Jeff Lontoc Is Challenging the Traditional Management Consulting Model

An AI tool could accelerate the development of consulting deliverables. Realizing the value of those deliverables would still require a person to fully understand the context of the business. In McKinsey's 2026 global survey on AI, 80% of respondents from organizations said the technology had improved their own productivity. Just 37% attributed any impact on company-wide earnings before interest and taxes to AI.

Jeff Lontoc, founder of Daloy, sees the gap between those figures as an operational challenge for today's organizations. When a team is considering automation, he wants to know who owns the work, where it gets held up, and what information people need to make decisions. The answers help determine whether it is a process or policy fix or a new tool that would be needed to solve the problem.

Lontoc began his career as a software engineer before being recruited into management consulting, where early assignments involved PowerPoints and spreadsheets. Due to his use of data, technology, and process re-engineering, clients began asking him to take on additional projects, thus growing his portfolio, which led to his accelerated promotion from consultant to senior manager at Deloitte.

"I spent about 20 years, 10 of them at the director level, in consulting across Deloitte, PwC, and Guidehouse, where I helped lead AI and workforce analytics," Lontoc says. "AI brought me back to my roots as a developer. Combining that with my two decades of business transformation experience, I could take an operational challenge, diagnose the problem, build out the solution, and help the client adapt to the positive change."

That combination shaped Daloy, the management consultancy Lontoc founded. He works with a network of consultants he brings in as needed and stays involved from the initial review through implementation. "An engagement starts with a focused look at how the client's team handles a particular part of the business," Lontoc says. He uses that review to define what needs to change and decide whether technology, including AI, could support the revised process.

Lontoc saw an opportunity to bring the rigor of a top-tier consulting firm to mid-market organizations at a fraction of the cost and in a fraction of the time. Daloy's model is simple: Senior consultants do the work themselves, supported by AI-enabled delivery without the layers of junior staff and overhead that drive up cost and slow down delivery. "Our consultants are required to validate and fully understand the thought process behind all deliverables that were assisted by technology or AI," he says.

In one early engagement with a top-tier private membership club, Daloy focused on a single department. He says, "Before implementing any changes, we used the client's own data to work out what a single point of efficiency was worth." From there, the client could easily see their return on investment and the impact these minor changes could make on their top and bottom lines.

Lontoc applies the same ideology inside Daloy. He says he uses about eight specialized AI agents, software tools that can carry out assigned tasks, to support work such as research and drafting. After a client meeting, he can talk through his notes with an agent and use its draft as a starting point. He sees the time this approach saves as room for doing the parts of consulting that still need his attention, including discussing trade-offs with leaders and helping clients put the change into practice.

Lontoc brings the same approach to pricing. "We set a fixed fee for each phase so clients know what work it covers and what it will cost," Lontoc says. "They can assess what we delivered before deciding whether to move forward." As AI helps speed up tasks, Lontoc expects most consulting firms to restructure their business model. At Daloy, he wants the fee to reflect the measurable impact it has on the client, while helping them decide what needs to change.

As Daloy grows, Lontoc plans to be selective about the engagements he takes on so he can work alongside clients who value premium outputs achieved through speed and efficiency. "Before I bring AI into a business, I want to understand where the work gets stuck and why," Lontoc says. "I want to leave the team with a better way of working that they can keep using long after we're gone."