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A class that Joseph L. Raudabaugh, ’80, took during his second year at Chicago Booth stuck with him throughout his career. The marketing lab, taught by Harry Davis, Roger L. and Rachel M. Goetz Distinguished Service Professor of Creative Management, challenged students to consult on a client’s business plan. That experience helped start Raudabaugh’s rise to leadership at global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney, Inc., where he is now a partner. Thirty-two years later, Raudabaugh teamed up with Davis to bring A.T. Kearney’s consulting expertise to more than 40 Booth students through a replica of the class, called the Strategy Lab.
The 10-week class builds on A.T. Kearney’s relationship with Booth that includes aggressive recruiting, participation in professional development events, scholarships, sessions on resume writing and mock interviews. “Whenever we ask, they say yes,” said Julie Morton, Booth’s associate dean of career services and corporate relations
On Friday, September 9, the Booth Consulting Club (BCC) honored A.T. Kearney with the BCC Champion Award. John Yoshimura, global chief operating officer of A.T. Kearney, accepted the honor on behalf of the firm.
“This is an important relationship for Booth,” said Peter Petropoulos, a student in the Evening MBA Program and one of the club’s co-chairs. “It’s not just the individual alumni wanting to give back to the school, it’s A.T. Kearney as an organization. With this award, we hope the company gets a sense of the sincere appreciation we have for them.”
The Booth Consulting Club’s mission is to connect students with opportunities to learn about the industry and obtain employment with consulting firms. The club has hosted about 20 professional development events in the past five months, according to Otto Andjaparidze, also one of the club’s co-chairs and a student in the Evening MBA Program. The 250-member club caters specifically to students in the Evening MBA and Weekend MBA programs, who are often employed full-time.
The partnership is mutually beneficial for both A.T. Kearney recruiters and Booth students, many of whom gravitate toward consulting because they want to “work with people high up in the company, the c-suite, on very high-impact projects,” Andjaparidze said. The backgrounds of evening and weekend students are also valuable for A.T. Kearney. “We do a lot of strategic operations work and organizational improvement work,” said Raudabaugh, who organizes clients for the Strategy Lab course. “Our clients want experienced people.”
The company’s year-round recruitment strategy also benefits evening and weekend students because the programs graduate a class every quarter. “By recruiting throughout the year, we can onboard cohorts of students and absorb them into our client work on a continuous basis,” Raudabaugh added.
This long-term relationship between Booth and A.T. Kearney has led hundreds of students to full-time opportunities at the firm. Currently, the company employs more than 88 Booth alumni, and more than one-third were part-time students, Professor Davis said during the awards ceremony. “We should celebrate this long-lasting relationship,” he said. “Its takes people and enormous effort to make it happen, not just sending a bunch of emails.”
“A lot of companies just post jobs for part-time students, but A.T. Kearney gets actively involved in recruiting and working with students," echoed Catheryn Fuller, Booth’s senior director of corporate foundation relations.
The event represented the symbiotic relationship between course work and experience that leads to a more rounded MBA experience. “Nobody doubts that Chicago Booth will teach the fundamentals,” said Sunil Kumar, dean of Chicago Booth. “What people may not know is how well we complement those fundamentals.”
—Kadesha Thomas
Photo by Beth Rooney