEO with Biederman. “We are rapidly defining a new market category,” he said in the rebrand announcement.

By January 2020, when Catalant announced a $35 million Series E, he was its CEO. A further $35 million investment followed in March 2021. Catalant’s backers include Highland Capital Partners, General Catalyst, Salesforce and Standard Investments, with individual investors such as Mark Cuban, Scott Cook and Bob and Jonathan Kraft.

In recent years Petitti has argued that traditional consulting is ripe for replacement by senior independent experts deployed quickly. In 2023 Catalant formed an alliance with Acropolis Advisors aimed at C-suite strategy work. In 2026 he rebuilt the senior team, adding a chief product officer in February, a chief financial officer in May and a managing partner for private equity in August. In September 2026 Catalant launched Forward Deployed Experts, pairing experienced operators with AI engineers to put companies’ AI strategies into practice. “Technology isn’t the hard part. The hard part is changing the business to make it work,” he said at the launch.

Education

He was a Harvard Business School student when he co-founded HourlyNerd in 2013. No degree record was confirmed from a first-party or editorial source.