Career-In Consulting with Raul Galamba, Chairman of the Board of CTT Portugal and Director Emeritus for McKinsey

Posted by The Lisbon MBA on 14 May, 2021 4:25 pm

Raul Galamba was our guest at the Career-In Consulting session. Raul is currently Chairman of the Board of CTT Portugal and executive board member for various companies in Portugal and Spain. Between 1990 and 2017 he worked at McKinsey, where he was Senior Partner for Financial institutions, Managing Partner for Iberia, Managing Partner for Global Risk Management and Global Executive Board Member among other roles. Since 2017 he is Director Emeritus for McKinsey.

 

Raul Galamba started the session by exploring trends in the evolution of consultancy companies. One of the most interesting trends is how they are evolving from a management science field, based on people talent, to engineering science field, based on people talent and assets, such as digital and applications, which leverage the work they do.

 

According to Raul “although consulting has been around for a long time, it is still a growing field, it can easily grow double in digits year on year, due to the intrinsic complexity of organizations, variation across markets and new fields that create opportunities for consulting. Companies that tend to use consultant firms are large and are present in different countries, so global demand is driving a lot of scale on consultancy”. In addition, Raul highlighted that “the talent market is also a force for growth as the allure of the global value proposition on the side of the firms that allow people to be in a group together with other talented people and presents opportunities for development, is also especially important to attract talent.”

 

A lot of emphasis was given to putting the client at the center of everything the consultant does. “A consultant is very exposed to the relationship especially in a mission critical project, where they will have to make sure that they have the resources or the knowledge to deliver on the customer’s expectations to build trust which is fundamental to retain the client” Raul insisted.

 

Being a bit provocative, Raul said that “consultants are not always overworked. Although there is always a lot of work to do, depending on your intrinsic motivation, you may feel that your job is only intense and gratifying. It’s a choice you have to make because interesting jobs, great development and great experiences come with more commitment. Travelling may add to the burden, but also to the excitement. Being organized is a good competency to help handling the pace.”

 

Typical consultants are very rounded as he/she will have a set of competencies such as problem solving, problem structuring, analytics, ability to synthesize, creativity and, on the soft skills side, empathy, communication, team player and entrepreneurial spirit. But over the past ten years the work with analytics, data and risk increased a lot so different careers within the consultant companies have appeared that may require less soft skills. However, for Raul “a consultant will still need to be a team player as the consultant survival cell is the team, be oriented to working in projects and will still need to love to serve their customer”.

 

“As a consultant one will always be in the shadow as the spotlight is reserved to the client, therefore, if one prefers to be in the lead, consultancy may not be the right profession for him/her”, he advised the students. For those that consultancy makes sense to, progression can be very fast and low risk as it is easier to become partner in consultancy than to be a CEO in a large company because the latter is a game for only a few.

 

Raul ended the session with an inspirational moto “a ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are made for” and incentivizing the students to have a learning mindset even after the end of the MBA program.

 

Career-In is an initiative by the Lisbon MBA Católica|Nova’s Career Management Center that offers students the opportunity to deepen their knowledge about different sectors, expand their perspectives on role responsibilities and career journeys, and to build professional networks with senior executives.