Strategy and Consulting

From Strategic Thinking to Case Prep, We’ve Got You Covered

Berkeley MBA interest in strategy and consulting is high, with, on average, one out of four Berkeley Haas MBA grads following a path into consulting careers. They join leading firms such as Bain, Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey, and Deloitte and take strategy roles in other organizations such as Salesforce, frog design, Google, and Genentech.

Courses like Fundamentals of Design Thinking and many of our experiential learning opportunities deliver hands-on experience. Peer advisors and members of the Haas Consulting Club give you the skinny on internships and hone your case interviewing skills for recruiting season, and the Career Management Group can help you successfully pursue the career opportunities that suit your aspirations.

Below are some of the resources supporting Berkeley MBA students interested in strategy and consulting.

Video: Consulting student perspectives

 

Sample Strategy and Consulting Coursework

  • Financial Information Analysis
  • Corporate Finance
  • Power and Politics in Organizations
  • Marketing Research
  • Information and Technology Based Marketing
  • Future of Information Technology
  • Innovation in Services and Business Models
  • New Business Development from a Corporate Perspective
  • Data Science and Data Strategy
  • Strategic Leadership
  • Business Model Innovation and Entrepreneurial Strategy
  • Presentation Design for Analytical Communications

Experiential Learning Opportunities in Consulting

Many of the Berkeley MBA applied innovation courses involve consulting and strategy, with students partnering with organizations large and small, corporate and nonprofit, domestic and international.

They have consulted on everything from leadership succession planning for a university in Ghana to PG&E programs that leverage behavioral changes in the use of electricity to shopping bag initiatives for Target and an expansion strategy for the SF Brewers Guild.

Experiential consulting courses include:

See the full list of Berkeley MBA experiential learning opportunities

Faculty Spotlight

Cameron Anderson is a professor of organizational behavior and an expert on topics related to power, status, influence, negotiations, and team dynamics. He teaches courses on power and politics in organizations and negotiations and conflict resolution.

Professor Jennifer Chatman teaches, researches, and consults on leveraging organizational culture, leading change, and managing complex teams. She teaches Extreme Leadership: Patagonia and the Andes.

Associate Professor Ned Augenblick teaches the core strategy course and focuses his research on the theoretical and empirical analysis of online markets, studying, for example Amazon's Mechanical Turk.  

Gregory La Blanc is a member of the professional faculty who brings his interest in data and analytics strategy and business model innovation into the classroom in courses such as Data Science and Data Strategy and Data and Decisions.

Related Research Centers

The Fisher Center for Business Analytics accelerates the diffusion and adoption of analytics throughout all aspects of business and management.

The Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation is a worldwide ecosystem of Open Innovation experts, practitioners, firms, and academics.

Consulting Co-Curriculars

The Haas Consulting Club provides members with the resources, training, and connections that will help them explore the consulting space and assist them with finding a job in the consulting industry. The club organizes an industry overview elective, consulting panels, and networking firm nights, and helps with consulting applications and interviews, including extensive case interview practice.

The General Management & Leadership Club works to grow career opportunities for MBA students in general management, strategy, business development, and leadership/rotational development programs. The club organizes leadership spotlights, career treks, and workshops on such topics as six sigma and leadership presence.

The Innovation Design Club equips students with a design-thinking toolkit and understanding of how and when to apply it. The club organizes a speaker series featuring experts from companies such as Google Ventures and IDEO, an Innovation Lab elective and skill-building workshops, and career treks to firms such as FuseProject and Pixar Studios.

The Data Science Club helps develop data-savvy leaders and organizes: career treks; skill-building workshops on topics such as Python, SQL, and Tableau; and a speaker series covering everything from data in healthcare to the future of ecommerce and big data.

Support for Consulting and Strategy Careers

Top hiring firms in consulting for the Berkeley MBA class of 2019 included Bain & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte, EY-Parthenon, LEK, McKinsey & Company, and PwC.

Students interested in consulting find support from the Career Management Group’s consulting relationship manager and from two industry specialists, who share their knowledge of getting hired for and working in consulting. Industry specialists can help with industry-targeted resumes and case prep, peer advisors share insights on internship hiring, and fellow students support each other in preparing for case interviews.

Farah Dilber, MBA 17

Farah Dilber

MBA 17

Associate
McKinsey & Company

"Tactically, the Haas Consulting Club and Applied Frameworks for Consulting speaker series provided me with training and tools to prepare for consulting case interviews, and the Career Management Group did a fantastic job of providing access to a wide swath of firms."