As vice president of professional services, Patrick Zelten leads an organization of more than 200 skilled management consulting and technology services professionals located across North America. Zelten is focused on expanding and managing Forsythe’s services organization and developing IT infrastructure solutions that address clients' unique vertical-market and business challenges. Zelten has 18 years of experience in both customer-facing and internal executive roles in the IT consulting industry.
Zelten’s prior role at Forsythe was that of director of professional services. In this role he was responsible for managing the development of Forsythe's go-to-market service offerings and methodologies to meet increasingly complex client needs with consistent, high-quality results. Previously, he worked as a senior advisory consultant helping key Forsythe clients to diagnose, recommend, and oversee the delivery of complex IT infrastructure services solutions. Before joining Forsythe, Zelten acted as an independent IT strategy consultant to several Chicago-area companies, helping them align and prioritize their IT capabilities to the ever-changing needs of the business.
Zelten spent the first 14 years of his career at Accenture, where he held a variety of management positions in the Chicago communications and high-tech practice areas. As a technology partner, Zelten was responsible for selling and delivering complex client IT solutions, as well as for internal operations including P&L accountability and personnel and assets management. Notably, Zelten led the development and deployment of a large-scale, mobile enterprise solution for a client’s field technician force (30,000 technicians). The solution was considered ground-breaking due to its scale, introduction of new mobile/architecture technologies, and delivery complexities. It won numerous industry awards for technology innovation.
Zelten has also served as an adjunct professor for Northwestern University's master’s in information technology program, where he taught the Capstone Enterprise Applications and Integration course focusing on understanding a CIO/CTO’s agenda with emphasis on maximizing IT investment through enterprise application, integration technologies, and considerations.
Zelten earned his bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Notre Dame.
