After graduating from Imperial College with
a Master's Degree in Materials, Science and
Engineering I was faced with a wide range
of potential career paths and initially chose
to follow that of a management fast-track in
the manufacturing industry. Two years later I
decided that the scope, variety and challenges
of the work weren't as expected and looked
to the management consulting arena as
the professional sector that could offer the
challenges I sought in a career.
A.T. Kearney made choosing from the toptier
consultancies an easy task. Having gone
through the recruitment process of several
firms and finding out their offerings, it was
only following a day at A.T. Kearney's offices
that I felt that I'd not only been thoroughly
assessed but I had also exchanged an
enthusiasm and passion for business problems
with like-minded people. The friendliness of
the employees at A.T. Kearney and the feeling
of dynamism in the office convinced me that
it was the right firm for me.
Since day one at A.T. Kearney I have
not been disappointed and now, almost a
year since joining, I still feel that all my
expectations have been met and exceeded.
Each engagement has extended my functional
knowledge and rapidly developed my
business acumen through exposure to new
industries, working cultures and functional
areas. As a Business Analyst the learnings
have always taken the form of a steep curve
and the rewards in intellectual stimulation
have been substantial.
There are also opportunities for development
as the company's culture strongly supports
training in key skills such as analytical
and modelling tools, public speaking and
effective written communication. After
just two months with A.T. Kearney I found
myself equipped with the fundamental tools
and skills of consulting following a series of
professional external and in-house courses.
Training offerings are further enhanced by
an ongoing process of exchange between
consultants and experts in various functional
and industry practice fields.
The nature of management consulting implies
that no two days are the same, which I can
personally attest to. One day you may find
yourself travelling between client sites
throughout Europe and the next you might be
in the office perfecting a client presentation
deck. For example, a recent day involved
an early morning start to catch the 7.20 train
from London to a client's central offices in
the Midlands. After an hour's train journey
spent analysing a dataset that needed some
last-minute reconciliation and validation I
arrived at the client site together with three
other team members. After settling into our
assigned team room, I reviewed progress
with our project manager and others on the
team. A long morning of stock-holding and
sales history data modelling was concluded
at around 1pm with a team battle against
the local vending machines for a sandwich
lunch. The afternoon was then divided
between phone calls and teleconferences with
inventory-optimisation workstream team
members, development work on an inventory
analysis tool and intermittent strategiclevel
discussions with team members. The
day was wrapped up by 7pm with a client
meeting to report on status and progress for
each workstream, followed by a return train
journey back to London and some informal
discussions on high-level aspects of the
project objectives and scope.
Though there is no such thing as a typical
working day, the most consistent aspects
of a day at A.T. Kearney are the interaction
with bright and enthusiastic people, exposure
to CEO-level strategic problems offering a
variety of challenges – together with a good
measure of travelling.
As a Business Analyst at A.T. Kearney I have
already had the opportunity to present findings
to Board-level clients, contribute to proposals
and help develop existing and potential client
networks; all in addition to the underlying
spectrum of analytical and data-based work.
Whilst highly challenging at times, the sense
of achievement when overcoming complex
business and organisational problems is
immensely gratifying and I can't imagine
a career path which offers more scope
for professional development, personal
responsibility and the potential to see personal
initiative become a reality.
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