Former M&A banker seeking advice for pivot into Corporate Venture Building via MBB or agency (IDEO, Frog, Board of Innovation etc.)

Question

Hi guys. I'm a former M&A banker with 10 yrs experience working for top-tier M&A boutique in consumer / retail, advising founders, management and boards on financial and other strategic matters. I'm hoping to leverage my deep financial expertise and my knowledge of design thinking, business model and value prop design to pivot into venture design / venture building for a consulting firm or agency. My dream firms at the moment would be BCG DV and IDEO, although I'm open to feedback if anyone else feels favorably about any others.

Any thoughts on which consultancies / agencies have the best venture building practices on the street?

Any advice on how to best position myself and sell my experience to make a successful switch? Happy to work with someone 1:1 if they feel they have the requisite expertise…..

Answer 1

Hey,

Based on my interview experience with BCGDV, I can say that they really value first-hand entrepreneurship experience. In that sense, that experience definitely would be valuable. On the other hand, they expect fundamental consulting skills to come with a structured business solution to a problem, which will provide a basis for the other teams as well.

In terms of venture building roles, I would agree that there are 2 groups but I wouldn't restrict the first one to MBB. The first one is the extensions of consulting firms such as BCGDV as part of BCGX, Next for Bain, Leap for McKinsey, and frog for Capgemini Invent. Since the field is still a growing one, I would say the most important factor to choose from them would be their focus areas in terms of project pipelines.

The other group is agencies such as IDEO, ?What If!. I had the opportunity to talk to employees from almost every company I mentioned and as you can imagine, the main difference compared to the consulting companies is that the consulting companies reflect their existing know-how about business consulting more when approaching a problem since they also recruit a number of consultants from the parent companies.

There is actually a third group, which they call themselves as “creative consultancy firms”. That group would have Prophet, Fahrenheit 212 and Bow&Arrow. I would also encourage you to explore these companies as well.

All the best!

Emre

Answer 2

To be honest I see a lot of confusion here.
Agencies and MBB do completely different things.
M&A advisors in agencies are like a penguin in the savannah.
I don't get how an M&A advisor can prove to an agency or MBB that has some experience in design thinking, business model, or value proposition design.

MBB for sure value M&A advisors but for PE, asset management, and corporate finance, for sure not for design thinking projects.

Answer 3

Hi there,

My mind definitely jumps straight towards BCG DV right off the bat here. Other than that, to be honest I don't know who is the best. That said, it's likely not your “classic” consulting firms. I highly recommend you get out there and network to start to figure this out. Use “leads” and names/roles etc. as starting points to branch out from (i.e. asking x person for more contacts, looking at similar roles/companies on LinkedIn, etc.)

Good luck!