Ankura

If you’re an MBA or business professional looking to work at a forward-thinking consulting firm, you may be considering Ankura Consulting. Based in Washington, DC, Ankura is an expert-led risk and change management advisory and general management consulting firm.

Ankura offers the opportunity to gain multifaceted consulting experience in many exciting capacities.

Ankura emphasizes its trademarked Collaborative Lateral Thinking approach. This approach is designed to “quickly adapt, innovate, create new models, shift paradigms, develop game-changing ideas, and deliver results.” The company names its core mission as Protecting, Creating, and Recovering value.

In this article, we’ll give you all the information you need to consider whether Ankura might be right for you.

Table of Contents:

1. Firm Key Stats
2. Ankura History
3. Ankura Careers
4. Ankura Internship
5. Practice Areas
6. Industries
7. Ankura Locations
8. Career Path
9. Exit Opportunities
10. Diversity Programs
11. Ankura Culture
12. Ankura Interview
13. Ankura Consulting Salary

Firm Key Stats

Ankura Website: https://ankura.com
Ankura Headquarters: Washington, DC
Ankura Number of Employees: 1,800
Ankura Number of Locations: 35
Ankura Chief Executive: Kevin Lavin
Ankura Revenue: ~$600M

Ankura History

Ankura is a relatively young company, with its beginnings in 2014 when the company was founded by Roger D. Carlile in Dallas, TX. The firm was ambitious about growing its size and profile in high-value sectors from the start, reaching $50 million in revenue by 2016.

It then secured a $100 million investment for strategic growth from Madison Dearborn Partners. In that same year, Ankura moved its headquarters to Washington, DC, to better serve its East Coast clients and to continue growing worldwide.

Ankura Careers

Ankura Internship

Ankura’s summer internship program gives undergrad students the opportunity to gain firsthand experience in consulting by working on a variety of teams and projects. Ankura interns develop valuable new skills while building models using advanced data analytics tools.

Interns typically spend most of the summer performing financial, accounting, economic, and statistical analyses. The internship also offers the chance to network and gain mentorship from virtually every level of Ankura employee, from Consultant through Director.

Practice Areas

Ankura offers a variety of expert professional services, but the firm’s bread-and-butter practice areas include expert witness, bankruptcy and corporate restructuring, litigation support, forensic accounting, geopolitical risk assessment, and general management consulting services.

Industries

The main industries Ankura services are:

• Aerospace & Defense
• Construction & Infrastructure
• Cryptocurrency & Blockchain
• Education
• Energy, Mining, & Natural Resources
• Financial Services
• Government & Public Sector
• Healthcare & Life Sciences
• Hospitality, Gaming, & Leisure
• Manufacturing, Chemicals, & Industrials
• Real Estate
• Retail
• Sports
• Technology, Media, & Telecommunications
• Transportation & Logistics

Ankura Locations

Ankura has 35 locations worldwide, with clients in 115 countries.

North America Ankura locations:

• • Ankura Ann Arbor
  • Ankura Atlanta
  • Ankura Baltimore
  • Ankura Boston
  • Ankura Chicago
  • Ankura Dallas
  • Ankura Fairfield, CT
  • Ankura Houston
  • Ankura Irvine, CA
  • Ankura Los Angeles
  • Ankura Miami
  • Ankura Nashville
  • Ankura New York
  • Ankura Orlando
  • Ankura Philadelphia
  • Ankura Phoenix
  • Ankura San Francisco
  • Ankura San Juan
  • Ankura Seattle
  • Ankura Tampa
  • Ankura Toronto
  • Ankura Vancouver
  • Ankura Washington, DC
  • Ankura Washington – McLarty

EMEA Ankura locations:

• • Ankura Germany
  • Ankura Brussels – McLarty
  • Ankura Dubai
  • Ankura London
  • Ankura Saudi Arabia

APAC Ankura locations:

• • Ankura Beijing – McLarty
  • Ankura Delhi
  • Ankura Gurugram, India – McLarty
  • Ankura Hong Kong
  • Ankura Melbouirne
  • Ankura Mumbai
  • Ankura Perth
  • Ankura Shanghai
  • Ankura Singapore
  • Ankura Sydney

Career Path

The Ankura career path resembles many other consulting firms. The main Ankura consulting positions, in ascending order of seniority, include:

• Associate
• Senior Associate
• Associate Consultant
• Consultant
• Senior Consultant
• Director
• Senior Director
• Managing Director

Exit Opportunities

If and when your time at Ankura comes to an end, you can expect the exit opportunities to be quite lucrative. Ankura’s growing reputation means your time there will read as a major asset on your resume when you apply to other companies and consulting firms, especially those looking to hire people with experience related to the functional areas Ankura plays in (i.e., expert witness, bankruptcy and corporate restructuring, litigation support).

In addition, because Ankura serves clients across the world in a variety of industries, your application will be highly attractive to other large firms operating internationally. Venture capital and private equity firms might also be interested in your services.

Ankura Culture

Ankura identifies organizational culture as among its top concerns, and the company expresses a commitment to empowering talent at every level. The firm emphasizes teamwork, innovation, integrity, and operating from a rigorously empirical approach. Ankura’s official Core Values are:

• Put Others First
• Leverage the Collective
• Learn Every Day
• Make it Happen
• Do the Right Thing

The Ankura culture is generally praised by current and former employees as being collaborative, inclusive, supportive, and forward-thinking. While some employees appreciate the fast-paced environment, which provides many opportunities for gaining new skills and experience, others find that the resources to succeed and advance can be hard to access unless you’re able to form the right partnerships with influential coworkers.

Ankura Interview

Ankura interviews are comparable to most other consulting firms, though maybe a bit more casual.

Ankura Interview Process

Many applicants and hires describe the Ankura interview process as laid back compared to other top firms. For some, the interview process takes only a few weeks, whereas for others, the process took several months.

Many entry-level applicants speak first with a recruiter through a career fair or another recruitment initiative. From there, once applicants proceed into the formal interview process, they can expect multiple rounds of conversations that last approximately 30 minutes each.

The first round is typically with a director or another Ankura employee working in mid-level management, and typically takes place over the phone or Zoom. The second and third rounds typically occur in quick succession, usually in person but sometimes over Zoom, with more upper-level management.

After that, applicants are sometimes invited to a group lunch or some other engagement with a team or panel before an offer is finally made. There is no mention of an Ankura case study, and previous hires state that each round of interviews consist of behavioral questions regarding how applicants operate in team and project contexts.

Ankura Consulting Salary

Now let’s look at Ankura’s salaries, broken down by position.

The average Ankura associate salary (including base pay and bonuses) is around $80,000. The Ankura senior associate salary rises to $107,000.

The Ankura associate consultant salary is $84,000, the Ankura consultant salary is $101,000, and the Ankura senior consultant salary is $130,000.

The Ankura director salary is $254,000, the Ankura senior director salary is $309,000, and the Ankura managing director salary is $359,000.

Ankura salaries are not quite on par with the top firms in management consulting. For a full report of salaries for over 90 top firms, see our salary report here.

Diversity Programs

Ankura has a stated commitment to the values of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in its hiring practices, its consulting services, and its outreach work in local communities.

The Ankura diversity programs include VOICE, the firm’s Global Diversity and Inclusion Council, which includes members from each global office who work to create opportunities for Ankura employees to spread the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion in their communities.

Ankura also partners with the Her Justice organization by providing volunteering, fundraising, and board leadership. This work helps provide free legal counsel and other services to women living in poverty.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for an exciting career in professional advisory services, Ankura has a lot to offer. The firm offers the opportunity to work in a fast-paced, creative environment across a range of industries and geographic contexts. And while the company’s reach is not quite on par with MBB-level firms, Ankura’s star is quickly on the rise.

This means working at Ankura could be a great opportunity to work for a young and ambitious firm with a demonstrated commitment to growth and innovation.

 

Additional Resources:

• Top Consulting Firms
• Boutique Consulting Firms
• Consulting Resume: Complete Guide
• Case Interview: Complete Prep Guide