EM promotion
Improve your market value. Get better exit opportunities.
For MBB Experienced Hires
Improve Your Performance to Secure EM Promotion
Stop learning by painful trial and error
Full-support coaching program that combines personalized coaching, practical exercises, individual mentorship, and a community of 100+ MBB consultants
Book a Free Consultation
1-1 discussion about your situation and challenges
Coach consultants from these firms:
Zero State: This is a Tough Job
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Crazy Working Hours
“I work so hard, but I still don’t know if I’m performing well or getting any better. I never do anything right. Partners take my work for granted.”
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Vague Feedback
“I keep hearing ‘be more structured’ and ‘take more ownership.’ But I don't know what I am supposed to do differently.”
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Lack of Coaching
“Managers and partners don’t have time for coaching. They’re busy with their own problems. I am supposed to figure it out on my own.”
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Staffing is Confusing
“I don’t understand how staffing works, what my options are or how to influence it. I just get told what I’m staffed on.”
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Lack of Confidence
“My confidence is completely destroyed. I am not sure if I am actually cut out for this job. I feel I am not smart enough.”
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Fear of Being Fired
“Honestly, I’m worried about my next review. I have no idea how it’s going to go. Right now, I just don’t want to get fired.”
Hero State: What Success Looks Like
High performance
Get access to better projects, topics, clients, and leaders.
Stronger confidence
Get rid of toxic stress and anxiety. Build trust in your own abilities.
Leadership support
Build partners' trust. Secure their support and sponsorship.
Zero to Hero Transformation
To achieve your transformation, you must go through different stages that require different things from you.
Stabilize
Stop the Bleeding
First, you will fix the consulting basics and stop making damaging mistakes.
That's how you stop the negative flywheel spinning and stabilize your performance.
Accelerate
Build Momentum
Second, you will learn to win at this job and impress your partners.
That's how you stand out, build leadership trust, and boost your performance.
Outperform
Achieve Consistency
Third, you will learn advanced problem-solving and communication skills.
That's how you build consistency in your high performance.
I Joined McKinsey at 34
My first two years were difficult. I worked really hard. I made millions of mistakes. My progress was very slow.
Later, I found MY people who helped me turn things around: a distinctive BA who taught me his consulting playbook, and a partner who showed me how to navigate relationships and the firm’s unspoken rules.
As a result, I worked at McKinsey for 9 years, in more than 10 countries across 4 continents. I left McKinsey as an Associate Partner.
In 2024, I left McKinsey to build a coaching program for MBB consultants. Since then, I have coached more than 100+ MBB consultants from 20+ countries.
Coaching Approach
Highly Practical Approach
Work on real consulting problems and situations. Turn advice into concrete changes in how you solve problems, deliver work and manage your career.
High-Touch Mentorship
Work directly with me. Get personal guidance from someone who knows your strengths, development needs and the challenges you face.
Full Journey Support
Get support as your priorities evolve. Get help to stabilize, build momentum and prepare for greater responsibilities.
Self-Paced Program
Work through the learning and exercises at a pace that fits your workload and development needs.
Fully Confidential
Speak openly about difficult work situations and career concerns. Your coaching conversations and personal circumstances stay private.
Program Structure
Four components to build your consulting skills and navigate your career at MBB.
Playbook
Structured video lessons on practical consulting methods, performance expectations and career management.
Exercises
Realistic consulting problems with precise feedback, benchmarking, and calibration of your performance.
Community
Learn from other MBB consultants through group calls, shared best practices, common mistakes, and outputs.
Mentorship
Get 1-1 guidance from Rustem on your challenges, questions, staffing situations, and critical career decisions.
- 10+ hours of video lessons
- 10+ slide exercises
- 350+ interactive exercises
- 100+ MBB consultants
Take the next step toward EM promotion
Let’s discuss your situation, your goals and how coaching can help you get there.
Playbook Curriculum
1
Stop the Productivity Bleeding
5 lessons
- Accept Tasks Well
- Deliverables-Driven Approach
- Create Great Slides
- How to Write Well
- Protect your productivity
2
Build Leadership Trust
7 lessons
- Leadership Exposure
- Workstream Management
- Proactive Communication
- Scope Management
- Speak Up in Leadership Meetings
- Manage Toxic Leadership
- Being Standalone
3
Manage Your Journey
4 lessons
- Manage Your Journey
- Performance Review
- Staffing
- Networking and Sponsorship
4
Impactful Problem-Solving
5 lessons
- Problem Structuring
- Critical Thinking
- Find Unique Insights
- Create Great Documents
- Storylining
Interactive Exercises
Learn and practice critical consulting skills by completing bite-sized, interactive practical exercises (350+ reps). You can try two sample exercises to experience how the program works before you join.
Top-Down CommunicationLead with the answer, structure the supporting logic, and tailor the message to partners, clients, and other senior audiences.
Why start here?
Your communication is visible in every update, email, and meeting. If strong analysis is buried under process and detail, partners may miss it. Top-down communication makes the improvement easier to notice in day-to-day work.
What you do
Read a realistic consulting situation, then rewrite the original communication so the message is clear, direct, and appropriate for the audience.
What you receive
AI-assisted feedback on Structure and Context, including what you got right, what you missed, a best answer, and the key principle.
You practice giving concise elevator updates, rewriting unclear emails, adapting your message for difficult audiences, and defending your recommendation when challenged.
Try Top-Down CommsImplicit AssumptionsDetect the hidden assumptions that silently make or break recommendations and business arguments.
Why this matters
Recommendations often depend on unstated premises. If one of those assumptions is wrong, sound-looking logic can still collapse when a partner challenges it.
What you do
Read a realistic business argument, identify the hidden assumption it depends on, and stress-test the conditions that would make it wrong.
What you receive
AI-assisted feedback on Detection, Reasoning, and Application, including what you got right, what you missed, and the hidden assumption.
3 scenarios in the sample exercise: each one asks you to find and stress-test the unstated premise behind a realistic business argument.
Try Implicit AssumptionsMore Interactive Exercises
Formatting Sins
Train your eye to spot the visual mistakes that make slides look less professional and harder to read.
Analytical Challenges
Work through realistic data questions and learn to turn analysis into useful consulting insight.
Structuring Diagnosis
Learn to evaluate whether a structure is actually useful, complete, and sharp enough for real client work.
Issue Analysis
Break ambiguous business problems into the drivers, hypotheses, and analyses that matter most.
Structuring Build
Build better structures from scratch across business situations, not just memorize templates.
Storylining
Turn analysis into a clear storyline with a logical flow, sharp message, and useful recommendations.
Logical Reasoning
Find flaws in business arguments and identify where the logic does not support the conclusion.
Problem Reframes
Practice reframing messy problems so you can find more useful angles and better solution paths.
FAQ
How much time commitment does the program require?
The program is designed specifically for busy consultants.
You can get significant results by just investing a couple of hours per week. If you want faster and more impressive results, you can invest more time. It will really depend on your situation, ambition, and availability.
It’s entirely self-paced. There will be no deadlines or expiration dates imposed on you. You will move at a speed that is comfortable for you.
How long is the program?
Active learning takes 12-15 weeks, which is the time it takes to complete all practical exercises. The bulk of learning happens by doing practical exercises.
If you need more time to do that, no worries. There will be no time limitation.
You will have lifetime access to the program, and all future updates and improvements will be available at no additional cost. The program will grow with consultants and adapt to their new challenges.
What are the practical exercises?
Practical exercises are real-life tasks you typically face in MBB consulting.
Each exercise is designed to help you practice specific problem-solving skills, such as research, analytics, structuring, storylining, modeling, etc.
There are 10 practical exercises you will complete in the program.
On average, each exercise takes 1-2 weeks to complete, so the full journey will take 12-15 weeks.
How often do we interact?
There are different types of interactions in the program.
We will have 1-1 calls. These are mostly dedicated to working on practical exercises and improving various critical skills like accepting tasks, presenting outputs, and discussing feedback and calibration.
Every exercise will require us to have 2 calls: the first for accepting the task, and the second for me to provide feedback. The frequency of these calls will really depend on your progression through the exercises.
Also, you will have 1-1 mentorship calls to discuss any of your sensitive questions. These calls happen on demand when you really need help.
I don’t like to impose any formal constraints on how many calls you can have. My main focus is on making you successful, whatever it takes. But all my current students use it reasonably when they really need help.
Additionally, there are group calls that happen weekly. On these calls, you will meet other program members, and we will discuss any questions you have.
Do you work with non-MBB consultants?
Yes, sometimes I make exceptions and enroll non-MBB consultants. They are mostly from other strategy consulting firms like Roland Berger, Oliver Wyman, or Kearney.
I always check if there is a good fit for consultants in terms of their career journey, challenges, and ambitions.
The reason I focus on helping mostly MBB consultants is because that's what I know very well. That's why I can help you with practical and actionable advice.
The program is specifically tailored for MBB firms in terms of their ways of working, processes, and culture.
When is the best time to join?
The best time to join the program is when your tenure is around 6-12 months.
By that time, you've already stabilized and learned the basics. But you also haven't damaged your reputation beyond recovery.
Around this time, you start realizing that this profession is more complex than you thought.
Also, this is the perfect time when you can push your performance from Good to Great.
Later, it will be extremely hard to change things when they go south. Don't wait. It's better to be safe than sorry.
I also often enroll consultants with a tenure of 12-18 months. But they often have different objectives.
They start preparing for a manager promotion. They feel that their current pace of development won't get them over that important threshold.
That is why they want to radically improve their chances of success through my coaching program.
Want to Talk?
We will discuss your unique situation, challenges, and career aspirations. You can ask any pressing questions you have.
Together we determine if my coaching program is a great fit for you.