In McKinsey's world, all of life is one of two things: strategy or organization.
My subjects were maths and physics. I truly appreciate the value in sciences, but understand the difficulty finding and retaining teachers for these subjects, especially when most of my Imperial cohort ended up as management consultants or in finance.
I was one of the early folks at eBay, and by 1999, it was completely overrun by consultants from McKinsey, Bain, and BCG. It went from being a cool, fun startup to an MBA factory.
Nah. I’m a consultant, of course. Everyone’s favorite nondescript yet well-paid white-collar job.
If a business has to be told that it needs more focus, accountability and decisiveness, there is a bigger problem at hand.
Most business schools are geared toward churning out investment bankers and management consultants.
When I was 27 years old, I left a very demanding job in management consulting for a job that was even more demanding: teaching. I went to teach seventh graders math in the New York City public schools.
I've learned a lot on the fly, and I think, actually, my academic and management consulting background has enabled me to quickly pick up on a lot of disciplines.
Instead of being a teacher, I got a job with a company called Bain & Co., consulting firm, and they taught me how to build businesses.
Lot of companies are looking for advisory work on business strategy, restructuring work.
I moved back to Boston and joined some of my Harvard classmates at Bain & Co. I quickly realized I enjoyed business.