Principals

Having experienced professionals in your corner can make all the difference. The biographies below provide some insight into the unique blend of experience, credentials, and passions that we apply to benefit our clients.

Tamara McKinney
Chief Executive Officer

For our clients, Tamara brings to bear knowledge and perspective gained from intense professional experience and academic study at some of the world's most respected firms and academic institutions. A former consultant with top-tier, global strategy firm Bain & Company, Tamara earned an MBA with Second-Year Honors from the Harvard Business School where her advanced studies focused on change management, entrepreneurial finance, and the effects of information and technology on organizational performance, business strategy, and public policy. First in her undergraduate university class, she studied corporate finance, computer science, and honors areas at AACSB-accredited Ball State University. Today she serves as advisor to BSU's Miller College of Business, highly-ranked nationally for innovative work in Entrepreneurship and for the quality of teaching and research of the Finance faculty.

Prior to HBS, Tamara rose through the ranks of management of NCR Corporation, a Fortune 100 company that pioneered and deployed innovative business computing solutions and management practices in 120+ countries for the world's largest, distributed commercial enterprises. Tamara advanced through roles in service marketing, strategy and business planning, global treasury, worldwide logistics, and business unit operations. She released the world's first commercially-available artificial intelligence expert system for preventive service which triggered proactive intervention based on performance thresholds and system engineering heuristics. When AT&T Corporation's computer division and data-warehousing pioneer Teradata Corporation were simultaneously absorbed by NCR, she oversaw plans and justification for all U.S. capital spend, cost centers, and sales force crediting and performance recognition. In operations, she championed award-winning national and global initiatives that deployed new organizational models and innovative business intelligence technologies to better equip customer-facing sales, support, and service roles.

After Harvard, Tamara joined Bain & Company, considered the elite among consulting firms and known among corporate executives and private equity investors for its entrepreneurial culture and results focus that help its clients consistently outperform others. She helped clients of all sizes improve their business performance and competitiveness in a variety of industries -- high technology, automotive manufacturing, consumer products, pulp and paper manufacturing, transportation, financial services, and non-profits. Prior to founding The Constant Group, she advised in the middle-market and startup spaces, finding a line-of-sight to a startup’s first-ever replicable revenue, creating business models to self-finance after 9/11, and providing analytical models to secure outside working capital.
 

Noel McKinney
President

Noel McKinney is a principal at The Constant Group, Inc. serving as an appraiser, business broker and information technology consultant. In this latter role, his consulting engagements have created increased revenue opportunities and operational improvements for mid-market firms in the hedge fund administration and investment data management industries. Formerly a university instructor, he taught courses in economic principles, banking and financial markets. As a corporate employee, he has worked in accounting, database administration, and software development roles.

Noel held a graduate research assistantship at Purdue University where he completed two years of doctoral coursework in accounting, economics and quantitative methods. He has two advanced degrees: a Master of Science from DePaul University in Computer Science and a Master of Science from Wright State University in Applied Economics. His Bachelor of Science is in Management, with a Finance concentration, from Purdue. He transferred there from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, where he studied engineering and was an Army ROTC cadet.