Client-consultant relationship

By Julie Ahadi.

I used to enjoy sleep. And then I had a baby. Much like the heyday era of consulting, when an abundance of cheque-happy clients and high fees was the norm, I used to roll around in bed of a Saturday morning thinking ‘there’s plenty more where that came from’. Not only has my window of opportunity for a relatively easy life closed, but I am now conditioned not to be able to sleep, even if I am permitted to.*

And to some extent, I’m the problem – I’ve created an adorable baby Frankenstein. At some point along this magical journey, my daughter may just (may just, mind you) have mistaken my kindness for weakness. The moment she’d call; I’d jump. And she got used to it. And so did I. And it really didn’t need to come to this – I’d read all the books, listened to (far too many) people’s helpful advice and yet here I am – me and my eyebags. But, like so many sleep deprived, busy mums (and there are plenty busier than me), I soldier on.

By Alison Huntington.

Thousands of bright-eyed graduates pass through the doors of the world’s leading consulting firms every year, but despite their initial excitement the reality is that they’re not all going to stay and climb the greasy pole until they’re made a partner. Many will go on to have glittering careers in industry, rising to the top of their chosen field and becoming clients of the very firms they used to work for.

What then, do these people think of their alma mater?

By Alison Huntington

If you bought a shirt from Primark, you wouldn’t be too annoyed if a button fell off or a seam frayed. After all, shirts from Primark cost about €5.

On the other hand if you bought a shirt from Tom Ford (a brand for which a single shirt tends to be priced between €500 and €1,000) then you’d be pretty unimpressed with broken buttons and frayed seams. You’d expect a perfect shirt, you’d expect to look fantastic in it, and you may even expect random (and, obviously, very attractive) strangers to walk up to you in the street and tell you as much.