Strategy Education Lead (ex-Strategy Consultant)

We are a mission driven education B-corp. We source & prioritise outstanding graduates from lower income backgrounds; provide world class technical training; and aim to employ them as high performance consultants, ultimately offering a scalable talent pipeline for clients. Our mission is social mobility through world class education. Our potential for scale & impact is only limited by our execution. We are backed by investors from Google and Goldman Sachs and McKinsey.

The business is founded on two beliefs: 

• Exceptional talent is missed everyday: talent is equally distributed, opportunity is not. The common heuristics used to judge graduates, such as which university they attend, mean that outstanding talent is often overlooked. We rigorously source this talent while advancing the science of assessment;
• Exceptional training changes outcomes: the most effective learning practices are rarely used because the institutions that invest in the training are not incentivised to do so (paid by quantity not quality). Yet Benjamin Bloom’s seminal educational research proved that the right methods can change learning outcomes by 2 standard deviations (2 sigmas). This is monumental and is the 2nd pillar of our beliefs. 

ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES 

Professional High Performance (PHP) training is our umbrella term for the non-technical education that we provide to our Consultants to ensure they have high trajectory careers. The training is loosely based on the Bain graduate programme given that Bain, McKinsey and BCG dominate the highest levels of every industry globally and our mission is that they achieve this level of success. While our clients come to us for technically skilled consultants, it is the consultants’ professional behaviour that will ultimately determine their long term success, so the importance of this role cannot be understated. The training covers three areas:

• business fundamentals: business models, value chains, industry forces, etc. (workshop based);
• problem solving: frameworks and methodologies to solve commercial problems (workshop based);
• high performance professional behaviour: e.g. growth mindset (this must be integrated with our hiring strategy, day to day actions & choices and consultant deployment. It is the hardest part of the job).

The L&D Lead is responsible for the PHP training and outcomes. This includes delivering the programme as well as working very closely with the teams that run hiring (finding and assessing graduates) and deployment (helping them excel once they’re consultants). It will almost certainly suit an ex-consultant. Part of the role will involve collaboratively developing a deep and practical body of work to understand what top tier performance is and exactly how we can enable & deliver it. You will be a key player in influencing the long term outcomes of the individuals that are core to our mission.

Objectives (What does the role own)?

• What? Own, understand, and deliver the outcomes of our trainees through our PHP training;
• How? through understanding what clients want, what delivers long term career success, how we uncover it and then critically how we enable our trainees through training and behaviour;
• Why? Our mission: delivering social mobility through world class education & execution;

Day to day (What would the role involve)?

• Delivering, developing and improving training material, workshops and case studies;
• Delivering, developing and improving intensive interview training;
• Understanding deeply learning methodologies to make the training high impact and memorable;
• Developing our teams’ day to day behaviour to enhance the impact on the trainees;  
• Becoming a thought leader in the attributes required for long term success and how to unlock them; 
• Working with our hiring function to interview candidate before they join the program;
• Working with our deployment function to ensure consultants become top quartile performers;
• Playing a key role in the team and doing whatever it takes to help us achieve the mission and live the values.

REQUIREMENTS

• Professional & Education (You don’t need to have had any experience teaching):
• Education: Undergraduate or MBA (the institute is less important than the standards you’ve set for yourself, and the challenges you’ve overcome);
• Professional: 5-7+ years’ professional experience in a top tier management consultancy or other high performance, delivery focused organisation (i-bank, VC/PE backed business, etc.). Certainly one that has a systematic approach to developing & enabling top tier performance. You will also have had ownership of delivering world class standards of work, judged by someone who demands it (and you feel comfortable working in this type of environment). 
• Industry: specific industry knowledge isn’t particularly important but you’ll have a very good understanding of business in general, larger organisations and the roles that consultants and juniors play within them. 
• Skills & Behaviours:
• Values: alignment with our values – see below;
• High fidelity: delivering top tier performance, from a back seat, in a group of (often) first time professionals is extraordinarily difficult and the level of thought and exactness behind the scenes will need to be considerable. You’ll likely be self motivated and hold yourself to high standards;
• Highly analytical: in a similar fashion, detail for its own sake is not enough. Individual professional performance, what it entails and how to ‘activate it’ is a space crowded with opinion and research. You’ll likely be a clear analytical thinker already interested in the sector;
• Influential communicator: a critical part of the role will be activating this behaviour in the junior consultants. Communication will likely be a strength and you’ll understand that charisma is not enough to drive long term influence;
• Interested & collaborative: beyond the values below, you’re likely to be curious, widely read, considered & love working with others. Professional development is such an all encompassing and engaging field covering everything from commercial demands to psychology that the best solutions will almost certainly come from a broad knowledge and people base.
• Nice to haves (interest or experience in):
• learning and education best practice;
• teaching/coaching adults;
• technology and its impact on industry and society.

VALUES & BEHAVIOURS

This is a key part of what we offer – the chance to pursue a meaningful mission alongside a group of people working for each other, and trying to deliver exceptional outcomes. We’d want you to contribute to the below: 

• Team first: self second – remove ego. We try to deliver excellence every day for the person who’ll build on our work...the person sitting next to us. It's about being part of something bigger;
• Thoughtful respect: this doesn’t mean being ‘nice’, it means showing someone the respect to give them honest feedback, to challenge their work, to demand a higher standard. And to expect the same from them...so it’s critical we do it with respect;
• Performance in the moment: what we did last year, the universities we went to, the grades we got, aren’t important. High performing teams care about what you’re doing right now;
• Entitled to nothing, grateful for everything: the two key components of our business - education and talent - are exceptionally difficult and notoriously ruthless. We are not entitled to succeed, we have to earn it every day – this requires resilience;
• Constant improvement: we invest upfront in defining goals, taking notes, reading, practising, & running at feedback. Without these, improvement is impossible. We’re geeks through discipline & curiosity;
• Really caring: having any meaningful impact almost always requires sustained effort and excellent work - so it is really important that we care deeply about finding the right answers.

LOGISTICS 

• Location: Central London (likely 3 days/week minimum);
• Compensation: £50-£70k (dependent on experience) + options (we want you with us for years);
• Application Process: CV & cover letter to [email removed - click apply for more details], 30 min CEO interview, 90 min case study, 2x 20 min interviews with other team members, and finally a 30 min coffee with the CEO.