P&Q’s 2026 Best in Class: INSEAD, Consulting

Last year, 50% of INSEAD MBA grads entered management consulting. In fact, consulting firms ranked as the Top 6 consumers of INSEAD talent in 2025, with McKinsey, Bain, and BCG hiring 211 graduates alone. The year before, the percentage was 55%, with the number hitting 61% in 2023.

That begs the question: Do MBA students flock to INSEAD because it boasts deep connections to consulting – or do employers load up on INSEAD talent for their eclectic capabilities and global mindset?

Call it a bit of both. In one sense, INSEAD acts as a finishing school for consulting. In 2025, 27% of all INSEAD grads were sponsored by consulting firms – a powerful endorsement of the program’s value in the marketplace. Contrast that with the career changers – with 65% of the Class of 2025 seeking to change sector, function, or country. In that same class, among corporate staffers, a third hoped to make the leap into consulting. That’s more than financial services and technology combined, further testament to why INSEAD is a destination school for consulting.

Let’s not forget INSEAD’s deep consulting roots. According to Stephen Ponce, INSEAD’s global consulting director, the school boasts over 700 alumni currently working at McKinsey & Company. In September, Benjamin Stevenin, co-founder of Deans Insight, pegs the number of INSEAD grads who’ve worked for McKinsey at 3,112 – more than double the combined total from London Business School and HEC Paris. By the same token, Stevenin found that a combined 3,601 INSEAD alumni have spent time at either BCG or Bain.

Add to that, in 2024, Ponce estimated that INSEAD grads comprised 300 partners in the MBB. Translation: INSEAD students can draw from a deep pool of influential alumni for consulting know-how and connections.

DEEPLY INTERNATIONAL…JUST LIKE TOP-TIER CONSULTING FIRMS

That data alone would be enough for INSEAD to claim Poets&Quants’ Best in Class Award for Consulting in 2026. However, those numbers are rooted in something far deeper: a mix of international opportunities, academic programming, intensive coaching, and alumni support that gives INSEAD graduates a decided advantage in management consulting hiring across the globe.

Among INSEAD alumni, you’ll find Levin Shu, a 2025 graduate who joined Accenture Strategy’s Hong Kong office as a team lead. At INSEAD, he was part of the team that claimed 1st place in INSEAD’s famed Master Strategist Day and earned the Hugo van Berckel Award. At graduation, he was a white-hot candidate among employers, receiving eight offers across four continents. In an October interview with P&Q, supplemented by written responses, Shu points to a series of advantages unique to INSEAD in consulting.

That starts with the program’s compressed structure and cosmopolitan nature. Lasting one year, the INSEAD MBA is fast-paced and intense. It has sometimes been described as CEO prep due to its structure requiring student to master time management and priority setting as much as models and strategy. Even more, INSEAD immerses students in a truly international environment, as they encounter classmates from 80-110 nationalities. In the process, they are exposed – evert day – to the language, customs, and best business practices after every region worldwide. Call it a year-long trip around the world, one that embeds the cultural awareness and flexibility needed to manage international teams and clients.

Those are coveted soft skills for far-flung consulting enterprises, with McKinsey alone housing over 130 offices across 65 countries. At INSEAD, students can study in Fontainebleau (France), Singapore, Abu Dhabi, and San Francisco. Levin Shu himself attended every campus except San Francisco. During a Period Three exchange at INSEAD’s Abu Dhabi campus, Shu studied alongside 49 classmates from 30 nationalities and five continents. Here, he completed courses like Business In The Middle East, where he took a deep dive into the region’s history, industries, and business culture, completing a project on the United Arab Emirates talent pipeline in the process. Such experiences opened doors for Shu during recruiting.

“The Abu Dhabi campus served as a strategic gateway to the Middle East’s business ecosystem,” he tells P&Q. “By immersing myself in the local market, I successfully converted his insights into a full-time engagement manager offer at a global consulting firm in Dubai. This demonstrates how INSEAD structurally empowers students to pivot their careers globally in real time.”

Shu’s global experience also opened doors for him at Accenture Strategy in staffing. “Fresh out of my MBA, my very first project proved this global readiness. Accenture Strategy immediately sent me from Hong Kong to Italy to work on a high-stakes, cross-border global project as the sole employee selected across the entire Asia-Pacific region.”

ALUMNI TO THE RESCUE

As a whole, INSEAD alumni number over 75,000 members across over 180 countries. And Shu tapped into this network like few others. In one case, an alumni referral led to an interview process that ultimately yielded a job offer in Hong Kong. Similarly, Shu contacted alumni in the industries and geographies he coveted. In particular, he reached out to INSEAD sponsors, who could be found at every firm he targeted, which further widened his safety net. Shu also participated in consulting-related events across the three campuses he attended, deepening his network in the process.

In the end, it was the advice of alumni – and the inside information they shared – that made the biggest difference for Shu. “These dedicated information and networking sessions offer students a gateway into hiring requirements, shedding light on the exact domain experience and skill sets valued by specific geographic offices or practice areas.”

As a student, Shu was part of the INSEAD Consulting Club. Here, he would review case books with case partners and conduct mock interviews with teammates. Such experiences were valuable, Shu confirms. After all, his cohort “featured a high density of ex-consultants and sponsored students from premier global consulting firms.” However, partnering with alumni took it to a higher level,” Shu explains.

“They really helped me with mock cases because our batchmates are not consultants – they have not sat on the other side of the table. So alumni provided a very fresh set of perspectives when mocking cases.”

INSEAD alumni also passed along their day-to-day activities, which tipped Shu off to what really matters in the field. More than that, Shu adds, they imparted a big-picture viewpoint that resonated with him.

“Cracking cases is one thing. But consulting is not a story. Just because you can nail cases and you got offers doesn’t mean you’ll be an exceptional case manager. They helped us to stand on the shoulder of giants. It was less about the cases and more about how to think and talk like consultants and how you can gain industry insights every day. They helped me really appreciate [what consulting is about].”

A COACHING CULTURE

Along with alumni, Shu also credits personalized career coaching and mentorship. At INSEAD, each student is paired with a career coach, with Shu noting that many of them have held c-suite or board positions.

“They bring deep, cross-industry insights spanning consulting, technology, and social enterprise to help students clarify career targets, overcome tactical obstacles, and deploy tailored job search strategies,” Shu tells P&Q.

As a student, Shu was assigned to Kevin Kan. A Chicago Booth MBA, Kan followed a diverse career path, which included stints in consulting, risk management, product development, general management, mediation, and executive coaching – not to mention roles as a partner in a search firm and a managing director for loyalty management operation. An independent consultant, Kan had also coached members of the c-suite. During their sessions, Shu found the most valuable takeaways involved Kan taking him into the c-suite to help him understand how leaders think. In doing so, Shu learned how to be more compelling and persuasive by speaking like someone from the c-suite.

“The most important things I got from him were soft skills,” Shu adds. “Less about things like Excel, PowerPoints, but how to do things like navigate complexities…He gave me a great foundation on what are the critical skill sets needed for consulting. Things like problem-solving, structured communication, creating compelling slides – I got that all that from him.”

MOST VALUABLE PROGRAMMING: BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY AND MASTER STRATEGIST DAY

The coursework also proved indispensable for Shu. Aside from 14 core courses, INSEAD MBAs can choose from 75-90 electives, which can deepen student knowledge in key areas. Among the most valuable courses, says Shu, was the Personal Leadership Development Program (PLDP for short), which helped him “hone advanced executive communication and cross-cultural competencies” through peer group feedback. Another was a Building GenAI Products and Businesses, which was taught by Professor Theodoros Evgeniou. A hands-on program focusing on AI commercialization and strategy, the course positioned Shu to join a recent AI engagement for a leading Canadian insurer.

“After completing the final project, I can talk about AI endlessly,” Shu cracks.

True to form, Shu lists Blue Ocean Strategy among his favorite consulting-related courses. It is an extension of the framework established by INSEAD faculty W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, where the marketplace is divided into red and blue oceans. The red ocean is a zero-sum space, where entrenched competitors fight fiercely in low-growth, low-margin markets. In contrast, the blue ocean are untapped markets where insurgents face fewer competitors and hurdles, enabling them to create demand and differentiate themselves. The framework resulted in Kim and Mauborgne to ranked among the world’s most influential business thinkers by Thinkers50 over the past two decades.

For Shu, Blue Ocean Strategy forced him to think outside the box about new ways to complete – a framework he used to help a large New Jersey retailer create new markets.

“INSEAD moves beyond theoretical case preparation. The institution focuses on delivering pragmatic strategic frameworks designed for today’s competitive landscape… By combining cutting-edge theory with real-world application, INSEAD trains candidates to deconstruct complex business problems through sophisticated lenses.”

However, Shu’s favorite course was the INSEAD Master Strategist Day (MSD). Here, nearly 30 INSEAD teams gather to solve a client issue. In his case, it was developing plans for a non-profit foundation that would enable them to perform 400,000 free eye surgeries annually. The issue forced Shu’s team to weigh both market demands and the foundation’s capabilities and funding to craft a solution. To conclude, finalists pitch their plans to the organization’s CEO, along with various senior executives and INSEAD faculty.

In many ways, says Shu, the MSD mimics the consulting process – be it research, problem-solving or presenting. All the while, students are applying the frameworks they learned in the classroom to achieve a tangible result.

“This intensive event challenges the entire MBA cohort to solve a massive, real-world strategic problem under intense time constraints,” Shu observes. Under the mentorship of Bain & Company consultants, students sharpen their analytical frameworks and pressure-test their ideas.”

Next Page: An Interview with Rhoda Yap, Executive Director of the Career Development Centre

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