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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
Did you intern there before or after they got bought by CRA?
How about Keystone Strategy ?
These could be one! But aren't they a new shop?
To name a few.. Parthenon, Kurt Salmon, Greenwich Strategy, Cambridge Group, ZS Associates
isn't ZS huge now?
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
I heard ClearView and Putnam are great for Life Sciences. I was also interested in firms that have European offices in addition to US. What's your view on Alira Health?
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.
Elite boutiques of consulting (Originally Posted: 09/28/2010)
What are the Lazard, Blackstones of the consulting world? LEK, Parthenon, Mars?
...
Is this pan-Marakon or US only? Because I've heard very different things for the parent company's (Charles River Associates) operating model in Europe so it could be geography specific
All of those + marakon from what I hear
Marakon almost collapsed last year - and I don't think alot of talent remains - and working at Mars entails cold calling about 80 hours a week.
What about Monitor Group? Arent they pretty strong in the growth strategy area?
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.
Kalypso Consulting is another solid boutique that spun off from Deloitte and has about 250 people across the US and Europe
OCC got recently bought by EY, so that's gone. Is LEK still around? Saw them quite some times back then in US but not a relevant thing here in Europe. Met recently some guys from Stern Stewart (Europe, afaik they only got a Licensing-Thing going on, not really affiliated), easily the biggest douches in the room.
LEK is pretty huge and still around. SS are big douches but pay WAY above others
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)
It's been mentioned before, but Altman Vilandrie definitely comes to mind. Otherwise, LEK, ATK, OW (even though it's connected to the huge M&M), Mars & Co., Putnam Associates, ClearView, Innosight, Triage are all solid smaller players, with LEK, ATK and OW perhaps being larger than the "boutique" moniker implies).
Altman Vilandrie - huge clients that include the largest TMT companies and megafunds. Higher all-in pay than MBB and growing like crazy. Very difficult to get in out of undergrad though if you don't go to one of their 5 target schools.
Galt & Co. ~45-50 at the firm. They compete with MBB for F500 clients doing strategy consulting.
What is the benefit in going boutique rather than Tier 1 and 2?
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