Day-in-the-Life of a Private Equity Consultant at IGS (Podcast)

Updated

Investor Group Services (IGS) is hiring across levels and locations inside the U.S.! This conversation with VP Raymond Meijer provides a comprehensive look into what sets IGS apart as a great place to work.

You’ll learn about:

  • How the work evolves as you get promoted
  • The firm’s double-staffing model
  • How much time consultants spent in Excel/PowerPoint vs. in meetings
  • What C-suite exposure looks like (spoiler: it starts early)
  • Tips to land a role at the firm (hint: network your butt off!)
  • How IGSers can contribute to non-client facing work

If you like what you hear from Raymond, click the links below to find the role that’s right for you.

Apply to Investor Group Services:

Listen on Spotify - Strategy Simplified

Connect with IGS:

Transcription: Day-in-the-Life of a Private Equity Consultant at IGS

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  00:05

I’m Jenny Rae Le Roux, the managing director of Management Consulted. I am really excited to be here with Raymond. Today, we’re going to talk all about IGS and about the dirty little secrets that you never knew – all the good ones anyhow.

We’re going to get to know a firm that not a lot of people know about, but should, and so it’s a great opportunity for us to dive into what has made Raymond’s experience there great, what you should think about if you’re thinking about IGS, what you should understand about what the firm does, and maybe even ways that you could get involved. So Raymond, thanks for taking the time to talk with me today.

IGS: Raymond Meijer  01:11

Great to be here. Thanks so much for the invitation to be on!

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  01:15

You bet. Well, first of all, it’s just good for us to get to know you. So can you just share a little bit of a brief overview of your background and how you got to IGS?

IGS: Raymond Meijer  01:25

Absolutely. So yeah, my name is Raymond Meijer. I’m a vice president at IGS. I’m originally from Northern California, and then went to school at Amherst College, so I moved to the East Coast. And then I’ve stuck around here ever since. So a piece of me is still a little bit of California, but certainly have a lot more roots here now on the East Coast. And so I majored in history. And coming out of undergrad, people from history kind of go in all different directions. I thought about some public policy or think tank, thought about some nonprofit or government work, but then also thought about the big consulting world, and didn’t really know too much about it.

There were some employers that would come to campus, but I didn’t have a whole perspective. I thought it would be an interesting way to use some of the research that I’ve done in history, and then move it into a professional setting.  So, I started at IGS and I found it really circumstantially though my directory back in 2017 and have been there ever since. It’s been a good journey so far. Coming from not necessarily strictly economics or financial background or kind of broader history, moving that into that the IGS experience.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  02:37

Amazing. Now, I have to ask you, where in Northern California you’re actually from because I live in the real Northern California. I live in Redding. So are you from Central California that calls itself Northern California?

IGS: Raymond Meijer  02:49

I’m from the Bay Area, from Mountain View, originally. And so and I went to high school in San Jose. Technically central but yes, I still feel more northern California than Southern California.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  02:55

People are like, Oh, you’re in a suburb of San Francisco? Like no, it’s four hours away. Or they’ll say, Oh, are you in Oregon? No, we’re to hours. There’s this whole state in the northern part. My favorite meme about California, by the way, is ‘my favorite thing about California is watching winter on TV’.

IGS: Raymond Meijer  03:19

Well, I definitely now appreciate all the changing of seasons, I didn’t have any reference points. When I moved to the East Coast, I knew it’s gonna be cold, so I just need to prepare for it. But it’s definitely been nice to see the seasons. It’s nice to go home to California, for the holidays, to be able to get a little bit more of the warmer weather.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  03:37

You didn’t move to the East Coast, you move to the North Pole. Well, I got a lot of great questions for you. The first one is just have you been, you know, understanding for this whole time that you’ve been at the firm how great IGS is? You’ve been there for six years? Can you talk about what the value proposition is? I don’t know if you knew it when you started, or if it’s evolved along the way. To have somebody stay somewhere in this job market for six years is pretty remarkable. So what have they done? And what did you discover along the way? That’s really powerful about your time there?

IGS: Raymond Meijer  04:12

Yeah, definitely. I had my five year reunion last year, and I was probably one of the few who had jumped around to a few different things. So it led me to ‘Why have I been staying for this long?’ And have you to say, I definitely don’t think it was something where I realized it right off the bat, though, I’d like to think that I picked up on some of those points, maybe when I was first interviewing.  I think that one of the big benefits of IGS is that we are a smaller company. We’re growing and we’ve grown a lot since I started we were probably 35 or 40 people when I started. Now we’re about 60 or 70 people, but we’re still small and I think that’s something that attracted me to Amherst College for my undergrad experience, but I think it’s attractive to people coming from whatever kind of education background they’re in because you don’t really feel like you’re buried.

I’ve met a lot of people at the entry level to the consultant level to the management team level, when I was first interviewing. I thought to myself, that’s a kind of an interesting sign that they’re spending the time to interview me as just a college senior. I think that rings true with how we approach our work. Our teams are small, and as a result, we can be a bit more flexible to the needs of the project. I wasn’t just working on stuff in the background that was never going to see the light of day.  From a professional development perspective, I felt like I was contributing to work that mattered, and to work that mattered to the company and to the clients that we were serving.

Then I also thought that I didn’t really know what I wanted to do long term, and frankly, still don’t really necessarily, but I liked the ability to work on a lot of different industries in a lot of different ways. That’s something that IGS presented and has definitely rang true. We’re now around for about 25 years, so we’ve worked on probably most of the niche industries out there, and that has given us a good ability to use that knowledge to help us inform future engagements that we’re working on it. We’ve been able to see how industries trend and ebb and flow over time.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  06:17

Amazing, I love that. Well, follow up to that- you’re a vice president, what does that mean, at IGS? And what does that mean for the types of problems that you’re dealing with at the firm?

IGS: Raymond Meijer  06:30

Yeah, titles are so funny to me, when I see on LinkedIn or anywhere else, it’s hard to really know. And every consulting firm, every company has different levels.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  06:40

Why can’t they get their act together? Banking has it figured out. In banking it’s just this is what an analyst is, this is what an Associate is. In consulting it’s like, Oh, we’re just going to call an Associate something different and just make it like a manager. So anyhow, sorry, back to my question.

IGS: Raymond Meijer  07:04

Vice President, at least for IGS, is a little more into that we’re now part of the management team, and acting a client facing role. So that would be managing some of the overall project to project specifics as well as overall client relationships and engagement on an ongoing basis to see what client’s needs are, but then also looking internally to what are some of the IGS overall operational structure and strategy and business development plans. So that’s where the Vice President sits. But it’s a logical extension from where I was before, as a senior consultant all the way down to an Associate at the entry level, which is a lot of our work is really focused on the day to day client services on a project basis.

 Our management team over time starts to, especially as you move into that managing director levels starts to be less day to day client focus, but still is involved with the client projects. I think that’s something that we probably bring to our clients that maybe some larger firms, there’s just more levels where there might be an engagement manager before you need to get to the people doing actual work for us. Because we’re smaller, even though the founders are aware of what the day to day is, are going on in a specific project to the appropriate degree.

Whereas the Vice President, now it’s been a nice extension of the day to day things that I used to do about trying to move it a little bit into how can we be a bit more tactical with different client relationships, and also just be involved earlier on with the projects where it’s maybe from the very beginning, they’re like, Hey, we’re trying to look into this company, or are curious about this industry? Have you worked on it before? I think that’s something that’s been really cool that now that I’ve done a number of projects over the years, I have some semblance of experience, usually in a couple of different industries, at least where I’m brought into it.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  08:53

So question for you. What was the biggest problem you faced before? And what’s the biggest problem you face now? How has that biggest problem changed?

IGS: Raymond Meijer  09:03

It’s always been a balancing act challenge and over time I think that what that balancing has been has just changed over time. So whereas before I felt like one of our structures is, we’re often working on two different projects at the same time, so we have this double staffing model. The challenge is that, first year coming out of college was to understand how do I balance two projects and know what is actually a priority versus not. There are deadlines, but what is actually more of a need to have this done tonight versus not. 

That evolved into how do I give better directions to my teams as a consultant when I was more of the project leader of what is actually a priority or not, and then now from a more client facing perspective, but also a structural or strategies perspective is, I want to be involved with a lot of the projects. But, how can I make sure to have enough time to reach out to different clients or to help with our organizational structure? These are strategic things we need to be thinking about from a recruiting perspective, or just from a systems perspective. So I feel like now there’s different things that I’m trying to balance, but it’s always this juggling act of time, and where do I need to be most effective. And I think double staffing model is  of a nice way of almost feeling like a class setting. A class structure where you have to balance multiple classes. It keeps things fresh. But it continues to add to this balancing act. The challenge has always been how do you balance different things? Now the priorities or maybe the longer term structural or operational and client work versus maybe some of the day to day project specifics.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  10:50

Well, I want to go through less of the you question and more of a broader question so we can just get some insight into how some of the characteristics of the work might differ from other places. I’m just gonna ask a few questions about Day in the Life for an IGS consultant. The first one is, do you work in teams or independently? I know you work on teams, but are you actually co-working with your teams? Are you sitting by yourself or in an office, mostly working by yourself? How much of your time is in meetings versus solo work?

IGS: Raymond Meijer  11:20

I would say a lot of the work is in teams. Especially now that we’ve been going back to more of a hybrid setting, I think we’ve had a lot better setup with working with people, some people remote, some people in the office, but I think a lot of the work, because our projects are typically faster paced, benefit from being around other people. At our core, so much of our our staff are younger people and people who are really moving rapidly from role to role.

One of the best ways that we found that people can learn is to be in person with all the caveats around it. There’s so much chatter around so many articles, thought pieces about the value of being hybrid, being fully in person, remote. Where we found the flexibility of the hybrid as it gives the flexibility, but then also gives the opportunities to stop by someone’s desk.  A lot of the time we do work in meetings we have in teams, and we have team meetings and conference rooms. But then we do have enough time where you’re working independently, I think it’d be hard if we were just always in meetup groups, and then not getting any work done. We probably still lean towards doing more independent work, but that there is enough of the time. So if I had to say, it’s probably 60% of the time on your own, independently and 40% is meeting times. 

One of the big things that I really liked is we don’t have too many miscellaneous random meetings. They’re all intentional, and not overly intentional, but there’s a there’s a purpose for why we’re meeting and then there’s usually a good outcome of it. It doesn’t have to be super structured and rigid with an agenda. But there’s something that comes out of it. That’s something that I valued. I’ve heard from other people, not just in the consulting world, but in general, where some meetings are ‘Oh, do I really need this meeting?’ We really try to keep those to a minimum.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  13:13

Amazing. What percentage of your day or week is spent in Excel and PowerPoint?

IGS: Raymond Meijer  13:19

I would say from a consultant perspective is maybe about 40 to 50% of the time, and that’s mixed between Excel and PowerPoint. PowerPoint is our ultimate deliverables, I would say then 40 or so percent of the time is leading meetings or leading calls. So those might be interviews with industry experts. Those might be client calls. Those that might be just in team meeting. So a fair amount of it is communication and talking, which I think is important skill, and also helps makes up the day from the Excel and PowerPoint staring at that too long. And there’s probably 10 or 20% of the time, that’s miscellaneous things, things that are going on outside of the specific casework that you might have in the course of the day.

14:03

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MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  14:59

Do you have C suite exposure and understanding of what you do. There are, of course, a couple of different levels of that. Answer that however you think makes the most sense.

IGS: Raymond Meijer  15:09

Absolutely. I do. Like I said, we’re a relatively small firm such that, on a typical project team, you’re going to have Managing Directors all the way down to the entry level associates. And I think that was something that was probably a little bit intimidating, but exciting at the beginning, and I’ve settled into it a lot more. At least once or twice a week there will be full team meetings, where we’re all meeting together, where you have the opportunity to interface and interact with people up and down the levels of experience. Because we float around from project to project team, you get a lot of exposure to a lot of different C suites and our managing team. As a result, you get to learn from a lot of different styles. That just helps with the professional development a lot. And not only from a project specific or work specific, but also interpersonally as well.  From the very beginning we have exposure to everyone from the firm. Since we’re mostly Boston based, we have some new offices in New York in Chicago, you’re able to actually get to see and meet a lot of the managing team as well. So I think that helps personalize the work, which is always a really valuable thing in any workplace.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  16:32

I love it. Can you talk a little bit about the firm’s current working model? You’ve mentioned hybrids? What does that mean? What days are you in the office? How many days are you in the office? How many days are you in Fiji?

IGS: Raymond Meijer  16:54

We’re hybrid, and how we’ve been doing it is about three days a week. There’s no specific days when we’re in. When we have all hands meetings, usually on Wednesdays, those are the days where most people are in. But in general, it’s  three days, and then the flexibility is to take the two days remote or in the office, as you choose. I would say in general, a lot of our staff probably ends up being in the office more than just three days, especially some of the new starts. They find it’s helpful to learn from people, desk to desk. But in general, we’re three days a week in the office, and most people are Boston based. Our New York and Chicago presences have started to have some more people based in those areas as well.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  17:44

 Amazing. And then finally, do you ever travel?

IGS: Raymond Meijer  17:48

We do a little bit. A lot of our work has always been remote and are able to have been doing it over video calls, phone calls, and that was before the pandemic. We’ll still do some, to the extent there’s clients in the Northeast or in Boston particular, we’ll do some in office kind of visits there. From a manager team perspective, we might go to clients specific sites, or if we’re doing any strategic work, we might go to the company’s sites in particular, but in general, a lot of our work is remote. That’s something I’d like to have, a home base.

Here and there we have some travels so it’s been a good balance for me. I know there’s some folks out there who really don’t want to travel and like the the appeal of that. There’s other consulting firms that will do some more of the onsite travel but there’s also the potential drawbacks if you don’t want to be traveling all the time, and you’d like to have some home base. A lot of the people at IGS appreciate having that home base and Boston, but the traveling here and there for different occasions.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  18:50

Come on our site, where’s the off site, you guys do an off site?

IGS: Raymond Meijer  18:54

We don’t.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  18:58

Okay that’s something we have to escalate.

IGS: Raymond Meijer  19:05

This is a good idea, we can start to generate some ideas, especially now with some different office precenses is we’ll have to have some kind of central spot.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  19:14

Portugal is a great choice, you know, especially in the winter. Just throwing it out there. Okay, you’ve been promoted a couple of times. So talk to me a little bit about how you got promoted, or what is the firm value that they saw on you that they chose to promote?

IGS: Raymond Meijer  19:33

That’s been one of the big benefits of being at a firm like IGS both in terms of its size as well as its approach to its staff. We don’t really have rigid promotion cycles, though. There’s a general cadence that typically happens, but it is pretty rapid. I would say it can be every year and a half or two years where you get a new responsibility. What often takes the place is a little bit of some proactive worker trying to learn about that next level once you have comfort and experience and the ability to work successfully within your current responsibilities to express interest in learning about some of these new roles and responsibilities.

Some of that recognition then ends up catching up to then get a promotion. We do a pretty good job of having people start on almost the next roll just for a little bit of time. There’s a fine line- you have someone started on a new role, you don’t want to take advantage of them being on that new role. You want to be able to have them have a few test runs at that before then they can get promoted. Being able to learn, but also being really interested in learning and expressing that interest is something that I’d like to think helped as I moved along. There were a ton of people I learned from and I think that’s something I continue to do. That’s something that benefits probably anyone at IGS. I would probably extend it to any organization, but the willingness to learn, the willingness to accept feedback from above and below, I think are the things that probably helped me position along each of the promotion cycles that I’ve been through.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  21:23

Amazing. So for this one, I’d love a story if you have one. And it’s just to know what opportunities you have to contribute beyond clamor. He talked a lot about the client work, but if you’re in a small firm, and you’re building the firm, how do you do that? So can you tell me about a time a story and initiative that you took just that might illustrate what’s possible or even expected? And honestly, there’s nothing bad about it being expected. Sometimes it’s helpful from a cultural perspective. So how do you participate outside of your client work in building the firm?

IGS: Raymond Meijer  21:56

Yeah, one of the things that I focused on a lot has been some of the overall training initiatives. I think training is so hard. I mean, there’s no pre professional consulting programs. there’s Crash Course consulting, summer programs, different courses that you could take in college, but there’s nothing that really prepares you for consulting.

There’s something to be said for, we have people from all different majors backgrounds and I think that helps, because at the core, consulting is, how do you take in a lot of different information and distill it into ideas that are relevant for whoever client you’re advising. There’s qualitative skills, there’s quantitative skills that you can learn in any discipline. Where we’ve struggled and tried to evolve over time is, how do you capture those skills that people are coming to you with, and then bring that into a structure of what we do on a day to day basis with our work. Where I’ve been tried to help with that is, have been on various kind of training committees over time, or at least been part of training groups, to try to help not only with a metric on an individual basis, but also, what are new training sessions that we should do, and at what cadence. Because sometimes, we’ll have people starting at a lot of different times.

We usually have a set class, but we do have classes starting and people starting at different times. I think it’s really making sure that we’re at the right cadence. Now, some of this has been trial and error. I think it’s things where we’ll have people who have a lot of Excel experience, and we have a lot of people who have no Excel experience. I was one who didn’t have a lot of Excel experience coming into the role, and so that was intimidating at first. That was probably a steeper learning curve than other people who I started with, but trying to figure out what are the specific Excel trainings that we can do that are relevant to the analysis that we do and relevant to the work we do, because I mean, Excel can do all sorts of different things, and it can be all a jumble. But if we can make it more relevant, and at the cadence where people will be exposed to that work, I think that’s where I’ve tried to work on that in a good amount. As well as that just trying to help with some of that informal training or informal events.

I think that fostering some environment where people feel comfortable in asking questions is really important. That’s where, to the extent I can, I’ve weighed in and tried to help inform structure around unstructured things that we can help new hires to start to feel more comfortable over their first 4,6,8 year of being at IGS.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  24:46

I love it. Well, that was really helpful. We actually have a program called fast-track. We should have you guys look at it and see if it would work for you. But it’s PowerPoint in Excel for consulting. So it’s self paced modules. But I’d love to get your feedback based on the work that you did. Because I think you’re right. It’s really hard. When they were like, are you good at Excel? And I was like, totally, I’m great at it. And then I was not good enough. I wasn’t good at scenario modeling. I wasn’t good at data analysis. I wasn’t good at data cleaning. A lot of the things that I needed to do that were specifically applied and then doing banking training might give you shortcuts, but shortcuts aren’t what’s necessary. You need to be able to strategically think about what you’re going to build. So anyhow, we built something that’s really popular. It’s been used by about 10,000 people. I’d love your input, because you’re close to the client. So that would be great.

IGS: Raymond Meijer  25:43

That’d be great. Like you say, it’s different skills.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  25:56

I’m going to shift gears now, to more parts of the chat. Let’s talk about what IGS can do for everybody else. So we’ve talked a little bit about what IGS has done for you, glowing recommendations, really great insight into what the firm does. But we have heard that y’all are hiring. And honestly, that news is very big news in the market, like now. So it’s great. It’s great to know who’s hiring and when they’re hiring and why. So how do people figure out whether they’d be a good fit for y’all?

IGS: Raymond Meijer  26:27

We’re definitely expanding not only our Boston presence, but also as we grow into our New York and Chicago offices across roles. So whether it be at the entry level Associate role, or post MBA consultant role. There’s probably a couple of things that someone thinks about where they might want to go, things that might be kind of intriguing about the IGS experience. I think I’ve mentioned a few times, we’re a smaller, firm. And so there’s a lot of benefits to that you can get exposure to senior leadership very quickly, there’s some pretty rapid promotion opportunities.

There’s a lot of really interesting learning opportunities, because we’re a generalist, but we focus on a lot of the middle market though, that might be bigger deals or smaller deals that are in the middle market that’s in a lot of different very, sometimes random things. From an intellectual curiosity perspective, that’s something that’s always kept it really fresh for me. Within even broad history categories, there’s a lot of really interesting companies with a lot of good stories that are doing and providing valuable services, valuable products. And so I think that’s something that also is really appealing. And if that’s something that’s of interest, just a general curiosity, intellectual curiosity, trust and learning about new things, I think that’s another really appealing place to look for IGS to fit into the career trajectory. And I think from I’ll probably preview what I’ll talk about later, from just a general people perspective, but I think there’s a lot of really a long maintain, a lot of really just good people at IGS. By good I mean, not only just smart, intelligent driven, which I think makes for a vibrant workforce and workplace to be in. But I think there’s also just a lot of genuinely good kind people. And that’s at least an environment that I’ve tried to foster but then I’ve also thrived.

 I think it makes it far more collaborative, it makes it less competitive, you’re all striving for the same goal, which is to just try to be able to do the best on the project at the given time. And I think there’s a lot of support to do that. And so that’s something that if that’s the workplace that excites you could be another great opportunity to consider IGS. for that. We’re hiring at a lot of different levels. The fall and winter is when we do a lot of our recruiting, but that continues into the spring.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  29:08

Let’s talk tactics. So do people need to network with somebody? How many interviews do they have? Should they just submit a regular application? Do they need a cover letter? Just can you run me down a few of the pieces of advice that you have? Imagine that you’re advising each of the people that’s listening to this one on one, right? What do they do to make sure that y’all get to know them the best and that they get to know you as well?

IGS: Raymond Meijer  29:32

Absolutely. Our process does include a resume and a cover letter. We have a new careers page, really right at the front of our website. So if you go to IGS boston.com we have the careers page that gives a lot of detail with links, some tidbits from current IGSers to give a little bit more flavor more than even just what I’m describing, as well as the different deadlines. Our application visit will include resumes and cover letters. And then typically a couple of rounds, two or three rounds of interviews, which include a mix of behavioral kind of really getting to know you and you getting to know us, as well as case interviews.

So we have a balance of getting to know you, as well as trying to get a sense of how would you like the work that we’re working on on a day to day basis?  From a networking perspective, it’s not something where we will say, they’ve networked with five people, okay, we really should consider that. This is something I have been mentally struggled with, for all stages, in my professional career in college career, it’s something I’m continuing to work on. But I think it’s something that with consulting being such a general category, there’s so many different types of consulting, I think it’s worthwhile to reach out. Ffor me, as an Associate, as someone who’s a VP, I love hearing from people who are interested, and I’m more than happy to and a lot of IGS is to be able to chat with people.

It can be really helpful just give a little bit more detail on the types of day to day or the types of projects we work on. Because, there is so many different types of consulting, there’s general management, there’s economic consulting, there’s environmental consulting, and so on, so forth. So I think being able to describe a little bit about where we fit in, it’s like, Oh, is that really where I want to go? I think is beneficial. And I would definitely encourage anyone who’s interested in IGS, to consider reaching out to anyone, you know, we have a lot of the management team listed on the website, with our emails to be able to reach out to, as well as anyone from LinkedIn, who you might be able to connect with, people are more than happy to chat in and take some time to describe their experiences.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  31:40

You’ve been so nice and so positive. But let’s just end on a very clear note, for everyone. Before I ask you my three final fun questions. What should people not do? Come on, tell us what not to do? Because we also want people to know where the boundary lines are.

IGS: Raymond Meijer  31:56

Well, I feel it’s such a good question. If you’re networking with everyone at IGS, then someone’s gonna be thinking, Well, why are they really reaching out to everyone? They’re sending LinkedIn requests to everyone there. I think a targeted approach is much better than quantity. Just doing a little bit of the research ahead of time, even just looking at the website, just to understand a little bit about what we do. We’re not really just general management, we have specific industries, maybe there’s a certain project that you look that are like, Oh, that actually sounds kind of interesting. Maybe I’ll ask them about that, or some other project that they worked on. I think that was always a strategy that I took, and I think is a good way to do it. Definitely come with questions, I think is is the way that I would recommend for for any of the outreach.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  32:58

Oh, you’re so nice. Thank you for your amazing insight. The last thing that I just want to do is, end with a couple of fun questions. I’ve got three of them for you. So the first one is a unique talent or skill.

IGS: Raymond Meijer  33:14

Something that I think I realized recently, it’s probably not necessarily a skill or a skill or talent, but I think is attracting random questions on the street. It’s not really something that I thought everyone would just get stopped by strangers. And I don’t know if it’s, I don’t always wear headphones or I’m just kind of flicking up or what. But I have now been repeatedly told by people around me like you always get stopped. It’s just you. So I think that’s maybe why in your name.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  33:46

Like asked you to directions or…?

IGS: Raymond Meijer  33:48

Directions, asked me to weigh on what glasses they should pick in the glasses store. I just don’t know. It’s high pressure. I don’t know what it is.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  34:02

Well, that little birdie told me you’re a boy scout. And can you be a farmer boy scout? Are you always a Boy Scout? I’m not sure. Tell me tell me when our learnings from Boy Scouts.

IGS: Raymond Meijer  34:11

It goes through a lot of different development stages from like, elementary school, middle school and high school. Probably many people like the Eagle Scout project is the kind of Capstone is one that I think about most often. I mean, that was something I think I did off a construction project that was way too big for me to chew. It took like that. I was not as handy as I thought I was. But I think it’s something that I learned a village around me helped and I leaned on a lot of different people and successfully finish through with it but yeah, I think in the moment I had some stressful moments by junior and senior year of high school with it.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  34:51

Last question, what’s the most unusual food you’ve ever tried?

IGS: Raymond Meijer  34:55

Oh, probably my quick reaction might be crocodile, which I’ve had in South Africa, but maybe the more reasonable one would be I recently had shredded coconut pizza in Canada, which maybe is a Canadian thing, but actually worked out pretty well. It worked out actually much better than I thought. So maybe that’s a little bit of a more digestible kind of more you need.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  35:27

Honestly, I have two friends in different parts of the country that run pretty profitable pizza joints. And they are specialized in unusual flavor profiles, and then have to pass it on to them.

IGS: Raymond Meijer  35:38

Yeah, shredded coconut worked out well.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  35:42

I’m gonna try this out for y’all.  Any final tips, pieces of advice, anything that I didn’t ask you that you wanted to share with folks today before we sign up?

IGS: Raymond Meijer  35:55

I think IGS has been a really great place for me for the last six years. And obviously, there’s a lot of really positives that I’ve had from my experiences. So definitely encourage anyone to reach out to me if you have questions. I’m sure that I think there will be some links in the description as well. But yeah, definitely, you know, really was appreciative of the opportunity to come on here and hope I get to meet a lot of different people over the next few months for years

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  36:21

of it. Thanks so much. Thanks so much for listening to this great conversation with IGS. We love getting to know new consulting firms and sharing them with our audience. Many of them have no idea what you do or how you’re different from other places. And the only way that we can figure it out is to create new transparency through storytelling. If you would like to be a guest on our podcast, we’d love to hear from you. You can reach out to us at managementconsulted.com. And as always, for everyone who’s listening, please subscribe to the podcast so you can get it every time it downloads and provide it to other people who may be interested in listening by sharing it with a friend. Thanks so much for joining us today.

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