Week in the Life of a Strategy Consultant at OC&C (Podcast)

If consulting isn’t just writing on whiteboards in high-rise buildings and flying first class (and it’s not), what is it?

This episode answers that question – specifically, what life at OC&C Strategy Consultants looks like through a conversation with Associate Consultants Isobel Miles and Akshaan Parikh.

We delve into:

• The benefits of pure-play strategy work at OC&C
• The firm’s hybrid working model
• What team meetings and client check-ins look like
• Examples of client engagements
• Time spent in Excel and PowerPoint
• How quickly the job changes from year 1 to year 2

OC&C is a strategy consultancy that is actively hiring – see the firm’s careers site to learn more.

Relevant Links

• Apply via OC&C’s careers site or your school’s Handshake page
• Learn more about OC&C
• Follow OC&C on LinkedIn
• Join Black Belt 

Transcription: Week in the Life of a Strategy Consultant at OC&C

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux

I’m so excited today to welcome a couple of folks from OC&C to the podcast. Welcome to Strategy Simplified! For both of you, would you mind providing a one minute overview of your journey up to joining OC&C? And specifically, one thing that set the firm apart for you as you were deciding where you wanted to work?

OC&C: Isobel

Thanks so much for having us on as well. I’m an Associate Consultant at OC&C in the New York office. How I got here: I grew up in the UK, went to high school there, and then moved to the US for college. I graduated from Columbia in 2021, majored in sustainable development and joined OC&C later that summer. 

For me, what sets OC&C apart primarily is its size. It stood out as something differentiating from other consulting firms in that we are still very much a global firm. We have offices around the world, headquartered in London, but also across other continents. Yet in the US, we are at about 100 people now, so it really does feel like it’s a close environment of working with people who you get to know on a personal level as well as their professional level. And I really appreciate that.

OC&C: Akshaan

My name is Akshaan. I am also an Associate Consultant at the New York office of OC&C, and I’ve been here a year now. In my four years of college I did a whole range of internships and jobs, most of which were actually in the think tank, research, and nonprofit world. But in my junior year, I did an internship at a development consulting firm called Dahlberg. My experience there, and the feeling of making a tangible impact through project work and working in a team environment, was something I really enjoyed and was the sort of experience that set me on the path of consulting, which really wasn’t on my radar until very late in college. And that’s what led me to OC&C.

But for the second part of the question, I think this is a realization that I had a few months into the job actually, of what sets OC&C apart. I think it’s the perfect place for you if you are generally a very curious individual. I’ve been here a year now, and I’ve done 12 consulting engagements across B2B, TMT, consumer goods, leisure, and even the pro bono sector. 

Because our projects are quite a bit shorter than most of the other firms, we have the opportunity to really be exposed to a lot more industries, and learn about challenges in different industries in a much shorter period of time. I think that’s something that I’m appreciative of, and I think it sets the film apart.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

I will specify as we go forward which question is for which one of y’all, but just in general, obviously very impressive backgrounds, thank you for sharing those, and I’m excited to get to know you a little bit more as we chat. 

So Akshaan, let’s talk with you first. For OC&C you mentioned this focus on strategy projects and shorter projects. You might have already touched on it a little bit, but I just want you to dive into it a little bit more deeply. One of the questions that we often get is, what is strategy consulting to you and to OC&C. 

And I’ll just preface that by saying that strategy consulting is a great cool buzzword, it’s what everyone says they do, but sometimes it means different things to different people. So if you can help us define that.

Then secondly, what are a couple of advantages that you think of for that type of work as an analyst, that you wouldn’t maybe have if you weren’t doing strategy consulting work.

OC&C: Akshaan

Yeah, I know that we at OC&C like to describe ourselves as a pure play strategy consulting firm. 

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

What’s an impure play consulting firm? (laughs)

OC&C: Akshaan

That’s what you were saying, everyone likes to say that, use the word strategy consulting, but often doesn’t mean only strategy consulting. What that definitionally means is that we’re laser focused on answering interesting, high level, cerebral sort of questions. And we work very intimately with executives and management teams at the client’s firm to find the right answer to those questions. We don’t do any implementation work at all.

And for example, the scope of one of the recent projects I did was to determine if the merger of two firms would generate revenue synergies, and just in a broad sense, if that merger was a good idea, from a strategic sense, and answering that question is where our scope ends. We wouldn’t really do any of the implementation of that merger or anything beyond that point. 

For me, as an analyst, the two biggest advantages are, the first is we never really travel to client sites for projects. And I really enjoy that, because it allows me to enjoy the office environment, and interact with friends and colleagues who are on different projects, and people at film who are working on different things. And I also just love being in the city and at home and being able to explore more of the city. 

And the second big advantage, quite similar to what I had mentioned earlier about what sets the firm apart is that we do shorter projects. Our strategy projects tend to be one to two months. And it just gives you the opportunity to work on more things and learn and absorb a lot more things in a quicker period of time.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

Love it, I’m just taking notes, there may be things that come back and talk about in a little bit. So that was great and awesome. Helpful also to explain what you don’t do. I think that is a great question for people to ask when they’re recruiting, which is, you say that you do all of these things, but what don’t you do? What are the definitions around the boundaries of the work that you do? Because that became super clear, when you said we don’t do any implementation.  There are a lot of firms that would just define themselves a strategy firms where strategy is a sales process for a big piece of implementation, actually. And so that is very clarifying for what you’re talking about. 

Okay, now, Isobel over to you. So what are the things that we always joke about when we explain to people what consulting is and isn’t in our students sessions, is that there’s always this picture, and I actually didn’t look to see if OC&C has one, and if they do, I’m gonna link to it in the thing. But there’s this picture of an analyst writing on a whiteboard, overlooking the city of New York, right? And it conveys vision and insight and strategy. And in reality, I can’t even remember one day, in my whole time at Bain, when I did a thing like that. You’re laughing, so I know you’ve seen this picture, and if it wasn’t at OC&C, it’s definitely somewhere else. But, can you actually just give us a better specific picture of what it is that you do day to day, when you wake up in the morning, because even when Akshaan was explaining it, it’s like great, we do high level cerebral strategy- that sounds like thinking and I know it’s not just thinking though. So what is it that you’re doing? What tools are you using? What are just a couple of the specifics of the day-to-day? How many engagements are you staffed on? Can you just walk me through a few of those details to try to bring color to your work?

OC&C: Isobel

Yeah, absolutely Jenny. I was laughing because we do indeed have whiteboards around the office. We are indeed on a floor, higher, overlooking the New York skyline so it was ringing true.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

Do you ever hover right on the windows overlooking the city, with like some kind of sweeping gaze? If you do, and especially if it’s a regular thing that every morning you have this window whiteboarding session, then tell me all about this.

OC&C: Isobel

Not quite the windows, but I have been known to have some whiteboarding sessions as a team. But beyond that, big picture, we as Associate consultants at OC&C, are staffed on one project at a time. And that continues all the way up to a manager, so, Associate consultant (AC), consultant (C), and a manager (M), which is great because you really get to commit to one project, one client, drive to a singular answer and get to know the team really well without feeling like you’re pulled in multiple directions. 

At OC&C, right now, we are in a model of three days in the office a week, so that I find to be a really nice balance. Consulting is so team orientated. I found it super beneficial to be in person, particularly as an AC. And when you’re starting out and just have so many questions and are learning so much, it’s really nice to be able to just speak face to face with whoever’s managing you.  But then I also appreciate the flexibility of the two days when you want. And those days are determined by the project manager at the time.

So very much project dependent and team dependent. And as Akshaan mentioned, these projects are a short one to two months.  So that is big picture. In terms of kind of overarching structure of a week, and I really think it’s a tough question because of how project dependent it is, but I can give an overview of what the layout of the team and project cycle looks like. So every day, we’ll have morning check ins with the junior team, and it’ll be an opportunity for each work stream to align on priorities for the day, key to-do’s, and a good chance to see what other members on the team are working on.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

Tell me tactically, are you sharing models? Do you bring a slide? Is it informal? Give me a sense of culturally what exactly is happening.

OC&C: Isobel

So those junior team check ins are very informal, much more of a conversation, maybe walking through a laid out email of steps or insights that we want to get to, key questions that we want to answer and work through with them on. 

So examples of workstreams include building out a market model to let the client know what the total addressable market could look like. Or it could be internal analysis, so work in Excel to get some key insights out of their data. It could be conducting call campaign with customers or experts in the market to really get some good insights on the lay of the land, the main players, what the future of the space looks like. So multiple different types of roles. 

And OC&C does a good job of making sure you are working on these different types of things and building up that skill set in both quant and qual roles. But then the more formal side comes from the full team meetings that happen roughly twice a week. So that’s when you get all of the senior team as well in a room. That’s when you’ll get partner feedback to discuss the emerging answers from the research and analysis that’s been going on and a chance to really debate the answer and move the process forwards, which is exciting. And I would say that’s when I’ve had some whiteboarding time, brainstorming in those full-team meetings.

The final step of that is client touch points and meetings. At OC&C, the client relationship is handled from the manager. So you see less of that day to day, but you’re on the big client check ins. The ebb and flow of the work kind of is determined by the goal of those meetings and the extent of the output that you’re presenting and where you are at the project stage. 

But other points on what the week could look like. It’s broadening out from the day-to-day project work, or the various other meetings that you might be a part of. So that could be networks, that could be committees, that could be interest groups. And for example, that includes the green team. So a year ago, when I was a year in, co-founded the US branch of the green team, with a co-worker. 

Based on my sustainability background and interest, similarly to Akshaan, and I’ve been working in social impact and have oriented smaller startups before thinking about consulting and was really drawn to having that broader business exposure and starting up my career, but really wanted to see if I could draw in that interest at OC&C. I was very struck by the support from senior team in terms of setting that up. And now we have regular meetings, to think about how to increase awareness within the firm. And I would say that is something that I found really valuable in how junior team and junior staff OC&C are encouraged to shape life outside of project work. So we’ve got a book club, we’ve got a wine club started by a seasoned CS recently. And it’s a lot of fun, and there’s a lot going on. I love it. I realized that was a lot.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

No, that was great. I have I have two follow up questions. One is critically important. You mentioned that y’all are in the office three days a week, is there a house in the Hamptons that people share? You gotta tell me, because I am imagining that part of the structure, you said it varies by project and varies by season, so is it like a Wednesday night trip out to the Hamptons? True or not true? Tell me tell me what’s going on?

OC&C: Isobel

No house in the Hamptons devastatingly. We recently did have a charity auction with a house out in Colorado. So that is part of it but not quite the daily trip.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

Maybe there should be a committee about that. I’m gonna recommend, a social committee, a weekend committee or long weekend committees. You can attribute it back to me when you get in trouble for that kind of thing.

Go ahead, Akshaan. You were gonna weigh in.

OC&C: Akshaan

I was gonna say my peer group, there are like 16 of us, and we attempted to pitch in together and bet for that house. Unfortunately, didn’t win it, but the partner has graciously seen our attempt to bid for it and was quite taken aback. So I think we may have something in the works for a weekend trip.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

All right, well, this is journalistic reporting at its best, we have to really dive into this.

But on a more serious note, Isobel, so as you were describing everything, I feel like I got a good sense of how your calendar would break down. But can you just tell me, as a percentage of time allocation on a given week, what percent is meetings? What percent is Excel? What percent is customer facing? What percent is PowerPoint?

I know that it’s gonna have to be a gross generalization and it could change, but if you could just give me a high level breakdown, I think that would help people understand what that looks like.

OC&C: Isobel

Yeah, of course. So I think the meetings that I spoke about in terms of those check ins, and then full-team meetings are the main ones. So maybe that’s 20 to 30% day dependent. Then I would say that it really does depend on the work stream that you’re on. So if it’s an Excel work stream, then the majority of your time is spent in the analysis, particularly as a junior to mid AC.

But one thing that maybe we can touch on is how the role changes within the AC journey, because it definitely looks very different for me now two years in. I’m spending way less of my time in the depths of the crunch of the analysis than I was a few months ago, a year ago. So yeah, majority of time is on the analysis, but then also now that yeah, that has changed a little bit towards more thinking about answer development for me.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

Okay. Amazing. Well, Akshaan back to you. You mentioned, I think 12 engagements. That’s a huge number in a year. So if you can even remember them, could you share one that was memorable for you. And again, I’m looking for some of the details here, a few examples. 

You guys mentioned the team size, but, who specifically was on the team? Were any of them staffed by expertise? Or was it all generalist? How was the project structured? Did you know upfront how many weeks it was going to be? And when the deadlines were going to be for key deliverables? What kind of analysis did you perform? And then, at the end, tell me the fun part of the story, which is, if you think about the car stories, everybody tells in an interview. Like what the context is, the setup, the action that y’all did, and then the results, how did the client receive it? How did it impact what the client did? So just describe it in those three ways.

OC&C: Akshaan

Absolutely. Very interesting question. If I have to pick a project, I’m gonna pick one that immediately stood out to me as being memorable. It was a merger of two medium businesses that we were hired to consult and advise on. A bit vague about the project overview for confidentiality reasons. But, I can talk very specifically about the kind of work I did. And I think it was memorable for three main reasons.  One was the level of ownership I felt on that project. Second was the type of work I was doing, and in the specific work stream. And the third is the team that I was on, the team environment. 

So as to the level of ownership. This was sort of midway into the year. And I felt like I was really driving the answer, at least part of the answer to the question of “is this merger a good idea”? Will it be beneficial for the firm, for consumers, for the platform contributors? It’s a really cool sense of responsibility you have when you have partners and managers and people who have been in the business for 20 years, listening to your advice and actually taking that into consideration as part of an answer driving strategy. 

On the the actual work I was doing, there were two big phases of my work stream. The first was a survey of consumers of the media business. And the objective was to understand these consumer groups and estimate the level of overlap between them and understand if the merged entity would actually be something that they’re looking for, and that they would be interested in doing. I’ve always really liked surveys but have never had the opportunity to crunch them until this job, which was quite interesting. 

And then the second was to speak. This is what we generally call the interview work stream. And it involves speaking with experts and executives. And in this case, we were talking to executives at similar media firms in the US and around the world, who had been through mergers of a similar scale, to understand the learnings we can take away from that.  What they are good at what were the pitfalls, what were the benefits. Then we have to condense these learnings from dozens of calls and research into an easily understandable deck for a board of directors meeting, which in the analogy would be the high point climax of the project, because while it was intimidating, it was also a very memorable experience. And I think ultimately, we did end up recommending the merger. TBD on the remaining details.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

Amazing. Again, when we check back on the Hamptons house, we can check back on the specific project, maybe the results will be public. I love it. That was great. Thank you so much.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  25:49

So now, let’s go back to Isobel. You mentioned already before that you’ve been with the firm, that your responsibilities have changed. I just wanted to ask two follow up questions to that. The first one was, can you just talk about the promotion timeline? How long are you expected to be in each role? And then also, whether or not, and when, if ever, you become industry specific or business problem specific?

OC&C: Isobel

Yeah, absolutely. So that last point first, on specificity. And that doesn’t happen until the manager level is when you are officially aligned with a sector. Our staffing director does a great job of taking into account what industries you’ve been working on, what kinds of roles project to project as an AC and a C, and really trying to distribute that experience that you get to get a good flavor of everything, which is fun, because sometimes you’re not expecting to enjoy a project as much necessarily if you’ve gone into it expecting to align to one sector straightaway. 

On the point about the timeline, I do think consulting is helpful in that there is that structured stage step process. So it’s nice to know where you’re heading, and what development looks like. The way that OC&C does it is that we have a rigorous review feedback process every six months. And there’s a skills matrix that as an associate consultant you’re given feedback on, and once you are ready to move on to that consultant level, then that’s when it happens. Typically, it takes about two and a half years, but some people move through it faster. And for some, it takes a little longer. So there’s flexibility there. I will pause there, but also happy to talk about the the changing role.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

What you’re saying is, it’s fairly clear, when you come in you know what to expect and when the rules are going to change. I think that’s super helpful for people to understand. Sometimes, again, this is the stuff that is vaguely discussed beforehand, but it’s a little bit harder to tease out the actuality of it.

OC&C: Isobel

I would also say that, ahead of the the role changing, in the last two years the role has changed so much for me, and it keeps it super exciting, challenging. The learning curve is always super steep, and the amount of responsibility and ownership that you get from one project to the next is very rewarding, as Akshaan mentioned. And I’ve definitely seen that in the two years.

And as I touched on before, instead of now focusing on the execution and the analysis itself and spending all the time on calls or in the Excel analysis, my role is more around zooming out and thinking about structuring the approach that we’re going to take on each workstream, and then handing that over to whoever is managing, which is a fun part of it as well.

 So really thinking about the answer and what key insights we need, how we’re gonna get there. It’s very fun when you’re delivering that in client meetings. And if the client has any questions, you can jump in on the workstream that you’ve been working on. So I’ve definitely seen that progress in the last couple of years.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

Okay, I love that. Well Akshaan since you’re a little newer to the to the beat, tell us just a little bit about what your role has been like in this first year, and maybe how it’s changed from the first projects to now.

OC&C: Akshaan

That’s a great question. It’s changed very significantly, is what I will say. And it’s been a very constant, regular process of change, literally to every project. When you look back, you can pinpoint places and areas of change. I think when you start out, especially the first few months, a lot of what you’re doing is learning. You’re always learning on the job, but at that point, everything is new. 

And so your first few months on the job, when you’re in an interview workstream, you are responsible for taking notes, and getting conclusions from those interviews and sharing that with the team.

Then on Excel workstreams, for example, you have a lot more support from your direct manager as you’re going through the process. But then very quickly, even six months into the job, on Excel workstreams, you have the opportunity to take a lot more ownership and you’re driving that analysis and that answer, and really just relying on your direct manager for certain occasions.  Excitingly, on my last project was the first time I had complete ownership of the interview workstream. And so that means is when on my first project, I was doing a lot of notes and sharing summaries with the team. On this last one, I was leading those interviews, asking questions, developing the kind of questions we want to ask, and being on the front lines of that part of the job.  And I know Isobel said, and I’ve heard from other colleagues who are now two years or three years in, that it’s a constant dynamic change and change process, which I find very exciting. 

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

So just one story from back in the day, in the glory days when I was an AC at Bain. I had one moment, what I can think through of an Excel work stream early to an Excel work stream later, one of my early points of feedback was you can’t hard code data into your Excel worksheets. Can you think of a point of feedback on an earlier workstream that helped you gain ownership? Something that now feels maybe obvious to you, but it was actually really helpful and insightful for you earlier on, that helped you be ready to take full ownership now?

OC&C: Akshaan

That’s a great point. This has to do with interviews, and we do a lot of that. I distinctly remember taking about an hour to an hour and a half to write the summary for a 45 minute interview that we had, and to be able to share that around with the team and the partners. And now, on my last project, we were doing three to four calls a day, and I was putting out the summaries from each of those calls in about 10 or 15 minutes after that call and the full teams chat, to share with partners and managers. That transition, stands out to me as being as being very, very big.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

Yeah, absolutely. I’m sure that they were grateful. I love it.  For both of you or either of you, tell me about a high point of each week for you, if there’s something out of what you do, that you’ve mentioned, that you really enjoy, whether it’s in the office, whether it’s adjacent to the core work that you do, whether it’s client interaction, is there something that you look forward to? A specific kind of breakfast cereal? Give me the details, I want to get really into the weeds here.

OC&C: Isobel

So we’re talking about the Nespresso machine in the cafe is what I’m hearing.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

I’m not trying to lead the questions, I’m just trying to lead the questions. That’s all!

OC&C: Isobel

Other than the coffee, what I found that I wasn’t necessarily expecting, was the focus on building relationships with coworkers, not just in your peer group and with the people who you joined with, but also more senior. And the breadth of those perspectives is something that I found super helpful. 

So when you join, you get a buddy who joined a year before you, and that’s a great option, just to ask all of the minute questions, and are really a great touch point as you’re finding your feet. But even two years in, my buddy relationships above me are still really important. My buddies now moved to London to our London office, and we’re still in close contact. So I really appreciate the extent of those relationships. Now I have buddies who have joined after me, which was really fun as well, to go on regular coffee chats with them and check ins. 

Then, the other part of that are the mentors that you get. So that is someone who when you join as a junior AC, will be in the consultant role, and it’s an opportunity to have regular check-ins on broader career development goals, to review feedback and development requests from prior projects, and get very thoughtful feedback based on their past experiences. That I found very valuable as I was progressing in the role.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

Most important question though, what button do you press on the machine? What’s your order?

OC&C: Isobel

I go for the big coffee. We do have an Italian contingent in our office who are all about the espresso shots. 

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

Okay. Love it. Awesome. Akshaan? What about you? What’s your high point?

OC&C: Akshaan

That’s a great question. I got two things that I really look forward to on a weekly basis. One is separate from project work, and Isobel touched on this a bit before, it’s the book and wine club that did recently start at work. It’s been about six months now.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

Book Club and wine club, you didn’t say book and wine club, that’s a whole different club.

OC&C: Akshaan

It was actually just a collab event recently, it’s usually a very separate experience, and customer segments. There is more overlap than you would think.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

I’m not surprised.

OC&C: Akshaan

Yeah, at our wine club, we’ve got a lot of consultants who actually join from our global offices. And recently, we’ve got quite a few from our Italian and French office. And that makes the wine club particularly interesting, because there’s always a lively debate between these two contingents. And I’m just sitting on the side enjoying every benefit.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

My husband and I are in the diligence process to buy a winery in California, so we might have to get an in, you know someone who knows somebody, I’m just saying we might need y’all to include our wine in this spicy conversation.

OC&C: Akshaan

From a project perspective, my highlight is definitely the team share, which is a weekly 30 minute informal meeting we have with junior team. It’s a great opportunity, a very non-judgmental open space to talk about the challenges and the highlights of the week, and really learn about what your managers have felt and what your direct managers and peers are feeling about the project and their weeks.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

Well, the next piece is just point of wisdom. When people are recruiting, tell us about something that they should do or should not do to help to ensure their more likely success in the process of OC&C.

OC&C: Akshaan

I think having prior consulting experience is definitely not a necessity, like internships and that kind of thing. The thing that sets candidate apart, and the thing I’ve noticed from talking to colleagues and other people actually at OC&C, is you have to be passionate about your past experiences and be able to convey that passion and intellectual curiosity. And it can be about anything, any kind of experience. But, because we are really a very intellectually diverse firm, I feel like we’re people from very interesting backgrounds.

So being able to talk about the difference you’ve made and the actual things you’ve done, through your work experience in college, in whatever field that is, leaves a memorable impact to your interviewer and the people you end up speaking to.

OC&C: Isobel

I completely agree. And off the back of that, being able to relate or connect any kind of past experience to commercial insight on a case is something that definitely is valued by OC&C. I fully echo everything that Akshaan said in terms of that diversity of approach and thinking. And I think in a case, it is great to show that willingness to engage in conversation style, with whoever’s interviewing you and taking note of the answer, being very answer lead, but also discussing the thought process, the way that you’ve got there, and being clear and enthusiastic is super beneficial.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

Then last question, just about the next steps before we wrap up with our fun questions. How do you recommend the interested candidates engage? We’ve already talked about how they should be, what they should say, what the things are that you’re looking for, but just tactically, when when should they be talking to y’all? Who should they be talking to? Should they be talking to anybody? Blind resume drops are fine? Not fine? Advise the people, tell the people what you want.

OC&C: Isobel

I’m happy to kick this one off. So if you’re interested, on the handshake page for OC&C there are a ton of info sessions, coffee chats, case workshops. I think those are a really great way of learning more about the firm, and if it is going to be the right fit for you, and if it’s something that you’d like to engage with more. So that is a great way to get involved. 

I would say that LinkedIn outreach is very much not needed. It’s always such a busy time of year, it’s very easy for these things to slip through the gaps; that one to one networking is very much not a requirement. There are coffee chats available if you see those, but definitely wouldn’t put too much pressure on those. And there’s always our recruitment coordinators email on both the OC&C website as well, if you want to reach out and ask any questions or be connected to anyone.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

Awesome. from either of your experience, did you? Did you just apply blind? Did you do a coffee chat? What did you do personally?

OC&C: Akshaan

I know Isobel and I had different experiences. So it’s actually a great question. For me I applied basically blind, hadn’t really spoke. At that point I would have loved to go on for the coffee chats and those info sessions, but I wasn’t as aware of them. At the time, OC&C wasn’t doing on campus recruiting at Brown. It was just luck of the draw that I heard about them, found out that they were doing interviews and that’s just how it happened.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

That’s great. That’s what the people want to know, y’all. That’s what they want to know. Do them or don’t do them, there’s a pathway for you. Well, just as we conclude, I will do these ping pong style. So Akshaan, I’ll let you go first. And then Isobel, you can follow up for each one of them. So I’ve got three final, just personal questions. Short answers are great for this. The first one is your favorite moment or memory from your time at OC&C.

OC&C: Akshaan

It’s got to be the one international trading week, or ITW, as we call it, which was in Lisbon, Portugal, in August of last year. It was my second week at the firm, and it was you know from a welcome dinner, I think the Gala dinner at the Botanical Gardens in particular, has got to be one of my most favorite memories from last year.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  45:08

If you’re on Instagram, you’re just blowing up Instagram I love it. What about you Isobel.

OC&C: Isobel

And for me, it’s the way weekend at the US office and actually all the offices across the firm, but much less training involved. So this year, we went to Portland, Maine. Seafood lovers dream, it was a really lovely weekend, and last year was Puerto Rico. My friends couldn’t believe that I was going with work. It was a great opportunity to get to see an amazing place and explore and spend more time with coworkers outside of work.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

I love that. I’ve never been to Puerto Rico, it’s on my list. I love it. Next one is your hidden talent.

OC&C: Akshaan

I’ve got to give COVID credit for this one because I was locked at home for like six months, and I got way too into the game Settlers of Catan, which is a board game that I think very few people know. But hopefully the people who know will know it.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  46:14

Oh, people who know will know but they will also fear you now. So there’s the added benefit. Isobel, what about you?

OC&C: Isobel

For me, I would say that this might not be hidden from some select coworkers who have seen this at holiday parties, but when it comes to karaoke, I am all in, fully commit.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  46:41

I have a place in the Dominican Republic that would really like to see you. So if your schedule allows you we can connect offline. Last one: strangest food you’ve ever tried.

OC&C: Akshaan

I really thought about this one. I think it’s got to be civet coffee, which is.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux 

Yeah, describe.

OC&C: Akshaan

It’s made from coffee beans. evacuated by Asian civet cats. But as glamorous as it sounds, it just tasted like regular coffee though.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  47:25

But it’s like $300 an ounce or something crazy like that, right?

OC&C: Akshaan

It’s very cheap in Asia. And so luckily, I didn’t have to splurge. But yes.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  47:41

I kind of wonder if it’s this kind of marketing thing. But at my university, there were dorm rooms that were heated and uncooled and don’t have an indoor bathroom because they were built in the 1800s. And so the University created this competitive application to try to get people to live there, and now they’re the most prestigious place to live, even though they’re absolutely the worst accommodations. It’s like a specialty item. I mean, now y’all can do a project on that?  Isobel, what about what about you? Strangest thing you’ve ever eaten?

48:22

OC&C: Isobel

I have some cold crickets. Insects, high in protein, nice and crunchy. Wouldn’t know what you’re eating.

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  48:33

Was that for a client project? Were you doing a market entry case? Tell me the truth. 

Well, nobody asked me but I’ll offer mine too. You know, I ate a fried tarantula. Also in Asia. I feel like if you want to eat food to win a never have I ever game, that’s the place to go. But there was this rest stop for a very uncomfortable bus that they all stopped at, and there were people that were walking around and their marketing tactic was they put a tarantula on your back, which is a really unfortunate introduction to the tarantula, and I’m not sure that it made me want to eat it, but it definitely did get my attention. And then afterwards, you could buy a grilled or fried tarantula. And so I was like when in your life are you going to have the chance to do this? So maybe, Isobel, your company that you maybe or maybe didn’t look at the cricket market for can talk about some adjacencies, you know what I’m saying?

OC&C: Isobel

How did it taste Jenny? Would you recommend the experience?

MC: Jenny Rae Le Roux  49:56

Thankfully, it was fairly crispy. I wouldn’t eat it on a regular basis. It wasn’t something that I was regretted eating. 

So anyhow, thank you both for joining, really enjoyed this conversation, hope that you had a lot of fun as well, I feel like we got a lot of color into the excitement and the detail of your life and your work at OC&C. We’ll put a bunch of the things in the resources as well, especially that you recommended into the show notes that folks can follow along with those as well. And so thank you again for your time. Thanks for your generosity. And thank you for coming on and sharing your insights with everyone today.

OC&C: Isobel

Thank you so much. It is an amazing time. Thank you for having us.