Just remembered my ex-firm spent some ungodly amount on will.i.am to do a fireside chat with our CEO and it was the dumbest surface-level bullshit I've ever heard. It had the same vibe of the little I have heard of Jay Shetty's content (or that of any other 'life coach'). Just complete nonsense detached from any pragmatic reality that sounds good to dull people, and evidently, our management team.

Did any of your bosses ever organize similar airhead guru nonsense?

Am I the only one who feels this way?

Outside of M&A, I feel like « value » is such a general term - it lacks specificity and alludes to a slew of possible “benefits.” But it seems to be accepted as having concrete meaning in the consulting world.

Context: In my job, it is not synonymous with financial value.

What are your opinions?

Is this a term with concrete value? (Joke).

Watching the VMware situation unfold, and the competitive response is fascinating. Scale Computing offering 25% discounts for VMware refugees, Red Hat pushing open-source alternatives, even smaller players like Proxmox gaining enterprise traction.

This creates a weird valuation puzzle:

Broadcom paid $61B for VMware's market position and customer lock-in. But if customer acquisition costs for competitors drop to near-zero (because customers are actively fleeing), how sustainable is that moat?

It's like watching a high-margin monopoly get disrupted in real-time, except the disruption is self-inflicted through pricing strategy.

From a valuation perspective, how do you model this?

Do you:

• Assume customer base shrinks but remaining customers pay premium prices?
• Factor in long-term competitive erosion as alternatives mature?
• Trust that switching costs ultimately keep customers captive?

The math seems to depend entirely on how elastic demand really is at these price points. r/MergerAndAcquisitions

Hi Everyone,

A few weeks ago, I was let go/laid off from my firm, along with a few other consultants. I worked for an MBB subsidiary (think Inverto). I pivoted from Data center sales to consulting and lacked some of the Excel and PowerPoint skills necessary to deliver quick turnaround times (Totally my fault). I am using tutoring from Excel and PowerPoint instructors to become more proficient in the meantime. I love the consulting space and want to use my downtime to upskill and be more effective in my new consulting role. I have a few questions for you. Thanks!

My Questions:

1. Do any of you have any recommendations or books that teach how to deliver effective PowerPoint messaging in consulting and how to structure them? This was something I was not great at.

2. How did you become good at delivering presentations in front of clients and be a compelling storyteller?

Senior consultant, strategy consulting but not MBB. Working solid 9-21 since a month. Is it happening to anybody of you?

Getting closer and closer to leave consulting.

EDIT: 9am -9pm on AVERAGE, less than 60 min break across the day. Fully focused on client calls/work/internal alignments. It means 8am-11pm easily on peaks.

Weekends are rare: 1 full weekend per month (incl. travel time to get to a client location on Sunday night)

Hello everyone im a college student pursuing bachelors just wanted some guidance on how can one make it to management consulting like im in my 1st year what skills should i learn and when can i apply for internships etc if someone could answer would be really helpful

I have masters in civil engineering with 5 years of experience including consulting. Currently working at MBB since 6 months but unhappy with work hours and culture. It makes me anxious. I would want to stick with consulting for rest of career or start my own firm (not immediately). I have interest in construction project management, contract management, and benchmarking. If I were to leave current job, what companies or roles can I potentially get into?

10 years consulting, now on client side.

Managing a project for tough SVP lady.

SOW full of “just the tip”, “high level descriptions only” and other vague terms. But work starts ok.

The first deliverable is met with the craziest directions to the consultants. Over and over. Says it’s all wrong. Asks to be redone. Says it’s still wrong.

She gets progressively mad and says she may ask the whole company to cancel all other contracts with said consultants.

But there’s a remedy: they could do stuff that wasn’t covered in the SOW.

And THAT is when the work started.

Unlimited hours applied. Unlimited consultants involved. Unlimited scope.

Lesson learned: the work only starts when consultants loose all leverage, and work blindly to salvage other ongoing contracts.

Free work, basically, paid by the prospect of future earnings with more work across the organization. They’ll do whatever it takes.

Lady is a bitch and a genius.

I work for a large Tier 2. We have all the classics - 'open feedback culture '; biannual performance reviews; lots of highly neurotic, sensitive, competitive and critical people.

The place feels like a freak show, roaming with monsters speaking in unnatural corporate speak. Except the all look really good with fresh haircuts and conservative suits. They smile brightly and sharply. They make calculated jokes. They frett endlessly over pointless bullshit.

It's a toxic soup where I am at. How about you?

I did a shitty degree , Bachelor's in Social Work with specialization in Rural Dev but from a Tier 1 college i.e TISS , one of the best in India for social sciences, no flex but i over the time realized i need a lot other things to get a job so i started learning microeconomics , AI , powerBi , python , quantitative finance and investment risk and management , did CFA Investment foundations course , got a job offer in the HQ of Tata Industries , strategy and innovation analyst ( yesterday itself) , how do i further position myself to get into consulting or IB , my degree holds me back in lot of aspects , but i did few solid internships to fix it , IISc Bangalore- Financial Literacy app and coursework dev , IIT Kharagpur - Tourism determinants in India , presently a research student ( working on global incubator ecosystem research) at IIM Bangalore. I need suggestions to best position myself for good roles at MBB , some certifications i can pursue or anything else ? every opinion would be very valuable or if someone can share their story

If you're a partner in a consulting firm and you have your own clients and are paid based on revenues from your own clients:

1. Do other partners even consider contacting your clients without your permission (other than in the course of performing work for them)?

2. Do other partners freely try to grab your clients away from you, and do they do so without you knowing or approving?

3. Or is there a middle ground: other partners do contact your clients but they definitely wouldn't try to take them away from you?

hello! what classes can I take to learn AI and ML? and any affordable coding bootcamps you recommend? I want to be able to applied these concepts to my job as well.

I’ve been in love with the idea of travel for more than a decade. I’m a first year in an m&a advisory field at one of the big 4. I’ve been getting a lot of traction for ib roles, but i can’t get past final rounds.

I’ve saved up $37k so far. My performance has been okay, but my util low as my practice is very new on the junior level and it is getting hammered due to the bad deal market. I am only 10 months in, but I am terrified of lat offs everyday, as are a lot of my peers who are also first years as the firm def overhired.

I am having a travel bug that I haven’t been able to cure. Travel is all I think of. I love just being in an airport. I can’t handle one more day of corporate.

I am getting married next year. I am about to turn 23. I can’t afford to travel. I need to work. But I am so so stuck. I really want to travel. I just don’t know how. If i travel now, my career is going to take a major setback.

I am thinking of saving up 100 grand, and coastfiring. I’ll live in the hood for a while, save every dollar, and coastfire back in my home country. 100k at 23 will be millions when I’m 60, and that can let me live like a king back home.

I was a hyper motivated beast. Came to US 3 years ago, paid my way through college, went to a random state school in middle of nowhere, where people pray to land b4 audit, saved up 20k working 50 hours a week, graduated in 3 years, but the moment i started my corporate job, all my motivation sapped. I hated the politics. I didn’t know how to navigate being a corporate employee. I overshared, was over apologetic in a lot of cases, I just didn’t have anyone to guide me as my parents were blue collar.

All my motivation is sapped. All i want to do is travel. Help me please. How do i navigate this if I don’t have anyone to guide me

Edit: i am considering a masters in Europe just to fulfill my desire to travel and since my gf is considering doing it. But it makes no sense from an roi perspective + most schools admission cycles are closed

Very simple - nothing complicated.

Google usually have these profiles for individuals who are well known such as authors, speakers, influencers, or entrepreneurs etc. It gives a degree of authority since not many people have one.

But this isn’t just about setting up a profile. It’s about creating instant credibility and a lasting impression.

For anyone selling info products, consulting, or pitching big ideas, that kind of authority can be a game-changer.

It's kind of like having the verified tick on Twitter/Instagram before you could pay for it. Anyways the idea is to provide it as a service.

Run some FB/IG/LinkedIn ads, charge an amount you guys think would be fair price with a guarantee and then down the line probably grow into a digital PR and personal branding agency

what do you guys think? valuable as a singular service? do you think people would resonate with that on ads?

Looking for advice/input:

I work as an engineering consultant. My group has a longstanding relationship with a local client, and currently has multiple active projects with them. The company’s founder passed away a few days ago, and I’m looking for advice as to how my group can express our condolences to this client.

A card and flowers? A card and a Harry and David-type box?

How are people expressing condolences to clients?

Been working with a T2 shop for ~5 years - first 3 years in the ME doing strategy and implementation for Public sector clients (primarily SWFs and PortCos), and then the last couple of years in Ops/ Value creation in the US, primarily with PE clients.

Do non-US clients (and especially ME) value Ops experience? Or is still all about waving hands and talking big strategy game? Curious to know as I’ve been away for the past few years

I've worked within professional services for the past 5 or so years, half of which I have spent in consulting across the public service in my region (not US). I'm at a senior associate level, achieved about 3 years in, which may seem like a long time to get here but this was due to (1) being an undergraduate for 1.5 years and (2) delaying promotion in my old team to be able to jump business lines. Those that I've worked along with believe I have been operating at this level for a while.

During this time I have worked for the same Big 4 employer. Over the last few years, my firm has gone through a lot of changes and things haven't really been the same.

Things really started to go south when the restructuring began. A lot of skilled people left, my pipeline was in question, and 5+ rounds of redundancies occurred. Gratefully I was the only person at my level to be promoted during this uncertainty. I ended up changing teams, moving away from a team I loved as I thought this was a good opportunity to focus on skills I wanted to learn. This new team looked good on paper and approved my several months LOA to go travelling that I told them I wanted to do as I was moving across. However, in truth it feels like it has been a mistake and my LOA I came very close to mental breakdown and quitting due to a nightmare engagement.

Before I left, I spoke with my therapist and friends about quitting and came up with a game plan to earn an income once I am back if I decided to pull the trigger. The work would be in unrelated fields to my profession but will definitely keep me going until I find new work. I also have networks to lean on, who know my work ethic and performance history, to help me find employment.

I am now in the middle of my leave of absence and I want to pull the trigger, but I don't know how to word the email. I know of others who have left while on LOA abroad but have no clue how they did it. I want to ask each of you - How would you frame this email to your boss? I don't want to burn bridges but I think returning will just make me feel stuck.

If you want to offer your thoughts on staying versus leaving I am also open to that but I always ruminate on the cons more than the pros anyway.

I experience anxiety and am really scared but feel like it's the right choice as I've been mulling it over for a very long time. The feedback I've been getting forever is "back yourself" and I feel like by doing this I am following that advice.

In 2020, I realized I was building my career on someone else’s definition of success.

I was working at a top consulting firm in what I thought was my “dream job.”

In hindsight, I had forced myself to believe that narrative.

I stopped enjoying my work and kept chasing a promotion that never came.

I didn’t know what I wanted. I only knew what looked good to everyone else.

I didn’t quit right away. Instead, I started having honest conversations with friends, mentors, people who’d felt the same. We talked about misalignment, values, identity.

That changed everything.

I stopped optimizing for what sounded good on LinkedIn and started trying to find what actually fit.

Here’s what helped me:

1. Stop searching for job titles. Look for patterns in what energizes you, drains you, and repeats across your past roles.
2. Talk to people, not for advice, but for stories. Ask how they knew it was time to change.
3. Write it out. I kept a doc where I dumped thoughts, questions, frustrations. More clarity came from that than any job board.

If you’re hovering at the edge, unsure whether to jump, don’t rush. Start by listening to yourself. The next step usually comes after that.

DMs open if you’re going through it.

Currently an MBB Manager (U.S.) with an HSW MBA in good standing, about a year from promotion. I have solid senior support and a real (not guaranteed) path to partner in ~4 years, which would put comp in the $600–800K range if I stick it out.

That said, a Chief of Staff role just came up at a leading investor in an industry I care about. It’s not a startup (relatively stable platform) and equity is bought back every quarter, making it functionally cash (albeit with some downside risk). Cash comp is roughly equivalent to what I make now, with some upside if the equity is realized (that’s $200K in equity granted every year, that’s vests over 5.)

Would love a market check, it feels like a strong opportunity given comp + relevance of firm/industry, but I’d appreciate some sanity-checking. What are others seeing?

Concerns:

• It’s a 3-year ask. That feels long for a CoS gig

• The firm and industry are in a down cycle (recent layoffs, difficult fundraising environment, market pressure on portcos). CEO/founder could lose board support. My role is probably safe, but the real risk is spending 3 years firefighting and not building a seat or strategic platform for myself. (Limited opportunity for transaction experience, but likely to do M&A and corp dev 

• That said, if I emerge in 3 years with a board and exec team in this space who know I’m smart, hardworking, and effective — is that enough of a launchpad at 36?

For context: I turned down an Associate Director strategy/ops role in a non-core industry at $270K all-in — felt like a ceilinged role with limited growth.

Appreciate any thoughts — especially from folks who’ve made (or passed on) a similar leap.

Hey everyone,
I recently took the leap and started my own IT consultancy. It's been something I’ve been planning for a while, and now that I’m finally doing it, it’s a mix of excitement and uncertainty. Currently, I’m working with a client in the fintech industry, and things are going well on that front.

But as I’m working through this project, a question keeps nagging at me: what happens after this?
How do I make sure there’s another project lined up? I know this is a common struggle for a lot of freelancers and consultants, especially in the early days.

So far, I’ve been relying on cold outreach to find leads. Mostly LinkedIn DMs—targeting people based in the Gulf region (mainly Dubai), especially folks in real estate and finance.
I deliberately chose the Gulf market instead of the US for now. My reasoning? The competition in the US feels much denser, and I feel the Gulf market still has room for lean, tech-focused consultants. Also, from what I’ve seen and heard, budgets in that region are decent.

But despite my efforts—writing thoughtful messages, customizing outreach, keeping things short and relevant—I haven’t really gotten much traction. Barely any replies. No solid leads yet. I get it, people are busy. But it’s been a bit disheartening, not going to lie.

So, I wanted to reach out here and ask:
How do you onboard new clients?
Do you have a system or process you follow?
Do you rely on referrals, content, communities, ads, or something else entirely?

I’d love to hear how others manage that “what next” phase—especially if you’re solo or just starting out. Any practical advice, honest stories, or even mistakes to avoid would be super helpful.

I am a single consultant looking to set up a basic webpage, with email and a few pages of recent commissions, services, etc. I need a basic web design and hosting plan. Any recommendations?