Mike Mascarenhas

Consultant Bio

Mike has over a decade of experience in the consulting industry, including roles at PwC, Strategy&, and, most recently, Boston Consulting Group. He earned his undergraduate degree in Applied Economics and Management from Cornell University, and he holds his own MBA from IESE Business School in Barcelona.

Mike’s consulting work first intersected with MBA admissions when he helped to build the recruitment processes for IESE. Mike would go on to run the Spanish MBA and Masters recruitment efforts for BCG, and in the process, help MBA graduates from virtually every top business school enter the consulting industry.

As a result, Mike understands the demands of the post-MBA career transition and the nuanced differences between top programs—having quite literally worked with all of them from inside and out!

I need to tell a great story in my MBA applications, and I need to be realistic about my MBA goals.

While working at IESE Business School, Mike supported both the Career Development Center and admissions teams. He has over 2,000 hours of experience coaching and mentoring MBA perspectives and students, with a special focus on:

– Storytelling for applicants from both non-traditional backgrounds and from over-represented cohorts
– Helping students break into consulting, even if they began their preparation at a later stage
– Working within family business requirements and enabling students to target roles that make an outsized impact

I want a coach who brings energy and enthusiasm to every call.

Mike brings a blend of elite coaching practices and high energy to the admissions consulting process.

From late nights as a consultant for the private equity and banking industries to long conversations about career goals as an Associate Director at IESE, the through line in Mike’s career has been a deep and lasting passion for collaborating with people.

He also blends leadership coaching practices into his mentorship—he is an ICF-certified Associate Certified Coach, with over 300 hours of leadership development coaching training and experience.

I want a coach whose perspective is as diverse as my own.

Mike embodies the small-town kid with a sense of adventure: he was born and raised in Poughkeepsie, New York, but has lived outside the US for 10 years. He loves working with clients who share his thirst and passion for new experiences, whether they choose to attend business school in the US or Europe.

Moreover, Mike has dedicated part of his career to supporting LGBTQ+ initiatives. Most recently, he was one of the founders of the BCG Diversity Fellowships, aimed at supporting talent of all diverse persuasions to understand how they can belong in a company like BCG.

Mike loves working with people who bring these diverse perspectives to the admissions process and helps shape those perspectives into a compelling narrative that any business school can appreciate.

Company Information

If you want to do everything you can to win admission to a top MBA program, and you are ready to do the hard work involved in building your profile and creating great applications, Menlo Coaching can help. We have high standards and will push you hard to uncover every detail that will help you to find your voice and tell your story in the most compelling way possible.

You will never have a blind spot when you work with us. We visit campuses, interview admissions directors (see our blog), and employ a network of students to give us candid feedback about their MBA programs. We know the things that aren’t always discussed openly, like how schools manage their rankings, the side channels through which schools receive feedback on applicants, and more.

Our services combine unlimited 1:1 coaching with a self-paced curriculum that allows you to learn the basics in a way that fits your incredibly busy schedule. We also bring you together with other applicants to build your MBA network and keep your motivation high throughout the process.

To ensure the highest quality of service, we accept only a limited number of clients each year so that we can keep a low ratio of clients to coaches. Contact us as soon as you have committed to pursue an MBA and want to maximize your odds of acceptance.

Menu of Services and Associated Costs

We support applicants across all stages of an MBA application: planning your career goals, selecting schools that will help you achieve those goals, networking effectively with students, staff and alumni, identifying your personal story, and telling it across the many essays, application forms, resumes, and recommendations. Our structured approach means that you’ll always know the answer to the question “What should I be doing NOW to improve my odds of acceptance?”

Our interview preparation combines mock interviews, tailored to each school’s format, with communications training provided by former professional actors. You’ll overcome your interview nerves and will feel confident, authentic and relaxed on the day of the interview.

Even after the interview, we work with you to negotiate your merit-based aid. Although we cannot promise an award for any particular candidate, our clients have received millions of dollars of additional awards based directly on our negotiating strategies.

Finally, we love helping future-year applicants to build their MBA profiles through our “Early Birds” program because taking the right steps now will give you an edge in the competitive application process later.

Location: Barcelona Spain

Email: michael@menlocoaching.com

Website: http://menlocoaching.com/