My stories

Question 1

Tell me why you want this job and why you think you’d be good at it.

Answer 1

Lead with my unique combination of skills, then get to why I’m excited for the big picture, where I’ve been and where I want to go.

Question 2

Tell me about a time when you managed a complex project and made it simple.

Answer 2

1. Revenue planning - communication to different audiences
2. Westpac Marketing - running cross-functional workshops and utilizing my teammates to answer different questions
3. AlphaSights - taught others how to do this

Question 3

Tell me about a time when you structured and implemented initiatives with a sales team.

Answer 3

(AlphaSights improving wallet share in first 2 days, AlphaSights launching surveys as a product offering, AlphaSights cross-office project sharing, EY top 40 account review analysis)


Question 4

Tell me about a time when you led a complex strategic and operational initiative.

Answer 4

(Revenue planning, Cross-office collaboration for AlphaSights, Westpac Marketing)

Question 5

Tell me about a time when you had to translate data and trends into powerful strategies and messaging.

Answer 5

Westpac sales funnel, Westpac Marketing, AlphaSights prioritising speed in first 2 hours of project, EY top 40 account review analysis)

Question 6

Tell me about a time you sized an opportunity and prioritised solutions.

Answer 6

(Westpac sales funnel analysis, AlphaSights cross-office collaboration)


Question 7

Tell me about a time when you had to use your influencing skills to accomplish something.

Answer 7

(Westpac Marketing, Presenting new revenue planning process to ELT, Revenue planning and getting all SLs on board with our plan)


Question 8

Tell me about a time when you had to allocate resources to a business initiative.

Answer 8

(Westpac marketing workshops, EY revenue planning - running my own team, AlphaSights - reshuffling BoB ownership within my team)

Question 9

Tell me about a time when you had to create an operating model to drive forward a business initiative.

Answer 9

(AlphaSights 24-hour op model to capture revenue on cross-office projects, AlphaSights op model to align by industry, EY new revenue planning op model that my boss and I redesigned, EY new op model for Deputy CEO to present to ELT for new demand-led op model)


Question 10

Tell me about a time when you had to establish product priorities.

Answer 10

(Westpac Marketing - both dashboards, AlphaSights project angles)

Question 11

Tell me about a time when you had to develop core strategic business planning processes (e.g. product priorities, resource allocation, operating models, etc.). (

Answer 11

Westpac Marketing for product priorities, AlphaSights team management and BT Intelligent Ops for resource allocation, AlphaSights for operating models - both McKinsey business unit and 24-hour op model for global projects)


Question 12

Tell me about a time when you had to develop assessments and identify insights on opportunities.

Answer 12

(Westpac Marketing - creating benchmarks for campaigns, Westpac sales funnel dashboard - analysing sales channel sources and channel conversion across brands, SIRA - working with actuaries to develop benchmarks for success on RTW insurer performance data, EY top 40 account reviews and analysis)


Question 13

Tell me about a time when you had to recommend, develop and operationalise solution strategies and/or a GTM approach (e.g. segmentation, coverage models, lead lists, operational excellence)?

Answer 13

(AlphaSights client segmentation framework - BCG growth share matrix, AlphaSights new McKinsey operating model for optimal client coverage, Westpac Marketing, SIRA and ANZ on operational excellence)


Question 14

Tell me about a time when you had to solve an ambiguous problem. Bonus points for lots of stakeholders and competing objectives while also working with a sales function.

Answer 14

(Westpac Marketing - needing to figure out how to run workshops on my first project, Intelligent Ops - needing to ID cost cutting areas without much guidance, First time running revenue planning?)


Question 15

Tell me about a time when you used data to create insights that you explained to different audiences in different ways (ideally Sales audiences).

Answer 15

(AlphaSights sales initiative to increase speed early in projects, Westpac Marketing dashboard - different insights at different levels that folded into each other, Westpac Sales dashboard maybe - working across function, EY top 40 account reviews analysis)


Question 16

Tell me about a time when a project didn’t go according to plan. How did you handle it?

Answer 16

(David Baboolall story with AlphaSights, EY Intelligent Ops - late access to data, too understaffed to meet client demands in such a short time frame, EY ITM - building out sales materials for Nexus solution but didn’t fully understand my responsibilities)


Question 17

Tell me about a time when you had to manage complex stakeholders.

Answer 17

Westpac Marketing (e.g. Rob Davies), EY Revenue Planning (e.g. Tony Simkins)

Question 18

• Tell me about a time when you had to prioritise one project over another. What variables did you consider there?

Answer 18

• Most EY stuff I was only on one project at a time, but would have internal initiatives. It was clear you always prioritised client work though.
  
  • AlphaSights - David B project is a good example here.
    
    • Used data to make this decision - he hadn’t spent a ton of $ with us yet, but we always had high NPS scores, high share of wallet (just low $ projects) and he gave us lots of client referrals which had resulted in more $ for us.

Question 19

• Tell me about a time when you had to navigate through an ambiguous situation. How did you do it?


Answer 19

Westpac Marketing - running 12 client workshops on my first project

Question 20

Tell me about a time when you used data to solve a problem.

Answer 20

Westpac Marketing - convincing Marketing org of the value of consultants by presenting our insights dashboard.

Coaching AlphaSights Associates using pipeline data to detect development areas for coaching.

Question 21

Tell me about a time when you had to make a difficult decision in a leadership role.

Answer 21

Putting Rod on a PIP

Question 22

Tell me about a time you worked in a team.

Answer 22

Revenue planning. Westpac Marketing workshops. Ran my own team at AlphaSights and was part of the leadership team to make account decisions.

Question 23

Tell me about a time you failed. What did you learn from it?

Answer 23

Not giving direct feedback to Christian Anderson.

Getting bad feedback on the Westpac ITM project where I needed to make GTM materials and didn’t understand my role.

Question 24

Greatest weakness?

Answer 24

I need to develop a really good big picture understanding of how things work before I can make a big impact somewhere. Once I know how the puzzle pieces all fit together, I tend to make a really big impact. But other people are better at just diving in with no context, which is tough for me.

If they need another one, I could talk about anxiety.

Question 25

Greatest professional win? Or a time I overcame a challenge?

Answer 25

Westpac marketing project, given all my personal circumstances and hurdles.

Question 26

Greatest strengths and an example of that?

Answer 26

Creating clarity out of complexity. My boss has actually taken busy work off of my plate so I can have more time to advise on difficult problems.

E.g. ELT deck for Jenelle with new EY Op Model. Breaking down rev planning and redesigning the process.

Question 27

Tell me about a time when you set a goal and accomplished it.

Answer 27

Cornell (first generation uni grad). Moving to Australia (turning down promotion, quitting, moving here with nothing). Getting a job in management consulting (had been a goal of mine for years).

Question 28

Tell me about a time when you identified your shortcomings on a project and how did you reach an outcome that was still best for your client?

Answer 28

Assigning roles to everyone before my Westpac marketing workshops. This could also work for resource allocation to achieve a project outcome.

Question 29

Tell me about an ambiguous project that you had to work on and how you approached it.

Answer 29

1. AS Cross-office collaboration initiative
2. Westpac Marketing workshops
3. Intelligent Ops

Situation: We were working with a large Australian wealth manager as they were about to make a big tech transformation to a new customer-facing investment management platform. They knew that several of their customer service processes were running very inefficiently and were worried that these inefficiencies would cost them even more money post-tech transformation.

Task: They asked my team and I to conduct a diagnostic and find the biggest problem areas, identify solutions, size the benefits and build an implementation roadmap for them.

The problem, however, is that we were under the impression that upon walking onto the client site, they would have some hypotheses around what needed to be fixed and would also have a lot more data and information available for us than they did.

Approach:
Needed to significantly change our project plan because we were starting from a more challenge place than we expected to. We worked backwards from the outputs we needed to achieve in 12 weeks, recognised the inputs that would be required for that and remade our project plan.

1. Ask for all the data they did have so we could analyse it ourselves.
2. Schedule loads of stakeholder interviews and conduct them sooner than we’d anticipated so we could start to pair the quantitative with the qualitative.
3. Use inputs from stakeholder interviews to create process maps (which we thought they would have) so we could evaluate them and develop hypotheses.
4. Validate hypotheses with the clients.
5. Redesign processes (manual and automation), sizing benefits and creating implementation roadmap.

Result: We were met with a lot of resistance because some of our automation solutions meant new tech implementations for the IT team, as well as either redundancies or re-skilling for some customer service employees. But, ultimately we found $2.8m of cost savings and delivered the most successful of 3 work streams on the project.

Question 30

Tell me why you think you’re a good fit for this role.

Answer 30

X

Question 31

Tell me about a time when you used your communication and decisions making skills to mobilize others.

Answer 31

Westpac marketing workshops (giving everyone individual roles.

Revenue planning (also giving everyone roles)

Question 32

Share how you work individually and on a team, how you help others, how you navigate ambiguity and how you push yourself to grow outside of your comfort zone.

Answer 32

Have several examples of different aspects here. These will come out in different questions in the interview.