Peter Hutchinson leads management consulting strategy for Accenture’s State, Provincial and Local (SPL) Government client service group. In this role he covers state, provincial and local government markets as well as education and nonprofit organizations.
Hutchinson focuses on the concerns of top decision makers and the major challenges they face in leading governmental, education and nonprofit organizations. Within Accenture, his responsibilities include strategy development and execution; the creation of new solutions to challenging problems; leadership coaching and advising; and coordination with Accenture Management Consulting.
He is well-known as a courageous leader and problem solver in business, government, education and nonprofit organizations.
At Dayton Hudson (now Target), Hutchinson led the transformation of the corporation’s community engagement efforts in the 1980s to focus on those strategies where community needs and corporate interests most overlapped. This enabled the corporation to make a bigger difference for its communities.
At the Minnesota Department of Finance, where he served as commissioner, he led the development of the Price of Government tool for managing state government finances. This tool became the basis for developing a uniquely effective approach to budgeting which he helped pioneer during his tenure as founder and president of the Public Strategies Group (PSG).
At PSG, Hutchinson led teams working on systemic, transformational change in governments large and small throughout the country. Projects ranged from education, healthcare and human service transformation to incubating public sector innovation and budget reform. Building on his experience as finance commissioner, Hutchinson led the development of what became known as Budgeting for Outcomes (BFO), a systematic way to harness the innovative power of people in organizations and assure citizens and taxpayers that they are getting more for their money every year. BFO was first launched by Washington Gov. Gary Locke. The process and results are chronicled in a book Hutchinson co-authored with David Osborne titled The Price of Government: Getting the results we need in an age of permanent fiscal crisis. When Gov. Locke announced his first Priorities of Government budget, the Seattle Times editorialized:
The impossible task of cutting $2 billion from state spending has been made possible. …
The usual, political way to handle a projected deficit is to take last year's budget and cut. It is like taking last year's family car and reducing its weight with a blowtorch and shears. But cutting $2 billion from this vehicle does not make it a compact; it makes it a wreck. What is wanted is a budget designed from the ground up. …
People keep saying that government should spend wisely what it already has. That is what Locke now promises to do.
1n 1993, following a public search process, PSG was selected to lead the Minneapolis Public Schools, and Hutchinson was named superintendent. His assignment from the board was to change the system and make it better for all students. Through an extensive process of engaging stakeholders he and his colleagues transformed all aspects of the District. As a result, they built strong, accountable relationships with a very diverse community, teachers and their union, all school staff, the board and other elected officials including key leaders in the legislature.
On that foundation they were able to dramatically increase student achievement, increase the trust and involvement of all community stakeholders (including winning over 70 percent of the vote in a tax referendum) and improve leadership and accountability throughout the District. The Minneapolis Star Tribune said of PSG and Hutchinson’s tenure:
When the Minneapolis school board chose Public Strategies Group Inc. (PSG) to run the district in 1993, the board was really hiring Peter Hutchinson, a man who had amassed enormous credibility as a farsighted director of the Dayton Hudson Foundation, as state finance director, as a consultant to public sector organizations. …
Turning around any big system takes time, but this one has turned. The financial mess that first brought Hutchinson to the district as a consultant was quickly brought under control. PSG gave the board the courage to recognize demographic changes and turn back toward community schools. The teachers union that fought PSG's first contract innovations is entirely committed now to student achievement.
PSG also moved fast to establish high standards, a clear curriculum and public assessments of performance. Its greatest legacy is a relentless focus on student achievement.
Most recently, at the Bush Foundation, Hutchinson led the transformation of its strategy to a focus on managing strategic initiatives in three areas—education (teacher preparation), native nation-building through self determination and advancing solutions to tough public problems through community action, leadership and innovation. Of this aspect of Hutchinson’s career, the Star Tribue said:
The Bush Foundation is a sharper and potentially more effective tool for solving a smaller number of specific problems than it was in 2007, when Hutchinson took the helm..
Both he and a remarkable board of directors deserve credit for asking tough questions about philanthropic effectiveness, then going where their answers led them.
In addition to these experiences, Hutchinson also worked for the Irwin Management Co. in Columbus, Indiana, as well as for the Minneapolis mayor’s office and the city of Trenton, New Jersey. He was the Independence Party’s candidate for Minnesota governor in 2006.
A resident of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Hutchinson has been extensively involved as a writer, speaker and volunteer with challenges facing government, education and philanthropic and community organizations. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, a master’s degree from Princeton, and attended Harvard University’s Advanced Management Program.