Our Story
As consultants (the kind that worked for that type of Big Firm), we set out to build something different. Primarily, to build something that would sustain change beyond the final presentation. We’ve collectively seen millions of dollars change hands without generating momentum towards better organizations, or a better world.
Why don’t things change? Our perspective is that there’s a real gap in investing in the people. We believe that organizations don’t need consultants to ‘figure out’ change, they need to equip their own people to be changemakers. We believe most underestimate the human factor.
The Human Factor is a female-founded small business based in Boston and New York.
Our Values
Relentlessly
Human First
We believe that human ingenuity connected to empathy is the most potent combination on earth. Understanding and investing in the people involved in our projects isn’t just part of our values, it’s good business.
Guided by Experience,
Committed to Curiosity
Invested in Creating
Meaningful Change
We are committed to supporting change-makers across industries and geographies. That means we prioritize projects that provide opportunity to make a difference, not just those that make a profit.
Principled
Negotiators
We believe that tools are neutral—what matters is how you use them. We emphatically denounce actions and tactics that are motivated by the suppression of others’ ability to live a healthy and fulfilling life.
Our Partners
Rachel Moore Best
Rachel Best is the founding partner and lead strategist for The Human Factor. In this work, Rachel works with individuals from the executional level to the c-suite as they negotiate conflicting goals, organizational complexity, and human dynamics to solve tough challenges and form effective, sustainable teams.
Rachel Moore Best
Co-Founder,
The Human Factor
Along with her work as a strategist, Rachel is also an educator and researcher. Convinced that negotiation and advocacy skills are a big part of the solution to thorny problems, Rachel is passionate about translating skills, frameworks, and proven theory into actionable guidance for her clients' current challenges. Her dynamic, hands-on approach to education has led her to teach in multiple arenas, including graduate-level negotiation courses for MIT, creative university programs, youth conferences, government agencies, and corporate audiences. Rachel is currently a lecturer at MIT Sloan and MIT's School of Engineering, where she teaches Power & Negotiation and Negotiation & Influence for Technical Leaders. Her notable clients include Disney, NASA, and Boston Children’s Hospital.
Outside of work, Rachel is a musician and a language learner. These days, she finds herself deeply concerned with learning how to win negotiations in her husband's native language, Portuguese.
Kathleen Bond
Kathleen Bond is a partner and senior strategist at The Human Factor. With experience in human-centered innovation research and design, Kathleen looks at problems from a human lens and approaches her work through the tension between what humans need and how organizations can practically deliver with intention and integrity.
Kathleen Bond
Co-Founder,
The Human Factor
Also a trained workshop facilitator, Kathleen’s guided c-suites to think through a problem, and think through it again - to redefine it through the real needs and ‘whys’ and then to step back to see the undiscovered solutions on the periphery. At the point of innovation, she’s worked with graphic and industrial design teams to bring new processes, services, and products to life. Kathleen has worked across industries with notable clients like Disney, NASA, AbbVie, and Chase.
A dual citizen of Australia and avid traveler, Kathleen’s most recent adventure took her scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef and walking across Spain on the Camino de Santiago. Now back home, Kathleen’s taking recommendations on where to plant her future tomato garden and raise her fleet of (spoiled) corgis.
Our Team
Joe Buse
Co-Founder, Managing Partner
Joe Buse
Co-Founder, Managing Partner
Joe Buse
Co-Founder, Managing Partner
Joe Buse
Co-Founder, Managing Partner
Boston