From Chinese Expat to Management Consultant
Hello,
I'm a long time reader and first time poster. I'll try to keep this succinct while not leaving out any needed details.
Situation:
I'm heavily interested in pursuing a management consultant career and am unsure of the best path forward.
Background:
I'm a 25-year old American expat working as a Project Manager for a small/mid-sized chocolate factory in China. I graduated from a non-target with a 3.7 GPA with majors in Finance and Actuarial Science. My current job role is rather broad, but can be summarized as:
1. Manage all pricing quotations and profitability analysis
2. Manage the technical and expansion of the ERP system
3. Responsible for all data analysis related tasks
4. Manage our company's long-term financial model (Excel-based)
I've learned a lot and have been exposed to responsibilities and tasks that would likely not yet be available to me in a large multinational company. However, I sacrifice name-recognition and structured corporate training. I do work long hours and am essentially on call at all hours of the day.
Personal Strengths:
- Very strong Excel skills including VBA proficiency
- Strong business acumen for my age (according to superiors)
- Analytical skills (reasoning and with data)
- Public speaking
- International working experience (can speak passable Mandarin Chinese)
- Strong in interviews
Personal Weaknesses:
- Lack school and company name recognition
- Lack "proper" corporate training and experience
- I'm not a fresh graduate
Questions:
1. Does my unique international experience give my any leverage, or is it more of a detriment?
2. Must I pursue an MBA prior to entering management consulting?
3. When is too late to make the jump? I'm happy with my position, but don't want to wait too long to exit
4. Will a few years in a large multinational assist me? Could I realistically do this in China?
On a side note, the owner of our private firm is a Harvard MBA and McKinsey alum. I spent many hours working directly with him. Perhaps I can leverage this? My dream is to do the Harvard MBA followed by a McKinsey consulting position.
Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts in advance and I'm open to any comments - kind or candid.
Steve
Try to get promoted internally as soon as possible, then apply for an MBA. Your experience is really interesting (who doesn't like chocolate?) and if you destroy the GMAT and write good essays (based on this post and your LinkedIn profile you're a pretty decent writer), you have a chance to get into a great b-school. Apply to more schools than it is normally recommended and I am sure at least one will like what you did. You won't get a consulting job in China if you are not Chinese, everywhere else you will have an easier time getting one with an MBA.
Also, you should do an AMA about chocolate or Chinese factories or both.
Thanks for the remarks parks. I have a performance linked bonus and one of the KPIs involves easing into the role of managing the sourcing/purchasing department, so I'll focus on that as the next step. I'm mostly worried about aging myself out of the candidate pool, but perhaps my concerns are premature.
Good suggestion about the AMA, will be a good chance to give back considering all this site and the community has given me.
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