Using Consulting As An Instrument For Social Change
3 Consultants Working To Reduce Global Inequality
Many of my friends in college felt like they had to make a choice between two options — on the one hand, doing impactful work that they were passionate about and on the other, experiencing the rigor and reputation known to come with working in fields like consulting and finance.
In this piece, I set out to interview three inspiring peers who have found jobs that combine these two drives.
Ebele Anidi, FSG (Washington, D.C.)
“I currently work at FSG, a mission-driven consulting firm that supports a diverse range of clientele to create more sustainable and equitable solutions to address the world’s most pressing social challenges.”
“Across the globe, FSG offers a wide range of consulting services including advising corporations on how to strengthen their competitive positioning through addressing social issues, supporting foundations in designing strategies to ensure investments have a more meaningful impact, and helping non-profits to catalyze cross-sector partnerships to mitigate persistent disparities in education, health, or economic outcomes in local communities.”
On his journey prior to FSG, Ebele shares: “I worked as a middle school math teacher with the Teach For America corps in Chicago, completed the MSPH program at Johns Hopkins with a focus on international health systems, and worked as a consultant with the World Health Organization.”
“Some might view my time after college as a bit of a circuitous professional journey. There have been multiple moments when I have questioned my decisions and often struggled to articulate to others exactly why I was making one choice over another. With the helpful support from a range of advisors across my family, past teachers, and close friends, I did come to embrace my time after a college as a journey — an ongoing process of trying to put myself in the best position to partner with and build the capacity within historically disadvantaged communities to accelerate progress towards a more fair and just society. When I think back on the range of interviews that I did with different consulting firms before leaving the WHO and fast forward to where I am now, it feels like a no-brainer that FSG was an ideal next step in my journey.”
A Recent Project
“Across my different cases, I’ve worked on issues related to gender equity to immunization supply chain efficiency in low-resource settings to improving educational outcomes for opportunity youth. I’ve learned so much about the practical application of systems thinking as a tool for identifying solutions to drive impactful and, more importantly, sustainable change.”
“For the past year, I’ve been staffed on a case supporting the launch of a long-term community initiative in Staten Island, NY focused on reducing disparities and improving outcomes for PK — 12 students: the Equity Alliance of Staten Island (EASI). While EASI is committed to elevating more equitable supports and diverse opportunities for all youth on Staten Island, the initiative has also placed a priority focus on mitigating pervasive barriers to success for black and Latino students. It’s been an absolute pleasure working alongside local parents, educators, religious leaders, and a wide range of community advocates to actively shape a more cohesive and connected community environment for youth across the island.”
Organizational Culture
On his day-to-day life at the firm, Ebele shares, “While I do travel quite a bit for my cases, it’s normally spaced out. I can’t imagine traveling four out of the five days of the week, every week. It also feels great to come into our DC office every day and have the privilege of working with people who are so deeply committed to developing ambitious and innovative strategies to help our clients to create social impact around the world.”
Divya Balaji, Bridgespan (Mumbai, India)
“I work for Bridgespan, a not-for-profit strategy consulting firm that strives to break cycles of intergenerational poverty by helping mission-driven organizations succeed. Tom Tierney, former Chief Executive of Bain & Company, and Jeff Bradach, who taught at Harvard Business School, founded The Bridgespan Group when they realized that the field of social impact was in dire need of the kind of rigorous and data-driven strategy support that only the top global businesses can typically afford.”
“Bridgespan works with nonprofits, philanthropies, impact investing funds, and social businesses across a wide spectrum of issue areas, ranging from livelihoods of smallholder farmers in India to children and families in the US. The majority of our projects are in the US and India but we are slowly expanding to the Middle East and Africa. The questions we answer for our clients are equally diverse — from helping a large philanthropic fund to locate impactful investment opportunities in Sub-Saharan Africa, to creating a 10-year strategy for an international non-profit focused on maternal health,” shares Divya.
“Working at Bridgespan is perfect for anyone who wants to learn the rigors of consulting, problem-solving, and working in diverse teams and who also wants to work towards creating positive social impact. After working in governance and policy for two years, I came to appreciate the value that outcome-based strategic focus could bring to achieving positive social outcomes,” Divya reflects. Governments, nonprofits, and foundations are often cash-stripped, and bogged down by the excessive administrative tasks necessary to achieve their desired outcomes. Being able to ‘zoom out’ and think about issues on a five- to ten-year timescale is often not possible, even though that’s how long creating lasting social change often takes.”
On her favorite thing about the firm, Divya says, “I enjoy working for Bridgespan because we embody the equity we are seeking to create in the world. In our consulting practice and knowledge work, we are deeply conscious about bringing a race, class, and gender equity lens to create deeper and more intersectional insights. And what I love most about Bridgespan is the fact that every day, I get to work with and learn from incredibly motivated, talented, and socially conscious colleagues.”
A Recent Project
“My most exciting project so far was when we advised a Southeast Asian family foundation’s 10-year philanthropic strategy. We helped them radically transform their approach to impact, define their geographic focus and organizational vision, identify sectors to focus on, and build an organization capable of executing their new strategy. We often get updates from the heads of this foundation about the decisions they are making and the changes they are seeing on the ground. It energizes me to realize that Bridgespan’s PowerPoints, Excel spreadsheets and workshops are truly helping to change the way the social sector operates.”
Organizational Culture
“Bridgespan emphasizes the importance of work-life balance and sustainability. While we do have demanding work hours because of the high need-high impact nature of the problems we are trying to solve, we are very protective of our weekends, and allow lots of flexibility in terms of working from home or creating a flexible work schedule,” Divya says.
Yohann Sequeira, Dalberg (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates)
“I’m an Analyst with Dalberg Advisors, an international development-focused strategy consulting firm. We bring top-tier consulting services to a wide variety of clients across the development sector, tackling the world’s most pressing issues, whether at the scale of global change, or helping small-holder farmers in a local village.”
“With Dalberg’s 20 expertise areas, Dalberg takes on projects across all spheres of development, offering a unique opportunity for us to be exposed to vastly different aspects of the sector every few months. In addition to being able to work on pressing issues that need to be addressed, the projects we tackle are also fundamentally interesting ones to think about.”
When asked what he loves about Dalberg, Yohann reflects, “Dalberg is the ideal crossroads for most people, even though they may not know it yet. You have a firm that strives to help those in need, making sure that our solutions can do the most for them, while building your consulting toolkit, which will include problem-solving at a level that no casebook could come up with.”
A Recent Project
“On my most recent project, I supported an engagement with the Inter-American Development Bank, helping them improve their projects across Latin America and the Caribbean. Other projects that have come out of our Abu Dhabi office recently include several system-wide reform engagements with the United Nations and the design of a disease elimination fund.”
Organizational Culture
Yohann reflects, “Working at Dalberg definitely has a familial feel to it. As our Global Managing Partner, Yana Kakar, often says, ‘we bring our whole selves to work.’ This concept has become quite engrained in the dynamic at work where colleagues are also your close friends and support system, especially since Dalberg’s staff is incredibly diverse in backgrounds and personalities, yet always down to earth, welcoming, and fun-loving.”
It’s clear from the work that Ebele, Divya, and Yohann are doing that it’s possible to experience the rigorous problem-solving approach for which consulting is known while also tackling problems that create social change around the world. I hope that reading about their journeys will be helpful in informing your own, and I recommend that you continue to explore all the options that are out there as you start to think about your post-college career goals.
