What senior industry employees must know to land a Consulting Partner role
There are 3 major archetypes of senior lateral hires in the Partner role at consulting firms
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When consulting firms bring in Partners directly from industry, it is a calculated move that comes with unique challenges and opportunities.
These lateral hires don’t follow the traditional path through the ranks of consulting, where individuals grow within the system, learning the ins and outs over years - often more than 10. Instead, they arrive with a wealth of experience from the corporate world, bringing valuable expertise, relationships and credibility in their fields.
Today, I don’t want to talk about Partners who “climb the ladder” (like I have done), nor about Partners transitioning from other consulting firms.
I want to focus on those hired at the Partner level straight from industry - people who have likely been executives, general managers, or industry specialists before their move into consulting.
I have met a lot of them in my career.
While they are brought in to leverage their knowledge and networks, the path ahead for these Partners is generally anything but smooth. The consulting universe plays by a different set of rules, and industry leaders often face a steep learning curve when it comes to selling, delivering work and thriving in this new world.
These people decided to leap to the other side of the pond, but sometimes I find myself thinking they haven’t really looked at what’s in the pond… especially if they don’t make a good jump!
My view is that lateral hires from industry tend to fall into three distinct categories.
1. The “Visionary Builders”
These partners come in with confidence, often recruited by a Senior Partner who believes in their industry-specific expertise. They are typically brought in because they have led major programs or held big roles at notable clients and are now tasked with building a similar practice within the consulting firm.
This is where things go wrong.
These individuals often come in with bold plans and high expectations, only to discover that vision alone doesn’t pay the bills.
In my experience, their failure is 40% about not understanding the consulting business and 60% about not understanding themselves.
Most lateral Partners from industry, especially those in quite senior positions like GMs or VPs, have spent years being protected by their corporate infrastructure. They believe they have been running the show when, in reality, they have been managing an already established system with a team of experts backing them. They were not selling their own credibility: they were selling the strength of the brand behind them.
The moment they walk into consulting, they are stripped of that corporate safety net, and no longer are they backed by the resources and credibility of their previous employer.
Now, it’s just them, their name, and their ability to sell.
It’s not that they have “lost touch” with selling and delivering work: it’s that many of them never really did it in the first place!
In their past roles, their authority came from their position, not their personal ability to generate new business, and that’s the mistake: they confuse managing a machine with building one.
When they come into consulting, they think they can simply plug into the firm’s brand, much like they did in their corporate role. They expect the firm to run on autopilot around them while they build something from scratch.
Consulting doesn’t work that way.
The moment a Partner walks in, they are responsible for driving revenue, managing relationships, and creating demand from day one. The harsh truth is that many Visionary Builders have never had to personally own those pieces, and it shows.
The very qualities that made them successful in the corporate world - strategic vision, delegation, oversight - become their biggest weaknesses in consulting.
Vision is great, but clients these days are less and less inclined to pay for vision unless they know you can execute.
Delegation is a problem because consulting firms, unlike big industry corporates, run lean and Partners are expected to deliver work, not just manage people who do.
Oversight can be useful but normally there’s not much time to watch from the sidelines: it’s direct engagement or nothing.
The Visionary Builders are fighting the wrong battle.
They think their struggle is external: market conditions, firm dynamics, competition, or whatever else they come up with… but the real challenge is internal.
It’s their inability to shift from a corporate mindset to a true entrepreneurial one.
Their job is not “building the practice” as they’ve been told, but it’s building themselves as a trusted, go-to authority in their field.
And that’s where most of them fail.
2. The “Intellectual Purists”
These people come in with specialized knowledge in a particular field although, unlike the “Visionary Builders”, do not have a past holding very senior roles in corporates.
In my experience, Intellectual Purists actually could excel in consulting - particularly when they find themselves in a collaborative environment where Partners are willing to share opportunities and leverage their expertise.
The Intellectual Purists are sharp and laser-focused on content over politics. Their intelligence though - the very thing they’ve built their careers on - is what can sometimes doom them in consulting.
The dirty secret is that consulting is not just a meritocracy based on how smart you are or how much expertise you can bring to the table.
Consulting is often about how well you play the game.
The Intellectual Purists come in believing the opposite: that their knowledge will do the heavy lifting for them.
Let me tell you a secret.
Clients do not necessarily buy expertise. They buy solutions to problems. And they buy from people they like and trust.
In a room full of intellectual equals, it’s the person with the sharpest social skills and strategic acumen that lands the deal, not necessarily the person with the most PhDs.
The Intellectual Purists often fall into the trap of thinking that if they can just be the smartest in the room, success will follow, while I have noticed that being the smartest in the room is often the fastest way to alienate yourself, because nobody likes to be made to feel stupid, least of all clients or colleagues.
Their pursuit of intellectual rigor blinds them to the reality of business pragmatism.
What do I really mean by that?
Clients don’t need the perfect solution. They need a solution that works well enough and that they can implement quickly.
Intellectual Purists often struggle to understand that consulting is about compromise, about delivering something that meets the client’s needs, not necessarily the optimal or most elegant shit their big brains can come up with.
Intellectual Purists end up isolating themselves, because they look down on the networking, the politics, the schmoozing that comes with consulting. They see it as beneath them but, in doing so, they are cutting themselves off from the very relationships and opportunities that could make them successful.
They fail to see that consulting is about influence, not just information.
The Intellectual Purists end up failing because they try to stay above the fray, rather than engaging with it. Many of these experts are therefore relegated to roles as Subject Matter Experts who provide support on deals but aren’t seen as rainmakers.
They are not seen as Consulting Partners.
They are perceived as consultants who support rather than lead - however only those who know how to use their smarts and navigate the system ultimately win.
3. The “Network Alchemists”
Finally, there’s the group of lateral hires that truly excels: the Network Alchemists.
These individuals come in with a vast network and a deep understanding of how to leverage relationships to win business. They thrive in environments where influence, networking and personal connection are everything. These Partners aren’t necessarily the smartest or most competent in the room but they are the most connected.
Their success does not simply revolve around relationships, but hinges on how they strategically manufacture opportunities day in and day out.
It’s easy to think these Partners just happen to have vast networks and know the right people but, in reality, they are constantly crafting narratives around themselves, positioning their influence as indispensable.
They design their network.
While many believe networking is a passive act of meeting people and maintaining ties, the Network Alchemists understand it as an active, almost artificial process.
I spoke about this idea in an earlier piece:
Network Alchemists don’t wait for the right moments to meet influential people: they create those moments.
They host the dinners, set up the meetings, and ensure they are always at the center of the conversation.
It’s calculated.
Their EQ is off the charts, yes, but not because they are naturally empathetic: it’s because they have mastered the science of making others feel important.
Their success has a lot to do with the subtle art of playing power games.
These Partners perhaps do not understand the finer points of consulting delivery or even the depth of the industries they serve but what they do understand is the social architecture of influence.
In that game, perception is everything.
Clients gravitate toward them because they are seen as the gatekeepers, the conduits to bigger opportunities. The irony is that they often are not the key players in their firm when it comes to actual consulting work: they just give off the appearance that they are!
There is a dark side though…
The Network Alchemists can sometimes be more manipulative than collaborative: while they appear to have the most allies, their relationships are often transactional.
They know how to extract value from people and situations, sometimes at the expense of others. They thrive in environments where alliances are constantly shifting, where they can trade favors and debts.
They are not necessarily dishonest (that is not what I am implying here), but they know how to leverage ambiguity to their advantage. They give just enough to keep people wanting more but never fully commit to any one person or project unless it serves their broader agenda.
Their biggest asset - relationships - can also be their greatest vulnerability.
Because they depend so much on their social capital, any shift in the industry, a loss of key contacts, or changes in client organizations can destabilize them (and, you know, lay-offs are a certainty in business, especially these days!). When that happens, they have little else to fall back on.
They have people.
Lose the people, and they lose their power.
Who do I work better with?
Despite their flaws, I have found that Network Alchemists are the ones I gravitate toward.
Their ability to turn connections into opportunities is unmatched, and while their methods may seem calculating at times, their results speak for themselves.
They fill the gaps I might have in reaching key decision-makers or navigating complex networks and, in return, my industry domain and consulting skills help ground the bigger picture.
I am convinced that together we make a formidable team, where their influence meets my competence, the results are more than the sum of our parts.
What is your experience?
Are you a senior employee in industry who wants to make the shift? Or are you a consultant who has experienced these dynamics in some of the firms you’ve worked for?
Let me know in the comments!
✍ The Management Consultant
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The point that you touch on multiple times is the importance of internal networks inside large consulting firms - esp. for helping land megadeals (rather than just keeping your direct team feed). Internally promoted partners typically have those networks. Lateral hires have to build them from scratch. Naturally the Network Alchemists will have the skills to do this. But they need to recognize that they need to maintain an external network and build an internal network at once.
If the lateral hire was an exec in one company for a long time, they also need to recognize that they are moving to a different culture. And from being an insider to an outsider. They have gone from being the school captain to the new kid in the cafeteria.
Outstanding observations!