Consulting Elite Boutiques

Since the last post about this was from 2010 I figured an update might be in order. What are some EBs in consulting? I know boutique may be a term up for discussion but I would say small number of offices (

 

Not much experience with consulting but the term EB does not mean number of employees. Banks are called EBs because they're not only small but handle high profile transactions. If you take that to consulting, I would imagine places that do top tier strategy work. Maybe none exists? Found this odd though because advisory firms like ibd and law tend to allow highly experienced partners to hang their own shingles and become successful. Haven't seen that in consulting.

I've interned at Marakon and I would not categorise what they do as the most high profile strategy house.

 

Yeah I agree, the definition of boutique was my personal one and from there I was looking for names. The elite part fits your definition - a small firm that still gets big or high profile clients. The difficulty of consulting is subsequent specialisation so not sure what can be classified e.g. Candesic is really well known in healthcare consulting as they work with some of the largest PE firms (e.g. KKR) but they do 80% commercial due diligence. I was thinking more along the lines of full scope management consulting

 
Best Response

This question is probably going to be hard to answer since there are so many boutiques that serve various industries in various geographies. Many of these boutiques serve F500 clients but in different capacities and at different levels of the org structure. Some of these boutiques are now nestled within larger firms, like Parthenon, Marakon and Kurt Salmon, so technically are not ones.

Presence of vaunted exit opportunities (MBA and job), list of schools they recruit and compensation relative to peers might be clearer indicators as the details of work are often opaque. With my own limited experience, I can think of a few boutiques (as per your definition) in the U.S. that mainly recruit from T15 undergrad/grad, send people to HSW, have top-band compensation and have great exit opportunities:

Healthcare/Biopharma/Medtech: ClearView Healthcare Partners, Putnam Associates, Health Advances, Clarion Healthcare TMT: Altman Vilandrie, Keystone Strategy

 

Will keep editing as more come to mind.

I'm not very familiar with Europe (and Alira), to be honest, so take what I say with even more of a grain of salt. A brief glance suggests they do some interesting work across both consulting and M&A advisory. They don't seem to fit my definition based on their backgrounds - no Oxbridge, LBS/Insead presence and their U.S. consultant backgrounds are mainly Tufts and Boston University. No info on compensation or exit opportunities, though.

 

PwC has a small group (less than 30 people or so) that only hires from Ivies and other top, top schools (lots of Yale grads in the program). They consult with PE firms on target sourcing and qualitative due diligence. Everyone I knew who worked there went on to really great exits (top law or business schools, PE firms, one really unique role at a F500 company). It's not a standalone boutique but its profile and exclusivity makes it worth mentioning.

There have been many great comebacks throughout history. Jesus was dead but then came back as an all-powerful God-Zombie.
 

To name a few in no specific order:

-LEK (much larger boutique) -Arthur D Little (again, large sized boutique but smaller than LEK) -Parthenon (culture dilution has already happened since it has been over 3 years since EY acquired them) -Keystone -ClearView (Healthcare focus) -Delta Partners (TMT focus)

 

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