Case Interview Preparation & Management Consulting | Strategy | Critical Thinking

Networking calls/coffee chats are tricky. You should not be following the advice found for general recruitment. We insist our clients network with partners so most of the advice we provide is for networking with McKinsey and BCG partners. The reality is that partners are best equipped, and most influential, to assess a unique profile and make a judgement call on the spot. The danger is that if you do not impress the partner, you are very unlikely to go anywhere with further networking. The more atypical your profile, though, the greater the need to network with a partner, and the benefits far outweigh the risks.   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Many candidates forget to sanity-check their calculations in a case. That is a bad idea. Without a sanity-check there is no way to meaningfully assess the accuracy of your answer. More important, how you perform the sanity check is the key. All sanity-checks must involve the reduction of the answer to a number that you can intuitively compare to your own experiences. Unless you do this, you can never defend your answer.   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Welcome to an interview with an award-winning marketer, TEDx speaker and authority in harnessing the instinctive mind to accelerate brand and business growth, founder and CEO of Triggers, Leslie Zane.   In this episode, continuing the discussion from her first interview, we delved deeper into the conventional marketing wisdom and instinctive behaviors that drive people to buy your product.   Leslie is the author of The Power of Instinct: The New Rules of Persuasion in Business and Life. In her book, Leslie shows that to grow a brand, business, or even a social movement, traditional persuasion tactics fall short. Instead, you must connect to the instinctive mind. And to do this, you need to understand the science of consumer choice and employ techniques that work with a person's brain, not against it.   Leslie Zane is an award-winning marketer, TEDx speaker and the foremost authority in harnessing the instinctive mind to accelerate brand and business growth.      In her early career at P&G and Johnson &

Welcome to an interview with the author of Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-Ups Change the Future, Mike Maples, Jr. In this book, Maples and coauthor Peter Ziebelman set out to discover the hidden forces that drive extraordinary start-up success. Pattern-breaking success, they reveal, demands a different mindset and actions to harness developments others miss or that may, at first, seem crazy.   Mike Maples, Jr is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, podcaster, and the co-founder of FLOODGATE, a leading seed stage fund in Silicon Valley that invested in companies like Twitter, Twitch, Okta, and Outreach at the very beginning of their startup journeys.    An eight-time member of the Forbes Midas List of Top Venture Capital investors, he was one of the pioneers of the seed investing movement, which started in the mid-2000s and now is a mainstream part of startup funding.   Get Pattern Breakers here: https://rb.gy/z4l4i7   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies f

Welcome to an interview with golf coach, entrepreneur, and personal development enthusiast Eric Cogorno. In this episode, Eric shares the most effective tips and techniques that he uses to grow his business and followers.   Eric took his business from $80K to $1.5 million revenue a year -- in less than five years. He has grown an audience of 500K+ followers (and 3-5 million views every month) from zero.  All the while, he decreased his work time from 60 hours a week to 10-15 hours!   In 2017, Eric Cogorno took to YouTube the experience he gleaned from giving more than 20,000 in-person golf lessons.  His distinct style of clear language and simplified concepts have attracted close to 400,000 followers across his channels and many millions of view from all across the globe.  He’s on a mission to make world-class golf instruction available to everyone and, through the process, create the biggest and best online golf school in the world.    Born and raised in the Lehigh Valley, PA, Eric was a scratch golfer by th

Welcome to an interview with the author of Intentionality: A Groundbreaking Guide to Breath, Consciousness, and Radical Self-Transformation, Finnian Kelly. In this book, Finnian Kelly shares his step-by-step process for manifesting Intentionality into success. Through combining both scientific and spiritual principles, Finnian leads you through the five key intentions, including actionable steps and targeted breathing exercises you can incorporate into your everyday life.   Finnian Kelly is the founder of Intentionality Inc., a sought-after speaker and high-performance coach, and a master breathwork facilitator. He helps world-changing leaders implement his Intentionality® methodology to find new levels of fulfillment and growth in their creative endeavors, relationships, and overall well-being. As a successful entrepreneur and a retired officer in the Australian military, Finnian has been dubbed "the Business Mystic'' because of his unique ability to awaken consciousness in business and inspire CEOs and lead

Welcome to an interview with the author of Survive, Reset, Thrive: Leading Breakthrough Growth Strategy in Volatile Times, Dr. Rebecca Homkes.   How would you stabilize your business to withstand and grow through market shocks, reset your strategy to take account of new realities and thrive through uncertainty?   Survive, Reset, Thrive is a playbook for leaders derived from the author's first-hand experience working with executive teams across industries from software, technology, retail, fashion, and construction through to manufacturing. Drawing from over a decade of rich real-world experience, the author illustrates how to navigate the most complex strategic situations with a simple, executable approach.   Rebecca Homkes is a high-growth strategy specialist and CEO and executive advisor. She is a Lecturer at  The London Business School, Faculty at Duke Corporate Executive Education, Advisor and Faculty at the Boston Consulting Group focused on AI and Climate and Sustainability, and a former fellow at the L

Welcome to an interview with the author of Crossing the Desert: The Power of Embracing Life's Difficult Journeys, Payam Zamani.    In this episode, Payam shares the most important lessons he learned from building a record-breaking billion-dollar IPO called AutoWeb, and how it fell apart. He took those early lessons and created his current company, One Planet Group, with the “people-first” culture he wanted all along for AutoWeb. As a result, One Planet Group’s success has allowed Payam to reacquire AutoWeb and bring it back to profitability.   In Payam’s book, Crossing the Desert, readers take an intimate look at how the paths we choose, the values we embrace, and the systems we decide to participate in (or not) can make or break us, not only financially, but spiritually. Payam’s story is a timely reminder that enduring and embracing life’s most difficult journeys can lead us to a brighter future—not only for ourselves, but for the people around us, and even the world.   Payam Zamani is an entrepreneur, inves

Welcome to an interview with the author of May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases―And What We Can Do about It, Alex Edmans. In this book, renowned economist Alex Edmans teaches us how to separate fact from fiction. Using colorful examples, he highlights the biases that cause us to mistake statements for facts, facts for data, data for evidence, and evidence for proof.   Alex Edmans is Professor of Finance at London Business School and an expert in the use and misuse of data and evidence. He has given the TED talk What to Trust in a Post-Truth World with 2 million views, spoken at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and testified in the UK Parliament.   Alex served as Managing Editor of the Review of Finance, the leading academic finance journal in Europe. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Harvard Business Review, and been interviewed by Bloomberg, BBC, CNBC, CNN, ESPN, Fox, ITV, NPR, Reuters, Sky News, and Sky Sports. He was previously a tenured

Welcome to an interview with the CEO of Fireflies.ai, Krish Rameni. In this episode, Krish took us back to the early days of starting their company, Fireflies.ai, and how they stayed motivated despite the challenges. He shared valuable advice from the lessons he learned throughout his career that will be useful for individuals who are starting their careers or planning to transition into the world of startups.   Krish Ramineni is the Co-Founder and CEO of Fireflies.ai, an AI meeting assistant that transcribes, summarizes, and analyzes meetings. Named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, Krish graduated from UPenn. He was one of the youngest Product Managers at Microsoft, leading projects in customer voice and growth. He has guest lectured at Stanford on machine learning and holds patents in workflow automation. Krish is a thought leader in SaaS/AI and an active startup advisor.   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/Overall

Welcome to an interview with the author of Solving for Why: A Surgeon's Journey to Discover the Transformative Power of Purpose, Dr. Mark G. Shrime. Solving for Why is an inspiring memoir about finding the answer to life's biggest question—"Why?"—and about following that answer through remarkable, unlikely places on the road to fulfillment, purpose, and joy.   "Turning your heart toward the poor doesn't have to be on a hospital ship in West Africa. It doesn't have to be grandiose. It doesn't have to be newsworthy. It doesn't have to be what your friends, pastors, rabbis, priests, or colleagues say it should. It just has to be." Dr. Mark Shrime   Dr. Mark G. Shrime is the International Chief Medical Officer at Mercy Ships and a Lecturer in Global Health and Social Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. He is the author of Solving for Why: A Surgeon's Journey to Discover the Transformative Power of Purpose (Hachette 2022).   He previously served as the O’Brien Chair of Global Surgery at the Royal College of Su

Welcome to an interview with the author of Better Decisions Faster: Unshakable Confidence When You Need It Most, Paul Epstein. In Better Decisions Faster, Paul draws from the green-light wisdom of Fortune 500 CEOs, Olympians, Shark Tank entrepreneurs, world-record holders, Ivy League professors, and Navy SEALs to reveal a revolutionary new system for maximally efficient and confident decision-making. Paul shares how to make better decisions using the Hands Equation, which is Head + Heart. This equation taps into the three most primal and powerful aspects of our humanity to make better, faster decisions.   Paul Epstein is a former high-level executive for multiple NFL and NBA teams and the bestselling author of “The Power of Playing Offense” and “Better Decisions Faster”. In 2022, he was named one of SUCCESS magazine’s top thought leaders who get results—alongside Tony Robbins, Brené Brown, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Mel Robbins—and his work has been featured on ESPN, NBC, Fox Business, and in USA Today.   In nearly

Welcome to an interview with the author of Ping Pong Leadership: 18 Principles to Succeed at Any Table in Business, Sports, and Life, Justin Bookey. In this book, Justin distills lessons from a beloved global sport into 18 actionable and unforgettable “Pong Principles.” Justin has spent decades as a competitive table tennis player, trained with national and world champions, and won medals at the US Open. He is an Emmy-nominated content creator and strategist, and he’s worked with leaders at global companies to accomplish their business goals. As these two worlds overlapped, Justin realized that the core principles he learned while training to compete at the table also apply to success in business and leadership. Ping Pong Leadership is a powerful guide to success at any table.   Justin Bookey is a former lawyer, an award-winning marketing strategist, and global ping pong player. He’s had the good fortune of learning from some of the best and brightest in several arenas while working with leaders at Disney, So

Welcome to an interview with the author of Behind the Startup: How Venture Capital Shapes Work, Innovation, and Inequality, Benjamin Shestakofsky. This book draws on nineteen months of participant-observation research inside a successful Silicon Valley startup, and examines how the company was organized to meet the needs of the venture capital investors who funded it. Investors push startups to scale as quickly as possible to inflate the value of their asset. Benjamin Shestakofsky shows how these demands create organizational problems that managers solve by combining high-tech systems with low-wage human labor. Behind the Startup explains how the gains generated by these companies are funneled into the pockets of a small cadre of elite investors and entrepreneurs. Shestakofsky compellingly argues that we must focus less on fixing the technology and more on changing the financial infrastructure that supports it.   Benjamin Shestakofsky is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, wher

Welcome to an interview with the authors of Fair Shake: Women and the Fight to Build a Just Economy, Naomi Cahn, June Carbone, and Nancy Levit. This book explains that the system that governs our economy—a winner-take-all economy—is the root cause of these myriad problems. The WTA economy self-selects for aggressive, cutthroat business tactics, which creates a feedback loop that sidelines women. The authors, three legal scholars, call this feedback loop “the triple bind”: if women don’t compete on the same terms as men, they lose; if women do compete on the same terms as men, they’re punished more harshly for their sharp elbows or actual misdeeds; and when women see that they can’t win on the same terms as men, they take themselves out of the game (if they haven’t been pushed out already). With odds like these stacked against them, it’s no wonder women feel like, no matter how hard they work, they can’t get ahead.   Naomi Cahn is the Justice Anthony M. Kennedy Distinguished Professor of Law at the University

Welcome to an interview with the author of The Problem with Change: And the Essential Nature of Human Performance, Ashley Goodall. Drawing on two decades spent leading HR organizations at Deloitte and Cisco, Ashley Goodall reveals in his book why change is not the same as improvement, and how, by prioritizing team cohesion (instead of reshuffling teams at will), by using real words (rather than corporate-speak), by sharing secrets (not mission statements), by fixing only the things that are truly broken (instead of moving fast and breaking everything in sight, and more, leaders at every level can create the stability that people need to thrive.   Ashley Goodall is a leadership expert who has spent his career exploring large organizations from the inside, most recently as an executive at Cisco. He is the co-author of Nine Lies About Work, which was selected as the best management book of 2019 by Strategy + Business and as one of Amazon’s best business and leadership books of 2019. Prior to Cisco, he spent four

Welcome to an interview with an award-winning marketer, TEDx speaker and authority in harnessing the instinctive mind to accelerate brand and business growth,  founder and CEO of Triggers, Leslie Zane. Leslie is the author of The Power of Instinct: The New Rules of Persuasion in Business and Life. In her book, Leslie shows that to grow a brand, business, or even a social movement, traditional persuasion tactics fall short. Instead, you must connect to the instinctive mind. And to do this, you need to understand the science of consumer choice and employ techniques that work with a person's brain, not against it.   Leslie Zane is an award-winning marketer, TEDx speaker and the foremost authority in harnessing the instinctive mind to accelerate brand and business growth.      In her early career at P&G and Johnson & Johnson, Zane championed the position that what people say is unreliable and that telegraphic cues are more powerful than direct communication, but her unconventional thinking was often disre

Welcome to an interview with the coauthor of The Venture Mindset: How to Make Smarter Bets and Achieve Extraordinary Growth, Ilya Strebulaev. This book offers a transformative playbook for delivering results in a rapidly changing world from a top Stanford professor and a technology executive. Packed with entertaining stories and scientific precision, The Venture Mindset is a must-read for anyone who wants to be better equipped for the era of uncertainty when industry, company, and career can be disrupted overnight. It will teach you more than how to simply survive. It’ll teach you how to win big.   Ilya Strebulaev is the foremost academic expert on venture capital. He is the founder of the Venture Capital Initiative and David S. Lobel Professor of Private Equity and Professor of Finance at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he teaches a popular class on venture capital. Ilya’s research has been widely published in leading academic journals and featured by the Wall Street Journal, the New

Welcome to an interview with the coauthor of Data Rules: Reinventing the Market Economy (Acting with Technology), Cristina Alaimo. In Data Rules, Cristina Alaimo and Jannis Kallinikos establish a social science framework for analyzing the unprecedented social and economic restructuring brought about by data. Working at the intersection of information systems and organizational studies, they draw extensively on intellectual currents in sociology, semiotics, cognitive science and technology, and social theory. Making the case for turning “data-making” into an area of inquiry of its own, the authors uncover how data are deeply implicated in rewiring the institutions of the market economy.   Cristina Alaimo is an Assistant Professor (Research) of Digital Economy and Society at LUISS University, Rome. She holds a Ph.D. in Management, Information Systems and Innovation from LSE–The London School of Economics and Political Science, London. Her research focuses on the innovation brought about by data-based services a

Welcome to an interview with Martin Gonzalez and Josh Yellin. Martin is the creator of Google’s Effective Founders Project and a frequent lecturer at Stanford, Wharton and INSEAD. Josh co-founded Google's first Startup Accelerator and is presently an organizational leader at Google DeepMind.   Josh and Martin are the authors of The Bonfire Moment: Bring Your Team Together to Solve the Hardest Problems Startups Face. In this book Martin Gonzalez and Josh Yellin outline the common traps startup teams fall into, and share their powerful one-day workshop that helps teams escape those traps. The unique process of The Bonfire Moment brings colleagues together for a full day of facing hard truths, noticing hidden dynamics, and gearing up for the intense challenges of startup life. When the constant hustle feels overwhelming, a team’s Bonfire Moment pulls them out of the day-to-day intensity to reflect and reboot.   Martin Gonzalez is the creator of Google’s Effective Founders Project, a global research program that