Azra Rehan
Azra Rehan is a Strategy & Transformation Leader specializing in AI policy and governance, management consulting, and large-scale public sector delivery. She currently serves as a Technology Delivery Lead Consultant at Insight Global, where she leads end-to-end execution of complex modernization initiatives for financial services and government clients. Her work focuses on translating strategic priorities into executable delivery roadmaps, strengthening governance and risk frameworks, and ensuring alignment across executive stakeholders, technology teams, and operational functions. She brings deep expertise in GRC, cybersecurity (CompTIA Security+ trained), and responsible AI adoption, with a strong focus on building resilient systems where innovation and governance operate in balance.
I’ve been working in strategy and management consulting since 2020, with a primary focus on the public sector—approximately 90% of my work has supported governments, nonprofits, and public service agencies. My consulting experience includes roles at Accenture, Guidehouse, and UNICEF, where I led and supported large-scale transformation, digital modernization, and policy-driven initiatives. Earlier in my career, I spent six years at HSBC in product and marketing, after beginning my professional journey in Pakistan as a SQL programmer. Across these roles, I’ve built a cross-functional foundation spanning technology, operations, strategy, and regulatory alignment.
I earned my Master of Public Administration in Public Policy from NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service in 2019, completing my degree while pregnant with my second child and working two jobs. During graduate school, I also gained consulting experience with organizations such as UNICEF and Public Equity Group. After graduation, I joined Accenture, where I reached a role earning over $200K before being impacted by a broader workforce reduction alongside more than 11,000 employees. Today, I am building my independent consulting practice and recently completed a project for Bank of America at their Jersey City headquarters. My day-to-day life involves balancing client work, managing projects with my team, caring for my children, and navigating a full schedule as a working mother of two, while my husband frequently travels for his role at EVI.
• CompTIA Security+
• Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certification
• NYU Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service - MPA, Non-Profit/Public Policy /Organizational Mgt.
• University of Staffordshire - BSC Hons, Computer Science
• Ellen Schall Experience Fund Grant Recipient
• War against Rape (WAR)
What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to perseverance and the mindset that if I put my mind to anything, I can do it. People told me there was no way I could go to NYU with a small child while my husband worked in a different city, and while I was pregnant with my second. But I did it - working, doing a full-time master's degree at NYU, and I had my second child by C-section 3 days before my graduation. I went to my graduation all stitched up, and there's a picture of me holding my newborn in my gown. I was a proud woman. I don't think a man after surgery like that could walk up on the stage and get their diploma, or juggle kids, work, grad school, cook dinner, make sure everybody's fed, and nobody's dying. I also paid off all my student loans within 2 years, which was another achievement.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received is that there is no such thing as a mistake. Everything is a learning curve. I've learned through my mistakes, and that mindset has helped me throughout my career.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
My advice to young women entering consulting is to catch up to speed and learn how to use AI. Your job will not be replaced by AI - it will be replaced by somebody who knows AI. Everything has been taken over by AI now. The work that fresh graduates used to do in consulting, like making notes, analyzing data, creating slide decks, and working in Excel - AI does all of that now. You can throw everything into a professional AI software, tell it what you want, and it will generate slides, design decks, and create images. There's an AI tool for everything, and human beings are slow compared to AI. So you need to study up and learn these tools, because we don't need as many people doing that grunt work anymore.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge facing my field right now is AI. Everything has been taken over by AI, and young people coming out of college are finding that the work fresh graduates used to do in consulting is now being done by AI. That's a big bottleneck. When I was an associate, I was making notes, analyzing data, doing all this grunt work at the bottom. Now AI does that for us, so we don't need that many human beings doing that work anymore. Oracle just fired 30,000 people because they said they don't need so many people - AI can do most of their stuff now. I had associates working for me whose job was to make meeting notes, slide decks, and analyze data in Excel files. It physically takes a lot of time to make a PowerPoint presentation, but now you just throw everything in a professional AI software and it generates everything for you. You don't need actual humans because human beings are slow.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values most important to me, both professionally and personally, are honesty and straightforwardness. I prefer people who are honest and straightforward I don't like to beat around the bush, whether it's in my professional or personal life. I value honesty above all.