Partner salaries - consultancy internship - new appointments - and more in Don Leslie's Consultancy Newsletter March edition

Although it was a long time ago and in a galaxy far, far away, I was once a consultant and a consultancy recruiter. Now I’m a guide to those who want to make a career for themselves in strategy and management consultancy. I do this partly to keep myself away from daytime TV, but also to help others discover this fascinating and rewarding profession. I scour the internet and the business press for information which may help you find consultancy jobs.

Big Four partner salaries - McKinsey’s troubles - Argon expansion - summer placement - MBA hiring update - new consultancy rankings - Analyst roles - risk and financial regulation consulting growth - new cybersecurity consulting boss

Don’t miss the Financial Times report https://www.ft.com/reports/uk-leading-management-consultants on the consultancy sector, including its ranking of firms. BusinessBecause has also come up with its own, shorter list of best firms, https://tinyurl.com/eypkwywg a top ten which includes some low profile firms.

Strategy House News:

·       Strategy and marketing firm Simon-Kucher has reported sales of $400m, a 1% growth. The firm has a strong pharma client service line: eight new partners have recently joined that practice area, and a new office (its 41st) opens in Berlin shortly. https://tinyurl.com/tawr5jf8    

·       Bain & Co: the firm has announced its 2021 partner promotions – over 50 worldwide, including 14 in Europe. https://tinyurl.com/yyk8qfp5 As we report below, Bain is to hire 700 consultants this year, over half of whom will be MBAs. (Missed the application deadline for September 2021 start? There’s still a chance… https://www.donleslie.uk/strategy-house-applications-too-late-now-maybe-not/ )

·       Website BusinessBecause reports on the MBA hiring plans of the top three strategy houses https://tinyurl.com/4z3jat95 McKinsey expects to hire 1500 new consultants, 500 of whom will be MBAs, plus PhDs, newly qualified doctors and lawyers, and other “industry” recruits. Bain’s 700 new consultants will be joined by a larger-than-ever number of summer interns, including 250 MBA students.

·       Over 40% of McKinsey’s work involves digital transformation, which explains the acquisition of two Australian digital advisory businesses Hypothesis https://tinyurl.com/3hkw3d9h and Venturetec https://tinyurl.com/36npbn57 . Both will be folded into the McKinsey Digital sub-brands Build and Leap respectively. McKinsey Digital employs over 5000 data scientists, engineers and designers within the 30,000 strong global firm. It will celebrate its centenary in 2026.

·       Staff bite back: McKinsey Moscow has been criticised by its employees for instructing them not to get involved in political action. https://tinyurl.com/4krtag3k A spokesman later retracted the message, saying that the firm’s policy had been misinterpreted.

·       McKinsey has apologised for its part in the US opiod addiction scandal. https://tinyurl.com/y6qe32fk It had advised Purdue Pharmaceuticals, producer of the drug OxyContin on growth strategy, and is paying a $500+m penalty in recompense, without admitting that it acted outside the law. (The FT estimates that figure to be less than 5% of McKinsey revenues.) The same newspaper reports that partners at McKinsey have voted the Managing Partner out of office over dissatisfaction with his handling of various recent crises.

·       Roland Berger’s latest press release highlights 12 new Partner appointments in France, Germany, Portugal and the UK https://tinyurl.com/ifbrvv6s , and six promotions from Partner to Senior Partner in China, Germany and the US. Known colloquially as ‘the McKinsey of Munich’, Roland Berger, founded in 1967, is the only leading global consultancy of German heritage. It has 250 partners and 2500 employees based at 50 offices in over 30 countries. There are over 100 jobs advertised on its website https://tinyurl.com/uk5y2cbu

A 2021 summer internship https://tinyurl.com/b2sr9te2 which will lead to a permanent role in London - or possibly Paris - is on offer with Re-Set, a consultancy for innovation and sustainability. The firm has also just appointed a Director https://tinyurl.com/2fvvbwff in a new role focusing on expanding its fast-growing sustainability practice.

Big Four News:

·       Private Eye (an investigative journal/scurrilous rag, depending on your viewpoint), of 19th February writes about Big Four partner earnings, in an article about UK tax reform. In 2019, PwC’s senior partner had a profit share of ￡3.7m, with ‘average’ profits of ￡765,000 per partner; Deloitte’s payouts were ￡1.6m/￡876,000 respectively. For 2020, EY’s figures were ￡3.5m and ￡667,000, and KPMG’s ￡1.7m and ￡572,000.

·       KPMG UK will be looking for a new Chair following the resignation of Bill Michael. He fell on his sword after some staff took umbrage at ‘blunt language’ used on an internal call about the firm’s staff performance measurement system and unconscious bias. https://tinyurl.com/3j9qs6ey

·       News magazine The Week reports that staff at PwC have been holding meetings at the top of skyscrapers and inside luxury ski chalets – using VR headsets. The firm is using Virtual Reality to enliven meetings.

Women in Consulting: a BCG Dubai senior partner, Leila Hoteit, has been named one of the 50 most important women in the Middle East. Her work embraces education, women's empowerment, human capital development, employment and culture. https://tinyurl.com/1hgv3ym9 The firm has over 200 consulting jobs advertised https://tinyurl.com/4uw42n8a on its global recruitment website.

Consultancies acquiring outside investors:

·       London-based Channel 3 Consulting – which designs, implements and improves digital transformation programmes for the health and social care sector, has a new leadership team. It follows a PE-backed MBO. These changes would typically indicate a hiring campaign to come, as the firm would seek grow more quickly as a result of external investment. And – no surprise – it is reported that there is the intention to triple the firm in size (to over 100 employees) and expand operations to cover all of England, Scotland and Wales. https://tinyurl.com/wdvwvry3 The UK ‘s NHS meanwhile has announced a list of 12 approved consultancies for digital transformation work. https://tinyurl.com/1w8gi6e5

·       French HQ’d operations consultancy Argon has bought supply chain consultancy R&G Global, adding new offices in Germany, The Netherlands and Switzerland to its existing presence in Abu Dhabi, Australia, France, India, New Zealand, Singapore, the UK and the US https://tinyurl.com/f1k6seg1 Expansion comes on the back of investment by a French PE investor, reported in the October newsletter. https://www.donleslie.uk/october-2020-consultancy-newsletter/

It’s off: we wrote last month https://www.donleslie.uk/february-2021-consultancy-newsletter/ about the Atos plan to more than double its size through the $10bn purchase of DXC Technology. The move has been scuppered by shareholders of Atos https://tinyurl.com/puvryfcg The company had hoped to bulk up to 250,000 employees, the better to compete with Accenture (500,000), TCS (450,000) and Capgemini (250,000).

Meet the new boss:

·       PA Consulting has a new Global Head of Energy and Utilities https://tinyurl.com/9s453yhw

·       The former Chief Information Security Officer for the Bank of England has been hired by 324 Consultancy, a cyber risk management and cybersecurity advisory firm. Cybersecurity consulting has been one of the beneficiaries of remote working practices prompted by Covid-19 lockdown. https://tinyurl.com/58qp3sbx

·       Sionic’s Jersey office has welcomed two partners https://tinyurl.com/46f6pvex to help develop its wealth management and private banking consultancy services. The firm is advertising a number of Analyst roles in London, New York and Toronto. See also the last mention of the firm in the June 2020 newsletter https://www.donleslie.uk/june-2020-management-consultancy-newsletter/

Another winner from the coronavirus has been regulation and compliance. https://tinyurl.com/14zx9zz0    Bovill, a financial services regulatory consultancy with offices in Chicago, Hong Kong, London, New York, and Singapore, designs and implements compliance reporting systems. It has teamed up with regtech house Qombly to provide automated diagnostic tools which check on MiFIR, EMIR and SFTR adherence.

Energy/water research consultancy Cornwall tops the Financial Times rankings in its sector https://tinyurl.com/2pn9j2h3 It operates in the UK and Australia. There is a Modeller role https://tinyurl.com/v5z5nf9z advertised on its vacancies page.

Last month I delivered webinars for EMLyon, Aston Business School, Alliance Manchester Business School, Sheffield University Management School, the London School of Economics, and I chaired a session on consultancy at the Scottish MBA Employment Conference. During March I’ll be speaking to the Women In Business Club at Warwick Business School about consulting and to the MBA class at Oxford Sa?d Business School.

Remote 1:1 coaching sessions by ‘phone and Zoom continue from my home office. Issues I’m asked to cover include:

·       Identifying appropriate consultancies (MBB/B4 and beyond) for a move, according to longer-term career aims, experience, languages, desired location (UK or abroad), work/life balance issues and other requirements

·       Research: identifying contacts inside firms to approach, method of approach, script

·       Cover letter, CV and LinkedIn profile review and improvement

·       Interview preparation: story, competencies, fit, tests, telephone and avatar interview techniques, assessment centres, group exercises, case study guidance

·       Rank and salary negotiation

Anyone wishing to arrange a 1:1 session should email me at [email protected]

The next newsletter will be published at the beginning of April.

Don Leslie Careers and Consultancy London +44 (0)203 051 8540 +44 (0)7812 056 652 [email protected] www.donleslie.uk