| A
Day in the Life of a Parthenon Principal |
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| 5:30AM |
Slap the alarm
clock snooze button, hoping a few more precious minutes of
sleep will help me shake off the extra long night last night
of some extensive analysis on my latest project in the book
retailing industry. My team and I were preparing some
of our preliminary findings regarding the industry landscape
for our upcoming meeting with our private equity client. Funny – getting
up in the mornings is still not any easier than when I had
the early morning wake-ups in the Marine Corps.
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| 5:45AM |
Reluctantly roll out of bed
as my husband reminds me we have to train for the upcoming
Pan-Mass Challenge, a 2-day bike ride that raises money for
life-saving cancer research and treatment at the Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute. Our office is once again putting
together a team of about 15 partners and consultants. We’ve
been at the top of the list in total donations raised in
years past, now I just need to make sure my legs are up to
the challenge. |
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| 7:45AM |
Head to the office via
the city subway as most of the younger consultants in the
office do. |
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| 8:15AM |
I arrive at the office a
bit earlier than the associates usually do, so I can run
through the day’s requirements and get a plan put together
before the associate I’m working with arrives. Our
associates are really sharp and have tons of initiative,
so I always need to start early to keep up with them. The
bay where my desk is situated always seem a bit quiet this
early in the morning, compared to the usual socializing that
starts to take place as the day evolves. It really
is great to have an open environment and an office where
70% of the consultants are in the office on any given day. |
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| 9:30AM |
After grabbing my usual
morning coffee from the kitchen, I head off to a meeting
with “my
other side,” where our case team leader is calling
in from his client's office in Texas. We’re
just kicking off the case for an education client, an urban
school district that is restructuring its high schools, and
I’m
excited to learn the details about the client from the partner. I
anticipate a bit more travel than I’m used to in my
work with our private equity clients, so I’ll have
to learn how to manage two cases while being on the road,
a day or so a week. The meeting is a great success
as everyone gets along great and we’ve got roles, workstreams,
and timelines well defined already. |
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| 11:00AM |
After my meeting, I notice
one of our senior partners in his office near my desk, so
I take the chance to pop in, say hello and ask a couple of
questions about some internal initiatives I’m working
on to help our company become more environmentally responsible – now
officially titled “Parthenon Green.” This
really is an entrepreneurial culture, and I’ve enjoyed
starting a new initiative. |
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| 11:10AM |
I sit back down to think
about our storyline for the book retailing case. We’ve
nailed the existing secondary research that gives us the
competitive landscape story, but we have yet to answer some
key questions that will drive the client’s investment
decision. I need to think about our activities for
our next stage of analysis which will include customer segmentation
through analysis of an online survey. We need to put
the pieces in place now because we only have three more weeks
on the project. Private equity work tends to be fast
and furious compared to our other cases. |
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| 12:15PM |
I break
away to join a group already forming in the lunchroom. I’m
a bit unusual as I try to bring my lunch in, but others have
already returned from grabbing a sandwich down the street
and conversations about the latest Hollywood gossip, youTube
video, or Red Sox game are in full force. Between those
and conversations about the latest Parthenon “event,” it
reminds me why it’s such a fun place to be and rewarding
for all of our work, which can be grueling at times. |
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| 12:45PM |
I get
back to my desk pretty quickly, so I can sit and prepare
for an interview with an industry expert for my book retailing
case. I
like to review all of our questions we’ve prepared
to ensure a good flow during the interview. We have
a call scheduled with a publisher’s association which
should be very informative. |
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| 2:00PM |
Successful interview! The
associate and I are astounded at all that we learn and plan
out how to use the new information to add color to our fact-based
analysis. Now I’ve got a chance to clear my head
for an hour or so to think about what the plan is for our
workstream on the new education case. We need to do
a benchmarking exercise, which will require a combination
of scanning the literature available on comparable programs
and planning to contact people who have first-hand knowledge
of implementing similar restructurings. |
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| 5:30PM |
SCORE! Just got word
that I got a couple of tickets for tomorrow night’s
Sox game in the company box. Perfect timing as it will
be just after a client presentation on one side and we’re
pretty early in on the other side, so I should have time
to sneak out for the game. |
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| 5:30PM |
Time to
grab a quick coffee and stroll the office to check in with
some of my classmates. Another way to learn quickly
on the job is to find out about our other exciting cases
going on. I also make a quick “drive-by” to
one of the associates working on the book retailing diligence. I
try not to do it very often in order to give them their autonomy,
but sometimes face-to-faces are so much more valuable then
e-mail rapid fire chains. A quick check-in lets me
know where we stand on our client update tomorrow afternoon. |
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| 7:30PM |
Wrap up my thoughts on where
we are on our book retailing, planning out what we can squeeze
in tomorrow, depending on our meeting with the partner in
the morning. |
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| 8:00PM |
Off to catch dinner with
my husband and dog, remembering to grab a paper copy of tomorrow’s
deck that I can error-check before heading off to bed. Tomorrow’s
going to be even a bit more hectic with putting the final
touches on our presentation. |
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