Brandon Jacobs

HEC Montréal

“A surf-loving, football-fanatic Australian political adviser now living and working in Montreal.”

Hometown: Sydney, Australia

Fun Fact About Yourself: I’m a Chelsea FC fan so after my undergraduate degree I moved to London and worked at the stadium for a year.

Undergraduate School and Major: Macquarie University – Politics and Public Policy

Most Recent Employer and Job Title:  Senior Adviser – Minister for Industry, Energy and Resources

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Being part of the team that designed and implemented the $30 billion policy privatizing the New South Wales government-owned electricity networks.

What quality best describes the MBA classmates you’ve met so far and why? Definitely their eagerness.  From day one the whole cohort has been ridiculously motivated.  It pushes you to work hard just to keep up with the pack!

What club or activity are you looking most forward to in business school?  Definitely the case competitions.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point in your career?  Looking for a career shift into the corporate sector, principally management consulting.

How did you decide if an MBA was worth the investment?  When considering where I am in my career and what is of greatest value to me at this point, I decided that the skills and opportunities that the MBA would provide were greater now and in the long-run than the cost of the degree in both money and time.

What other MBA programs did you apply to?  McGill, the London Business School, and LSE.

How did you determine your fit at various schools? My key concerns were the timing and duration of the program, the upfront cost, and the name recognition in their respective markets and abroad. I spent a lot of time researching online. In the end, the most useful insight I received was from speaking to alumni from the different schools. Their feedback gave me a clear idea on the value of the degree, the culture of the schools, and how they are viewed by employers. This helped me to narrow down what really mattered most to me and which school offered the best fit for where I saw myself going.

What was your defining moment and how did it shape who you are? I’d have to say it was starting out as a young political staffer and having to advise government ministers on policy areas where I wasn’t an expert.  Knowing that whatever recommendations I made would have a very tangible (and very expensive) impact was a sobering thought. This meant that I had to very quickly adapt and grow in the role.

What do you plan to do after you graduate? I’m aiming to move into management consulting. It shares a lot of similarities with being a political adviser and offers a lot of range and differentiation in the industries I can work in.

Where do you see yourself in five years?  My family and I are really settled in Montreal now, so ideally I’d like to be here working at a management consulting firm or working in-house on strategy and business development for an international company.