Building a base of skills to tackle a variety of problems

Nick Ford, Associate Consultant, UK

Education: Durham University
BSc, Natural Sciences

Through my degree studying maths and physics, and a year of work in consulting, I have always found myself searching for opportunities to learn from people across a broad variety of fields so that I can build the best possible base of skills. While at university, I identified that working in strategy would be the best opportunity for me to meet these criteria, so started looking at various strategy firms.  

When I found Eden McCallum I realised that it offered exactly what I was looking for at the start of my career; the ability to work so closely with incredibly experienced professionals meaning I would be able to develop skills and consistently push myself to keep growing. This chance to work directly with some of the most experienced consultants, combined with the fact that I would have the opportunity to work across a vast range of industries on a wide variety projects building different skills was very attractive to me. 

In my first year working at Eden McCallum, I have had fantastic chances to realise this goal, having worked on 8 projects across a range of industries, and just as importantly tackling a range of different problems with different teams. This has given me a great foundation of skills, that I hope will equip me well to continue to stretch myself with future projects. 

One of the benefits of Eden McCallum’s small size is that there isn’t pressure to specialise as an analyst – in my first year I’ve been involved in growth projects into new geographiesdeveloping business cases for new products, cost cutting exercises, NGO work and much more, and I anticipate this breadth of work to continue. For me this is the most exciting part of the job – taking the skills I’ve built on all of my projects to date, working out how I can apply them to the next project as well as finding what new skills I can learn. 

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