How L.E.K. Supports and Encourages Diversity (Podcast)

We’re excited to bring you this diversity-centered conversation with the folks over at L.E.K. Consulting.

We got to sit down (virtually) with Justin Craigwell-Graham and Jen Wu, Managing Directors at L.E.K., to dig into how the firm creates an environment that promotes diversity. We explored:

• What diversity actually means
• The affinity groups L.E.K. has available
• Avenues for diversity candidates to engage with the firm
• How L.E.K. is expanding its talent net
• & much more

Interested in learning more about L.E.K.? Contact a member of the firm’s recruiting team today – emails below.

Additional Links:

• Affinity groups at L.E.K.
• Explore current openings at L.E.K.
• Reach out to L.E.K. recruiter Renee Go
• Reach out to L.E.K. Diversity Engagement Lead Yara Alaiz DeSousa
• Follow L.E.K. on LinkedIn

Transcription: How L.E.K. Supports and Encourages Diversity

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Justin and Jen, we want to welcome you both to the Strategy Simplified podcast. Thank you so much for being here.

L.E.K.: Jen Wu 

Thank you, Stephanie.

L.E.K.: Justin Craigwell-Graham 

Of course. Nice to meet you, Stephanie.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Justin, would love if you would kick us off and just share a brief summary of your professional backgrounds.

L.E.K.: Justin Craigwell-Graham 

Of course. Happy to start. My name is Justin Craigwell-Graham. I’m a partner and a managing director in the Chicago office of LEK Consulting. I primarily work in the consumer space, and more specifically food and beverage. I’ve been with the firm for about 12 years. Started as an associate. Made my way throughout all the levels, although I did separate from the firm for one year, and did my whole millennial wonderlust thing and moved to Africa, and did a couple of other things.

I’m from North Carolina originally, went to Duke University undergrad, so proud Blue Devil. But basically a Chicagoan after 12 years and have enjoyed living in this very fun and affordable city too, as well.

Stephanie Knight 

Justin, you and I kind of swapped there. So I went to undergrad at Northwestern, started in Chicago. I got my MBA from Fuqua so kind of flip flop a little bit. Love that.

L.E.K.: Justin Craigwell-Graham 

Fellow Dukie.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Absolutely, love it. Jen, what about yourself?

L.E.K.: Jen Wu 

Oh, hey, everyone, Jen Wu, partner, managing directo,r also in the Chicago office. I think Justin and I have known each other for about over a decade at this point. So I’m going to age us both. But I joined the firm in 2009 out of undergrad. So I went to the rival school, I went to U Chicago. Was here for I think three and a half, almost four years before business school at HBS. And I always say I never left LEK, I just left LEK and didn’t come back for about four years.

I did my internship at General Mills, and then moved there for two years in Minneapolis as well. And so I actually came back to the firm in 2017, and so for the last five years back at the firm, I’ve pretty much just focused on food and beverage. And so within that, I do a lot of branded high growth food and bev, and then also some plant based alternative protein.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Thank you for sharing. My connection, I guess to you, Jen is I was at McKinsey in Minneapolis. So I think our timing overlapped there some.

L.E.K.: Jen Wu 

It’s such an underrated city. I love it.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

It really is. Can’t beat the weather in North Carolina, though, I have to say. But you’re both still in Chicago now, holding down the Midwest. Love it. And we’re excited today to have a conversation with both of you not only to get to know each of you better, but to understand more about the way that LEK thinks about diversity. And so as we transition there, Jen, could you just share a quick overview of LEK in terms of the type of work it does, and the clients it serves, and the type of roles available? And then we’ll jump into the ED&I conversation.

L.E.K.: Jen Wu 

Definitely. And so LEK, I think we’ve got our 40 year anniversary next year. So we were founded in London, I think one of the few global strategy consulting firms founded in Europe. But we’re 20 offices worldwide now. And I’d like to say we focus really on growth strategy work. And so when you think about that profit equation, we’re really focused on that revenue piece. And so as part of that, when we help our clients, we often focus on M&A, which is a clear kind of acceleration of growth for a lot of companies. And we also just do your standard corporate growth strategy.

So helping companies understand where they want to be in three to five years, helping them set that vision, and then also helping them with the execution piece of d that take the form of new product innovation, does it take the form of new geographies. And the way that we’re organized by firm is, as you can tell, Justin and I are both in the consumer practice. We’ve also got other big practices like industrials and healthcare. And so at the partner level, we’re dedicated to specific sectors so we can provide that expertise for our clients.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

And let me just ask you, Jen, has that focus for you changed? It sounds like it hasn’t from your time at General Mills. But did you dabble into another sector at any point in time?

L.E.K.: Jen Wu 

I did, actually. So we all come in as generalists. And I think it’s very much part of the culture. And it’s part of the value proposition to folks coming in. And so the typical hiring for us is folks come in at the associate level, straight out of undergrad or after a couple years of experience. Or they come in post business school after a few more years of experience. And so when folks come in, we allow them to dedicate to a specific sector after a certain period of time, but you very much come in as a generalist. And so we make sure through a central staffing model to give people that exposure. And so pre MBA, I had actually done a lot of industrials, net tech and other sector work.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Absolutely. Well, now we really want to dive in, in this conversation into the way that LEK thinks about ED&I, equity, diversity and inclusion. And so probably the best place to start is to define it. How do you think about ED&I at LEK?

L.E.K.: Justin Craigwell-Graham  

So we define Equity, Diversity, Inclusion through the three tenets. Equity is refers to the proportional distribution of resources based on needs. Diversity, we’re all familiar with that one. That’s a collective mixture of internal and external differences. It can include, but not limited to racial age, gender, neurological, socio economic, religious, ableism versus not. And then inclusion is behaviors and norms that facilitate and nurture differences being seen, valued and respected. And just creating a sense of belonging that encourages full participation, and bringing your authentic background.

In probably the mid 2010s, we kind of started on a journey in earnest of diversity. And obviously, that got rehashed very heavily post summer, June 2020, and all of the social unrest. We formed a global ED&I committee and under that ED&I committee, we developed you know, specific visions and guardrails and guidelines of what we wanted to work on. Those six guidelines and visions are that LEK will be a workplace environment where all staff feel safe to be their authentic selves. We’re all accepted, respected, valued, protected globally. It’s not just a US mandate, it’s a global mandate, regardless of where they are, where they come from, or what they believe.

We also believe in having affinity groups, our employee resource groups. We want those to become highly valuable global employee groups that are driven by a foreseen framework around culture, career, community and clients and just strengthening all four of those. We also want to evaluate staff representation to define diversity, then set goals aligned with global priorities based off local environments. So for each region, we want to have set goals and journeys as far as how we define diversity and where we’re trying to get with it. We’re committed to strategic global Initiatives focused on recruiting, retaining, and developing staff from historically underserved populations, wherever that may be, or wherever that’s defined as. We want to develop structures and systems to ensure that we’re represented internally and externally in our communication as a moral organization with integrity and ethics.

And then lastly, we’re trying to establish relationships and build partnerships with external organizations dedicated to diversity and social justice globally. Those are kind of our six guidelines and principles, and that’s kind of what we’re driving overall strategy and how we define ED&I in LEK.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

That’s quite a robust set of principles and information there. So Justin, if you could just put this into practice a little bit more. Could you tell us, and how do we make it real? How is LEK expanding its talent net to actually catch more of these diverse candidates? What are some of the things that you’ve been doing and trying in this area?

L.E.K.: Justin Craigwell-Graham 

We’ve been throwing the kitchen sink at it, like everyone else has. It’s a very highly qualified, but as we all know, a very small pool just based off of history and socio-economic factors. So we have invested a lot of money in terms of partnerships with certain groups who help us to facilitate candidates at the undergraduate level and help us to facilitate candidates at the MBA level. Those are our two kind of main source of employees, is undergrad recruiting and MBA recruiting. We’re active in partnering with organizations, we have specific programs that we host ourselves for undergraduate students and pre-MBA students going into MBA programs as well.

We actively are involved in campus hiring at certain institutions. We’re actively involved in some of the affinity groups with those institutions as well to pull in. We do inclusion trading also, just to make sure that our staff are aware of unconscious biases as they go into interviews. I think that’s very important. And then on the back end, as far as expanding our talent, we have a lot of recruitment, sorry, a lot of retention activities that we do as well, because it’s hard enough to get the sort of qualified pool of diverse candidates, but it’s another thing to actually keep them at your firm.

So there’s a litany of things we do as far as mentorships, sponsorships, and retention, just trying to create a community where people can feel like they can be their authentic selves. And they can just form a bond, because we know consulting is a very hard place with a lot of a high churn. But you’re more likely to stay in consulting longer term if you have authentic connections. And that’s kind of why Jen and I have stayed around for 12 years, we have authentic connections above and below, that has made it more than just work. And it really kind of is a family for us. If you don’t really have that, you’re not going to stay whether you’re a diverse candidate or not.

And if you’re a diverse candidates going to be even harder because it’s less of a community. So we’re trying to do all those things that involve throwing in the kitchen sink, and more. And obviously it’s a journey for us. It’s a journey that we probably started in earnest two years ago. And we’re a midsize professional services firm. So we have a lot more that we can do. And we’re kind of uniquely positioned to provide a unique experience workwise. But we also are in unique position. We’re not a big machine, as some of the other bigger organizations have with a lot of FTEs guaranteed to diversity and programs established that have been going for decades as well.

So we’re kind of finding our way out, and also kind of specifically forming our own path and our own value proposition for diverse candidates that are different from other places, too. I think the main thing too is that there’s a real opportunity because there’s a real focus here. I myself am the first black MD at LEK in over the 40 years of our existence, right? You know, Jen is kind of like the first Asian partner in the Chicago office as well, and one of the few partners here too, as well. So feel like there’s a real opportunity, because there’s a real thirst to bring in candidates and push them through. Obviously, it requires you to have the skills and merit to succeed. But there’s a white space for diverse candidates where there might not be there in other places, as well.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Well, I think it certainly says a lot to have both of you as partners and managing directors to be the face of this and speak about it. And as well, I can really appreciate how we’re not only thinking about it in terms of recruiting pathways, but at LEK that you’re considering that inclusion training, and you’re also doing that community building, thinking about the full lifespan. Makes a ton of sense.

L.E.K.: Justin Craigwell-Graham 

Yeah. And we also have to be like authentic and real and honest, right? Because I think a lot of people also have a lot of smoke and mirrors about diversity too. And then the reality of what you see when you actually get here is not what’s on the marketing materials, and the banners and the posters and signs. So that’s also how we try to be differentiated. I, as a partner, MD and being unique, I’m always going to be real and authentic. And I think that helps people too, as well. I’m not going to sugarcoat where we’re at, where we’re going, and what this place is as well.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Well, I certainly know a lot of our listener base is interested in that beginning part of the funnel, how could I get a job at a great firm like LEK, right? And especially those who are diversity candidates. So Jen, I’m wondering if you can take that angle, and talk us through how LEK engages in diversity recruitment, whether that’s on campus, or some of the popular diversity conferences, etc.

L.E.K.: Jen Wu 

Yeah, I think Justin touched on this, but it’s part of the kitchen sink efforts, if you will. I mean, we have core schools, secondary schools that we always try to go to, This year we’re going to be back in person, which I’m really excited about. I think maybe one of the silver linings over the past couple years of the pandemic is we’ve expanded what we consider a core school that we will do recruiting efforts at. And so on those campuses, we very much engage with the Career Services teams, to see if we can bring a diverse pool of candidates into the informational sessions, into the resume drops.

We also work with student led organizations on campuses that are really the kind of organic grassroots efforts in bringing students together who share that shared identity, who would like to learn more about consulting. But I think for us , what we’ve recognized over the years it’s that’s not an enough. It’s good, but not enough, which I think is the crux of a lot of diversity programs. And so what we’ve done in the past is we’ve partnered with a lot of national diversity organizations for those recruiting efforts as well. And so some of those big national conferences like MLT, Management Leadership for Tomorrow, Forte Foundation, Reaching Out MBA, or the MBA Veterans Conference. Those are all organizations that we’ve participated at.

And what I love about them is they really also provide a lot of that training and informational sessions. So often when we’re there, it’s a two or three day event. And we’re doing a program just walking through what consulting is, walking through how that firms differ. And one thing that we’ve done that’s also, I think we launched this a couple years ago, and we actually just wrapped up the women’s one. We do what we call a pre-MBA program. So it’s before MBAs get onto campus, and they’re bombarded with recruiting events and consulting firms coming on. We almost want to level the playing field by giving them this pre-MBA program, which helps them understand what is consulting.

When you’re looking at different firms, what should you be probing on, we almost do that kind of mini training. And so we do one for women, and we do one for underrepresented minorities, which is actually happening later this week. And it’s something that partners, managers, and staff all participate in actively.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Well, I can imagine for interested candidates who think that they may fit one of these diversity descriptions, could come see you on campus at an information session, could come attend one of the conferences that you’ve listed. Anything else that you want to point out at this point in terms of where they could go to find and engage with resources or information about LEK and its EDI approach?

L.E.K.: Jen Wu 

Yeah, I think definitely come see us in person, if you get the chance. Don’t be afraid to reach out on LinkedIn. I would say leverage your school alumni associations. I think that’s pretty critical, especially as we’ve got six offices around the US. And so you’re getting alumni from a lot of different business school programs and undergraduate programs who are more than happy to help. And then we’ve also got two of our amazing HR team that are really focused on this. And so, Renee and Yara, and I can maybe get the emails out through a different avenue. But if there’s candidates who are of a diverse background, if they want more information, definitely feel free to reach out to Yara and Renee as well.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Perfect. Now, there’s certainly more that we want to hear from both of you in this conversation. Justin, we’ll pass the mic back over to you. We see on the website LEK talks a lot about careers with impact. What do you mean by that?

L.E.K.: Justin Craigwell-Graham 

Sure. So that means that we’re just trying to create an environment where our staff can thrive, and they can enjoy long-term lifestyle sustainability. That means there’s day one leadership responsibility autonomy, through associate, through consultant as far as your work stream and who you manage and who you interact with on the client side. And within internally at LEK, we have a short cases and regular feedback that that enables rapid iteration improvement. We have mentorship programs, formal on the job training, and on the job learning, exposure to advanced analytics, we have defined promotion pathways, we have compensation tied to performance.

All those things allow you to have an impactful career that’s a little bit more fast paced. It’s definitely high impact on the client side, and as far as your career progression, and that just overall, it’s just a very good value prop to those who are eager and ready to learn and have that kind of fast paced, very impactful career.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Well, we’d appreciate, Justin, if you could walk us through what that career pathway has been like for you. If we rewind the clock, and we think about what your journey was like at the beginning, when you first recruited for consulting. And perhaps identifying you know what resources were We’re available to support you or not, pointing out how maybe that’s changed from the new efforts that you’re doing now with LEK.

L.E.K.: Justin Craigwell-Graham 

Oh, yeah, for sure. So, when I was recruiting for consulting, it was around 2010. And consulting, obviously, now is a very well known and understood industry, like you can get a very much less known industry to apply. I, coming from Duke, obviously applied for a lot of like banking, finance, and then I kind of stumbled upon some consulting roles that I started applying for. And I kind of wanted to do consulting versus finance, because finance is a little bit more surface level to an extent. It’s like let’s just drag this percentage across the revenue line, and just tweak the numbers to make the model work, versus consulting, you’re kind of digging into businesses and understanding trends and understanding intrinsically what’s going on with the market a little bit more.

So when I recruited the resources that we had, were way less, I made sure I did my 20-25 cases, as far as practice, so I could just be a lot more comfortable with whatever curveballs they throw at me. I went on Glassdoor and looked at the key questions that the company is going to ask. And then I also looked at some YouTube videos, too, about consulting and how to case, and just did my preparation and wrote out the answers and practiced them. And I cased really well to kind of join in and do LEK. I did kind of a non traditional college kind of route. So it wasn’t through like the normal on campus two interviews, three interviews, just because it was a different time coming out of the recession. And they were hiring it at different times. But that’s kind of my weird way of how I got into consulting and kind of have never left. And obviously, it’s very different being in a much more well known and well oiled kind of recruiting industry that consulting is now today.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Jen, would love to hear your perspective on the same as you think back about your recruitment journey and career pathway.

L.E.K.: Jen Wu 

Yeah, so I was the class before Justin. And so I came in in 2009. And so we were a tiny class, because we were doing recruiting, essentially, in fall 2008. And so for a lot of our listeners, you were probably in high school at that time, or maybe even younger. But it was a really tough time to do recruiting. And so I feel for a lot of candidates who are perhaps graduating into a recession, or maybe had their careers impacted during the pandemic, because we’ve got these best laid plans, you’ve got the grades, you’ve done your case prep.

And then a macro event comes along and kind of knocks everything sideways. And so I think it was a tough time to recruit for consulting then. And also, I think, as a diverse candidate, it probably just wasn’t a – it’s always been an issue, arguably more of an issue in the past than it is now. But it just wasn’t really talked about. And so a lot of firms didn’t have a lot of these resources and kind of dedicated programs to do that outreach for diverse candidates. We didn’t really have that conversation directly. And so I think now there’s so many more resources in place. And so I would always encourage people to take advantage of that.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

So in terms of the the way that thinking has evolved, Jen, and the way that these resources have evolved, I would love if you could speak a little bit more towards what, in your perspective, is a holistic view of diversity here in the summer of 2022. And while you’re at it, would love your perspective on what do you think people often misunderstand about diversity?

L.E.K.: Jen Wu 

Yeah, I think it’s a great question. A lot of folks at LEK internally have heard me talk about this issue, because it’s something I’m pretty passionate about. I think there’s actually a metaphor that gets used a lot in diversity materials. And it’s the metaphor of an iceberg. And so what I love about that is there’s so little of the iceberg in its total kind of surface mass that is really visible above that waterline. And so oftentimes, what people misunderstand about diversity is they pay attention to things that are visible, naturally as human nature. And so they think about things like gender, and race. And obviously, those are things that really affect people as they move through the world.

But so much more of diversity is below the surface. It’s the bulk of it. So some of that is a socio economic background, which is one thing that really isn’t discussed a lot in consulting because the industry skews a certain way. And so I think it’s important for us to have that holistic view of what a diverse candidate would look like. And I think the other thing that’s perhaps not misunderstood, but isn’t discussed as much as I think when it comes to diversity, first and formost, and I cannot emphasize this enough is what’s the right thing to do. And I think sometimes people hesitate to really connect that into an unpleasant way, it’s called the business case. Right? Or, truly, why does it matter. And I think sometimes we think that we no longer need to have that conversation.

But I always say, let’s keep having that conversation. It’s the right thing to do, but also, why does it matter, in particular, for consulting. And so for us, I mean, consulting essentially, we’re hired brains. We’re very expensive, hired brains. And so we go into organizations, and on one hand, in order for us to be successful, we have to hold empathy for the client. We have to put ourselves in their shoes, really understand how their organization works, their business problems, what keeps them up at night. But on the other hand, ultimately, we’re here to provide a third party opinion. We’re here to provide an expertise about their sector, we’re here to push them on their narratives and beliefs. And so you’re constantly having to hold two different things in your mind at the same time.

And so the reason why I think it’s important to recognize about the field of consulting and what makes us successful, is because anybody who is diverse, has been the other in the room. And if you’re the other in the room, that muscle of holding multiple beliefs, narratives, thoughts in your head at the same time, is a muscle that you’ve exercised consistently, whether you like it or not. And I say that because everybody has the muscle, it’s just that the folks who are more visibly diverse or diverse under the surface of the waterline, have to exercise that muscle. And so I think that there’s a real case to be made here for diverse candidates, intuitively having more of that training as they move through the world of being great consultants.

Stephanie Knight 

Justin, anything you want to add on here?

L.E.K.: Justin Craigwell-Graham 

I mean, that was such a great answer by Jen. Of course, I would just say that, for diversity, things are obviously misunderstood. A lot of people just stop at women, right? That’s kind of what we did at first. We stopped at women, most people stopped at women. And then June 2020, everyone realized that diversity is more than just women. There’s a lot of fragility, having discussions about diversity, especially when it comes to race. It’s just, what I always tell people is that you have any conversation that you’re having about diversity, especially when it comes with race, and it’s replaced with women. And all of a sudden, it makes sense, right? If you’re in a room full of guys, and then we’re trying to get our first female partner, and you realize that it’s important to have a female in the room. And it’s like, okay, that makes a lot of sense.

Why would that not extend to other types of diverse groups that you might be a little bit more uncomfortable thinking or talking about, but the logic holds true. So anytime I ever have any pushback, we’re talking about anything as far as underrepresented minorities or race, I’m just like, replace the conversation with woman. All right, it makes sense that we do this because we need more women diversity for XYZ. Do the same thing for race, and it kind of works. That’s the main thing I kind of bump up as far as the misunderstanding of diversity and kind of trying to push through with that.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Justin, do you think that we’re headed on the right track in that sense? Your firm at LEK, or kind of the culture as a whole, do you think that in the way that those people who didn’t even use to kind of acknowledge the gender aspects that you mentioned, now is maybe more of a well held, kind of equally held belief across many people? Do you think we’re headed in the right direction when we think about racial and other types of diversity?

L.E.K.: Justin Craigwell-Graham 

I mean, we definitely are because the ship’s moving, whether they like it or not, we’re moving that way. I think, in terms of gender, and I think in terms of LGBTQ, we, and most everyone is a little bit more forward thinking than they are race. There’s just always just such a fragility issue when you bring up race, especially in America. And people obviously, are a lot less sensitive and willing to talk and discuss about it these past two years. But there’s still a long way we need to go for sure.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Well, Justin, in this conversation, we’ve heard you mentioned affinity groups a couple of times. Could you tell us a little bit more about what those are at LEK and who they support?

L.E.K.: Justin Craigwell-Graham 

For sure. We have a litany of affinity groups that go across a couple of different employee groups at LEK. Probably the first most relevant one here is we have a group called Mosaic that I helped to found five, six odd years ago. That’s basically for unrelated minorities, and they do a lot of internal cultural planning at LEK. They support recruiting to help the draft a lot of the messaging whenever there’s events or issues as well, and just help to create a greater sense of community for all those people that Jen said they’d have that large iceberg below the waterline. We have the women’s network as well. That one’s been around probably the longest, it’s probably the first original affinity group. And that’s global as well, and is definitely a resource to help push increase gender diversity and gender issues.

 

And they in that group had pushed through a lot of protocols, policies, that overall helped to increase the level of women in our senior management ranks, for sure. We have a pride network for LGBTQ. We have a parents network, we have a vets network. And then we also have a network for those that are international colleagues called Ada. And they kind of help to support those non-citizens who are working in the US and just the litany of problems that those types of individuals occur assimilating culturally, and then also just the whole entire work process visa process. And that thing is always quite a beast, too, as well.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Well, we appreciate the new perspective that both of you have given us here about equity, diversity and inclusion and the way that you think about that at LEK. Jen, I’m sure that there are lots of people listening, who are highly interested in investigating more about the firm, and opportunities to join you as a future colleague. What what are some of the good next steps forward that they should take?

L.E.K.: Jen Wu 

Yeah, I mean, on a very, very basic level, go to our website, check us out. We’ve got a lot of up to date posts there in terms of timing of recruiting. And so I think, back when I was doing recruiting, we recruited from very few schools, it was, I think, twice a year. And now the great thing about the recruiting process is we bring a lot of experienced candidates as well. And so we’re on a constant recruiting basis. And so don’t be afraid to keep checking the website. And just to look at the updated timing, not only on when the resume drop is, but if you’re on campus, check out when we’re coming to campus, come see us in person. And then don’t be afraid to reach out on LinkedIn and other avenues as well.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Perfect. Well, we have a little bit of a theme in our Strategy Simplified podcast. We love to get to know you personally, as well. So as we wrap up here, just want to ask a couple of fun questions. Jen, if you could kick us off. What’s one fun fact about you?

L.E.K.: Jen Wu 

Yeah. And so this is a kind of an embarrassing fun fact. But it ties with my background a little bit. So I was born in the US, but I grew up in Hong Kong. And so I grew up there and didn’t come back until college really, until age 17. And so, this was cute when I was younger, but I still don’t know how to drive. Because the driving age in Hong Kong is 18. So I left for college before I had that that exciting high school period in which you want the freedom, and you’re kind of fearless. And so I just never learned. And now I’m in my mid 30s living in the Midwest, and it’s surprising hurdle to my freedom these days.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Well, at least you’re in Chicagoland, which broadly speaking is one of the arguably better places maybe to be able to have access to some transportation, public transportation, but no, I hear you on that for sure. Justin. Oh, yeah, Minneapolis was tougher. I can’t imagine what those routes were like. Yeah. Justin, what about you? Do you have a fun fact to the world you’re willing to share?

L.E.K.: Justin Craigwell-Graham 

Yeah, for sure. I think a fun fact for me is that I am a music listening and music appreciation savant. So I’m like the music snob, but my friends have a Spotify playlist with a lot of followers, like, up to 1000. And I just like to create and collate music and I’ve always done that even when I was an associate at LEK. Up through a partner, it’s a lot much harder, because there’s a lot more meetings. I just can’t put my headphones on and build models. There’s just a lot more talking in managing. But real passion for music even though I don’t work in that field, and that’s kind of my fun fact. I love and am obsessed with music.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

What was that app? Shazam, that can just like identify any song? Are you like a human Shazam, Justin?

L.E.K.: Justin Craigwell-Graham 

Not a human Shazam, but I do have Shazam on my first homepage in case I do hear something I can pull it up very quickly, I’m not scrolling down six pages and missing it out, But the music IQ is very high. It’s a very high overview.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

So he shares the love as well. Oh, that’s fantastic.

L.E.K.: Justin Craigwell-Graham 

A little bit too happy.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Well, as we wrap things up, Justin, I wonder if you could just talk to us a little bit about one mentor who has impacted you and how have they impacted you, and why did you pick this one.

L.E.K.: Justin Craigwell-Graham 

Okay. Mentorship is very important at LEK, and I’ve had several mentors throughout my time. I’ve had the head of the whole entire global firm be my mentor as far as our sponsorship program. And that’s something that we’ve created to help kind of senior candidates, diverse candidates, whether it’s women or URMs to kind of make it through to the partner role. I’ve kind of had the head of bisector consumer sector, be a mentor, but I think probably the most important mentor is kind of like my colleague now and immediate boss, Rob Wilson to kind of help teach me the consulting game and let me ride his coattails through the years.

And he was kind of one of the first people who looked at me and looked beyond what I looked like, and my diverse background and kind of saw that, like this person is capable and skilled. And he’s kind of one person who I have kind of worked with them over time to see some unconscious biases, but kind of doesn’t really see those things, as far as race, and has been a great mentor, and still a mentor now, too, as a new partner, teaching me the ways of being a partner too. So, and mentors are very important. And when you have a good mentor, it also makes you want to be a good mentor yourself. So I mean, that’s probably one thing that Jen and I probably love doing is not only being mentored, but being mentors to other people, because we’ve seen what it’s done for our careers as well.

L.E.K.: Jen Wu 

I couldn’t agree more. I think Justin and I’ve shared a couple of those very senior folks in the firm who’ve really made the time to be our mentors and sponsors. And that sponsor program is it’s one that I think I’m really proud of that our firm established that’s now gone global. And I think it’s important to differentiate between mentors and sponsors as well, because mentors are truly, they’re really there for the day-to-day advice, they’re really there to get you to that next level. Whereas for us sponsorship is something quite specific. It’s sponsorship to get diverse candidates to the partner level, which for us is equity partnership. And so we don’t have multiple partner levels.

Partnership is equity, which is a really big deal. And so the sponsors that we do have are very senior partners who are very dedicated to the program. And I think, one thing that you’ve probably heard is Justin and I started in consulting over a decade ago. And so with that, we didn’t grow up in a system in which we saw people who looked like us visually, at the top. And so for us, we were, we almost didn’t limit ourselves to picking vendors who maybe had more of a shared background in that sense. I mean, like I said, I grew up in Hong Kong, there aren’t too many people like that at at the top at LEK. And so I think it’s important to recognize that, when you choose mentors, when you find sponsors, those folks may not have that shared background, but they’re more than willing to help and to seek empathy, and to really understand where you’re coming from.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Well, again, we really appreciate both of you taking the time to be able to share your perspective with us today. Before we close out, want to open it up to either of you if there’s anything else that you wanted to add to this conversation.

L.E.K.: Jen Wu 

No, I think it’s been great. Thank you so much for having us. And also thank you for prompting the conversation. I think the fact that we’re even having this conversation, hopefully people are listening and maybe getting something from it is a huge progress.

MC: Stephanie Knight 

Thank you both for your time.