Catherine, Princess of Wales, Rod Stewart, Robert De Niro… These names have more in common than fame and accomplishment — they are all cancer survivors. Cancer doesn’t care what your name is, or your age, gender, or nationality. It doesn’t discriminate and affects all walks of life. The fight against this disease requires more than cutting-edge research and advanced treatments; it demands strong leadership, collaboration, and innovation within the organizations driving the effort. Since 2022, Oliver Wyman’s people-led change capability, 8works, has worked with the American Cancer Society (ACS) to help transform its leadership and fulfill its mission of supporting cancer patients and their families with greater impact and efficiency.

The nonprofit ACS was founded in 1913 and has been working tirelessly for more than a century to provide research, advocacy, and support for those touched by cancer. At the heart of our collaboration is the annual OneACS Leadership Summit, which we co-design with ACS’s People Team, led by Chief People Officer Andre Bokhoor and Chief of Staff Emily Sandman. This summit has become a cornerstone of ACS’s transformational journey from a siloed organization to an integrated one, empowering its leaders to work together more effectively. As Dr Karen Knudsen, CEO of ACS, shares, “This incredible experience provides an opportunity for our ACS senior leaders to connect with one another, build relationships, and align on our purpose and priorities.”

How building better leadership can help save lives

Our work with ACS is about much more than a series of workshops. It’s a year-long process that begins each December, with the teams working shoulder to shoulder to design a creative and energizing experience for ACS’s leaders. The summits focus on developing key competencies like cross-pillar collaboration and strategic decision-making — skills that directly impact ACS’s ability to fulfill its mission.

“This work is truly Oliver Wyman at our best,” shares Holly Noto, Partner and 8works North America team lead. “It exemplifies what it means to be there for our clients in their transformative moments.” It’s also an opportunity for our People and Organizational Performance (POP) and Life Sciences teams to bring a broader set of capabilities to a client. “We have combined People-Led Change approaches with Leadership Development to address the need to enlist and equip leaders to drive strategy and vision,” the team adds. “We have infused Life Sciences expertise and insights to make it highly relevant and future forward. Our goal, from the start, has been to make the art of leading tangible and applicable in the real world where they operate.”

Transforming leadership to enhance cancer support

For ACS, this collaboration has been a game changer, with the results of the OneACS Leadership Summit visible across its operations. Historically, the organization struggled to move ideas from innovation to implementation — a gap our team has helped bridge. “You moved us much further than I could ever have imagined,” Bokhoor notes. By addressing these challenges head-on, the summits have empowered ACS leaders to drive change that directly benefits the people they serve.

Dr Knudsen further highlights the cultural shift that has emerged: “Your commitment made this critical initiative possible and will help accelerate our organization’s people-first culture.”

As we prepare for the 2025 summit, the focus is clear: taking leadership development to the next level. This year’s summit will dive deeper into what it means to develop and lead people at ACS, leveraging cutting-edge tools from our POP Analytics Unit. With these tools, the team will enhance leadership assessments and foster high-performance team-building strategies.

“The excitement is real for our team this year,” says Noto. “It’s not about wowing them — it’s about taking them farther than they might imagine they can go.” The stakes are high, but the potential rewards are even higher: a transformed leadership culture that enables ACS to support cancer patients and their families more effectively than ever before.

This partnership represents the best of what the firm stands for. “The real point of pride for us is doing our highest-quality work as part of a social impact effort,” Noto explains. “It shows that we live our values to Work As One, Own Our Impact, and Lead with Heart.”