17 Percent, LLC

17 Percent… what’s the story? The idea for 17 Percent came to my husband and I on our 20th wedding anniversary while strolling Chicago's Miracle Mile on 7/11. Having recently sold my change management firm, 71 & Change, we were dreaming of our next venture. Inspired by a recent article I wrote which emphasized investing 10-20% of a transformational budget on people proves significant ROI, we started pondering GenAI's impact on that equation. Our initial hypothesis was investment in people and behavior change would need to increase to maximize GenAI benefits - at least initially. Partnering with GenAI experts, we confirmed our hypothesis and got a bit kitschy—what’s between 15-20%? You got it, ~17%. It felt like a sign, and we named our new business accordingly. Today, we offer advisory services for large, complex transformations to ensure value is realized. It's as simple as that.