Bridge Role for Marketing

Question

TLDR: experienced professional in marketing agency in SEA, target MBB, no 'bridge' role achievable. What to do?

Hi - just wanted to get some feedback from the experts for this. Im working in the top global marketing agencies, and want to move towards Consulting. I'm to re-apply in roughly 01 year, so a transition role now is necessary.

My experience leans on marketing for consumer products, while consulting in SEA leans on transformation/strategy work for financial institutions - no overlap. I've applied across:

1. Corp Strategy: no luck. Few openings, senior, network-based and often cite consulting experience as a requirement.

2. Tech Strategy: lack of domain knowledge cited by recruiters. Lack both tech knowledge + oftentimes Finance knowledge (most top firms are Fintech).

3. Bank Strategy: No luck either, usually require very senior people + specialized finance knowledge.

4. T2/B4: Presence of Tier 2/Top 4/Boutique here are minimal, and often times their recruiting is even harsher than MBB (require real finance/tech experience, not just case interview).

5. Marketing In-house: this is the easiest path, but ineffective - since it is still perceived as marketing + consumer retail projects => neither helpful in function nor domain.

What should I do - am I missing something - or doing something wrong? Should I just full send for an MBA?

Answer 1

Your consumer marketing experience is more relevant than you think. You're just applying to the wrong roles.

MBB have practices. I was in McKinsey's Marketing & Sales practice. Here's the structure that matters for you:

Post-MBA generalists come in as integrative consultants with no practice attached. Integrative means a generalist consulting toolkit.
Experienced hires like you (no MBA needed) go one of two ways. Integrative tied to a practice, so a generalist consultant but working across marketing and sales projects. Or specialist, narrow on a specific topic like martech or digital marketing. Either way you're anchored to a practice from day one.

Marketing & Sales is a practice, and consumer marketing is relevant project work. So your background is a credential for practice-specific roles. You've been aiming at FI transformation and tech strategy, where you have no edge on that CV. Instead, find the partners running those practices in your region and network with them. Look for practice-specific roles.

Same logic on the bridge role. You don't need finance exposure. You need a role that proves commercial impact in numbers: pricing, growth, commercial strategy, revenue. Whatever you take, attach hard results to it. And in my experience, an MBA is not a hard requirement to get into consulting.

Happy to jump on a quick call and map that out if useful.