Maddison Jacka

Location: Sydney, Australia

Hometown: Clare, South Australia

MBA program: Full-time MBA at AGSM @ UNSW, Sydney, Australia (Australian Graduate School of Management at the University of New South Wales)

Undergraduate school, major: ICHM, Bachelor of Business (Hospitality Management)

Focus of current case: Financial Services

What word best describes Bain and why?
Collaborative. Bain has a very collaborative culture, both internally and with our clients. We’re often working on teams with consultants from other global offices while being deeply intertwined with our clients and their business.

Why did you choose to work at Bain?
At first, it was the Private Equity expertise and being consistently rated as the #1 consulting firm in the world (according to the Vault Consulting 50). After evaluating various firms, it was mainly because of the people. All the Bain employees I spoke to struck me as super friendly, passionate, and overly supportive of each other’s personal success.

What did you love about the business school you attended?
AGSM @ UNSW is part of the Global Network for Advanced Management, which provided the opportunity to complete an international exchange or a global network week at a top 10 business school (although, unfortunately, my exchange was cancelled due to COVID). I also liked the elective subjects on offer, particularly the strategic consulting project which allowed me to work virtually on a go-to-market strategy for a start-up being built out of Google’s area 120 in San Francisco.

What’s the most valuable thing you’ve learned so far at Bain?
How to go one step further with every piece of analysis, in order to get better insights.

Which manager or peer has had the biggest impact on you at Bain, and how has he or she made you a better consultant? Benjamin Hughes, Luis Cobas, Pat Tehan, Anthony Ferraro, and Callen Baxter have all been invaluable at teaching me the Bain way of doing things as I develop my toolkit.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to work for Bain?
Invest time in your resume, cover letter, and case interview preparation, as they are more important than you think.

What has been your most meaningful career achievement and how did it make a difference?
I coordinated and led a room soft refurbishment at a luxury resort in Thailand, with the help of the global interior design and project management team out of Bali and London; it was super fun to bring together my interest in interior design, while visibly improving the overall guest experience.

A fun fact about me people would be surprised to know is…
I have a very atypical background for consulting. I am a country girl from a small rural town in South Australia, with a background in managing luxury hotel operations across Australia, Thailand and the United States.

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