Interview With A Former Mckinsey Consultant and a Budding Entrepreneur | Consulting Network Exclusive
Consulting, Featured | Mohit | September 24, 2009 at 5:19 am
Consulting Network caught up with Kevin Gao, a former Mckinsey consultant and an Entrepreneur. Here’s what he had to say..
1. Kevin, can you brief our readers at Consulting Network about your background, and Education?
Absolutely. I graduated Stanford with a focus in Economics and International Relations. I then spent several years working for McKinsey, based out of the New York office. My time at McKinsey was focused on a few areas – namely, operations and growth strategy primarily for global media and financial institutions.
I began to realize that my passions lay in the area of entrepreneurship, particularly with consumer focusing technologies. After McKinsey, I went and launched several startups – one being Management Consulted, and the other called Yap’d – a local rewards card for students and community members around UC Berkeley.
I’m now still involved part-time with both projects, and am focused primarily on a new startup in the mobile software + shopping space. Our first platform is the iPhone, and we’ll have products released soon so please stay tuned!
2. Can you share with us some of the memorable moments at Mckinsey?
I can give you a great quote from my very first engagement manager on my very first project. We were doing some growth strategy work for a major US insurance company. My EM at the time told me “if you do extremely well on your first project, you can basically write your ticket during your time at the firm”. It was a remarkably insightful and useful piece of advice, and something I’ve carried with me to all future jobs/projects/engagements. The idea is one of building positive momentum – if you start well, you get more responsibility and build trust, which in turn provides you even more runway, responsibility, and opportunities. It’s a great positive feedback loop to be on
3. How the idea to start “Management Consulted” did come about?
My friend Brian is a fellow Stanford graduate and the brains behind Mergers & Inquisitions. It was a career portal/advice hub focused on investment banking, and became the template for Management Consulted. His mentorship, advice, and work there was absolutely instrumental in helping me figure out how to build the site and how to tackle the different challenges that emerged daily.
In addition, having gone through the recruiting process personally and then spending several years at McKinsey on the other side of that same process really taught me a lot about how all of it worked – and just how much disinformation/lack of organized, accessible information there was out there today. Vault is supposed to best of class, but they have a fundamentally tough time not only staying current but providing the true insights that people new to the process crave.
4. What were some of the challenges you faced during the initial stages of your entrepreneurial venture? How did your consulting background help to drive through initial hurdles?
There were plenty of challenges – from figuring out the roadmap for developing content to developing distribution partnerships to making the right decisions on everything from blogging platform to plugins to encryption technology.
My consulting background was particularly helpful in two areas:
1. Prioritizing all the to-dos to determine how to focus my time and be “80/20″ in execution
2. Providing the fundamentals of strategic execution – from asking the right questions to developing appropriate goals to building the right roadmap/timelines to making sure my business model was appropriate and functional
5. What according to you are 3 most important qualities to be a successful consultant?
My experiences have shown me that very successful consultants can differ DRAMATICALLY in their personal and professional styles. However, several qualities do seem fairly consistent:
1) Hard work. Without a doubt this is the most critical enabler to success as a consultant – not only are the hours long given travel, client requirements, etc – but it’s important to maintain a certain level of energy and commitment to your work. The differences really start to show over time if you’re not working hard – you can work as “smart” as you want to, but a lot of things really just take sustained, consistent effort and endurance
2) Confidence. This becomes more natural with experience and age, but the fast-track to success always relies on at least giving the impression that you know what you’re doing, and that you’re sure of your beliefs. Two things really help here – first, doing 20% more than necessary so that you have all the facts at your disposal and then some, and second, getting validation and feedback early and often so you’re not going too far on a limb. Taking risks is good, but take them in steps.
I’ve only got 2
6. What advise would you give to aspiring consultants?
Consulting is one of those career paths that can be incredibly attractive to people who are unsure of what they actually want to do. Very few people become career consultants – the vast majority take those years to learn skills, build a network, and gain exposure to various industries and functions to figure out what they’d really like to do for the next 10, 20, 30 years. I bring this up only because I think consulting isn’t an ideal fit for everyone, even for a few years – you should first learn as MUCH as you can about the job by talking to friends, reading blogs and information portals like Consulting Network, conducting informational interviews with contacts in the industry, and so on. If you can get a summer internship or part-time job, all the better – the more you know about it, the better your chances of making the right choice. At the same time, you’ll be acquiring more knowledge that will greatly help you in interviews, for your resume, and so forth.
7. Your thoughts on Consulting Network ?
From what I’ve seen of Consulting Network, you guys do a great job bringing in different points of view and providing a broad yet insightful view of consulting. In addition, it’s the most global of resources out there. I think you guys also do an excellent job of attracting readers across the interwebs and really getting your material out there. After all, that’s how I first heard of you guys when a friend passed on one of your articles!
About Management Consulted: Management Consulted is a leading resource for aspiring consultants on topics from summer internships to sizing questions, from common consulting mistakes to securing fulltime offers. In addition, Management Consulted features guest authors, interviews with consultants from top firms, and products including resume editing, mock interviews, and more!. Management Consulted is run by Kevin Gao, an entrepreneur and former McKinsey consultant. You can visit Management Consulted here
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