What's your job about?
Port Jackson Partners (PJP) is in the business of helping other large businesses understand what they should be doing in the future. This involves analysing company data to understand the key factors driving their business and clearly communicating these factors so that the company can focus on further developing them.
My role involves analysing company data to better understand the businesses we work with and draw out interesting insights that will help inform the clients that we service.
People struggle to understand consulting because it is not very tangible. The value that consultants bring is clarity of thinking for company leaders to decisively lead their businesses and ensure their teams buy into their vision.
What's your background?
I grew up in a rural town in northern New York. However, it was freezing so my family moved to Australia for the sun. Since then, I’ve completed my primary, higher and tertiary education in Sydney. I ended up in consulting after my older brother asked me to send him my resume. He works in a large consulting firm that was looking for new consultants and I just happened to be finishing university at the same time so it all worked out.
The reason I got into consulting was because I have always been interested in businesses and getting under the hood to understand how they really work. I was involved in managing my band throughout high school which gave me a sense of how to manage finances. Thereafter, I studied commerce which exposed me to some of the technical skills required to understand large businesses. I also ran a few small businesses, which failed miserably, whilst at University. So given my interest in deepening my business knowledge, I jumped into consulting and have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and adventure of understanding businesses (though that sounds pretty geeky, it’s actually a lot of fun!).
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Yes, consulting is mainly about understanding different sets of information and summarising all of that information into a simple view of how a business should work. After that, it’s about clearly and effectively communicating that to business leaders so they can get their organisations to run to their full potential. So anyone who is curious, logical and a great communicator will generally do well in the industry.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
Being involved in work that has a major impact on our nation and getting to understand the process behind how ‘big’ decisions are made.
What are the limitations of your job?
At times consulting can be quite demanding, requiring a lot of energy for solving business challenges; this can involve weekend work and long hours working through spreadsheets full of numbers.
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