Women in Consulting: 8 Empowering Tips from Female Consulting Coaches

I disagree that consulting is a men-dominated environment. At McKinsey, we already reached +50% of BA women, and are getting encouraging results in senior roles, as well.

A lot of times I found myself the only female in the room with another 10-15 males during the steering co meeting. It is sad to see that, and I think the clients should do something about it. But at the same time, people focus on the content, the work we produce, not whether it is presented by a male or female.

Consulting has traditionally been and it still is a boys club, particularly at management level. Fortunately, this is starting to change at the basis of the pyramid, with business analyst classes with over 50% women. The challenge is not at recruitment level, since the female talent pool is rich and powerful, but at retention level: a career in consulting is still difficult to combine with creating a family, and women are the ones still mostly affected by this.

The consulting world has changed a lot over the years. Compared to the past, today all the consulting firms are putting lot of effort in recruiting women across all levels. Many office have implemented the 50% policy for entry level recruitment. However, the % of women across all the roles is not yet at 50% because many women leave before reaching senior level roles. Within this context, retention initiatives play a key role.

While indeed it happens to be true depending on a project, position, or a particular firm, the consulting industry has been evolving, and now sometimes it may even be the other way around. My experience in consulting in the Middle East - a region that is very conservative and where one would expect the “Boys Club” to be the case even more - has confirmed otherwise. I was actually able to leverage the fact of being a woman to my own advantage - I was the only one from the team to access the “Female Section” of the client organizations to chat with the counterparts, many of whom were women and even in Saudi Arabia. I believe the more the presence of women increases across all industries and functions of our clients the more there are opportunities for female consultants to build their own “Girls Club”.

If we compare consulting to selective/demanding/prestigious jobs on the market (i.e. PE, Investment banking, startups, GAFA...), in terms of benchmarking, strategy consulting is much better positioned when it comes to inclusion and diversity. Especially when it comes to fresh graduate / junior profiles, Women consultants represent ~50% of the cohort. However, this rate drops substantially when we hit the manager level and even worse at the partner level, that's just a fact. Consulting firms work a lot in order to improve this (there are for example dedicated diversity and inclusion teams, facilitating taking a break when you want to raise a family etc. with no loss of seniority) but this change management needs to come from outside as well - it is a social issue and not specific to consulting. I am quite optimistic that change is coming.

Working from 9am to 9pm is considered already a “very good lifestyle”, which can be tricky for mothers. However, I have seen many cases in which the moms leave earlier (18h), spend some time with their kids, put them to bed, and then continue remotely from home.

BCG does offer flexible work arrangements for mothers to choose from, e.g. 70% time. Some of my ex-colleagues also chose to switch roles temporarily to a supporting function when they first have their babies, but then switch back to the consulting path again when the work at home is not as demanding.

I have a toddler at home, and the hard truth is that one partner needs to have more flexibility in his/her work schedule for early bedtimes, unexpected illness or appointments, etc. Most of the time, the woman is the one to slow down in her career to meet the new priorities and responsibilities of having a family. It doesn't help that many companies haven't adjusted the roles of senior leaders to allow for the needed flexibility. Instead, it forces a woman to choose between her family or her work.

Undoubtedly consulting, as well as for other jobs with responsibility, require dedication and hard work. This can be quite easy when you are 25, but it might become more difficult as you approach 30s and you want to be a mother and a successful businesswoman. 

Personally, I believe consulting firms have done a lot in this sense, implementing several initiatives aimed at facilitating the consulting career for a woman (e.g., part time / flexible hours). But most of all, I believe it DEPENDS ON YOU. From what I have seen, 3 things help you make it happen: 1) choose carefully the people you want to work with, 2) establish you credibility and prove your trustworthiness, 3) push back when you disagree, but be also proactive if you have ideas that could improve your working life as well as the one of there women around you.

Before blaming others, it is important to think 'have I done all I could to reach my goals?'

If you tell this to yourself, then indeed, you most likely can’t. Often we face difficulties to push back and assume that we are never enough and should do more to prove our value. While consulting is indeed a demanding job, it is only part of life, and a lot in our life depends on how clear we are about what’s important. What’s important is not necessarily EITHER OR, but it can and should be BOTH. Now, to make it possible you would definitely need better self-organization to ensure the time spent for the career is 100% efficient. You will need good communication skills to be able to agree on priorities with BOTH sides - your colleagues and your family. You will certainly need support, be it your husband or a project partner. And remember - if you are not getting the latter, it doesn’t mean that consulting is not for you, but the firm.

This is a vicious cycle in my opinion – the already existing lack of women in senior positions leads to a lack of female role models and mentors for more junior consultants, which again leads to higher drop out numbers of more junior women. As a young female consultant I only very rarely meet women that I can look up to from a professional point of view (not to mention the even lower number of moms in senior positions), so there is nobody I can actually identify with and who acts as a role model for me. Although there are men, who try to promote and support female consultants on their way up the ladder, this mentoring relationship will never be as natural as a mentoring relationship between two women (who share the same views on career matters and face the same obstacles). This is why I think that mentoring programs (also especially outside the workplace are of such importance).

It is difficult to balance work and life, and many companies don't make it any easier to do so. Times are changing (e.g., remote meetings versus having to travel, etc.) and the playing field is starting to level (though there is a long way to go) so I am hopeful that more and more women will be in senior positions.

Despite increased openness to dual income households and households where the female partner is the primary breadwinner, women still handle the majority of household and childcare duties. A career that requires significant travel and long hours is not compatible with the needs and wants of many women as they get older. The large consulting firms have worked to develop flexible and lower travel models but haven't successfully implemented them. I believe because the Monday-Thursday travel model is still deeply engrained in their culture. Until that model is broken for everyone, women won't be able to work in a different way and will ultimately feel that they have to choose between household responsibilities and working in client service.

Again, I would argue that this is a general society issue and not a consulting issue. Yes, facts show that the rate of partners is very low. To be fair, I strongly think women can make it to the top but there are 3 main factors I have seen in women senior managers that decided to leave before reaching the partner level:
1. Some left because they want a better work-life balance and were exhausted at this stage. This is a company problem that should be addressed. Some firms started proposing Leave Of Absence initiatives for men/women who want to leave just before reaching the partner level, with  no impact on their progression
2. Bro culture: in some companies, in order to get promoted, you need to have a certain level of votes. As the majority of partners are men, there is a tendency to have a closer relationship with other men colleagues. This is a society-wide cultural issue
3. Women partners considered as a "quota": this is very offensive but some companies have a quota of % of elected women at each level. This is usually really offensive for women and they decide to leave before.

This is a huge "issue" we face across industries but I can see change is happening. More and more in the pitch presentations that we have with the client, our clients want to see more women sit at the table. Clients want diverse teams and so do we.

I have not worked anywhere with pay transparency, so I don't know if I was making less than male co-workers. I have certainly seen a gender promotion gap – men being promoted more quickly than equally talented women because they were seen as more 'traditional leaders'.

Not that I would know, of course, as wages are still not transparent. However, I have experienced interview situations where I was asked for my salary expectations and where I could feel that my interviewer was surprised in a rather negative way, when I stated the salary that I had based on both my previous salary and the salaries my male friends in similar positions have earned. I have a friend who was asked the same question in her job interview and when she mentioned the salary that according to her previous analysis on Google was realistic, her (now current) employer replied that this was below the minimum salary he was obliged to pay. I cannot imagine the same situation happening to a man...

I personally have not since everyone in my consulting class started at the same starting salary and after that I moved into the beauty industry where it was mostly all women in my office. I know that there is a gap and that we (along with our male peers) should push to close it as our time, experience, knowledge, etc. is worth just as much as theirs. Women can't be the only ones pushing to close the gap.

Not at all. If you are trying to break down decades of unfair practices, you have to provide extra support to those who have been marginalized. Pulling someone up who has been pushed down is not favoring them, it's an attempt to restore fairness. This harkens back to the essential difference between equity and equality – equity is giving everyone what they need to be successful. Equality is treating everyone the same. Equality aims to promote fairness, but it can only work if everyone starts from the same place and needs the same help. Decades of systemic prejudice against women in the business world has ensured that they are not starting from the same place as men. Therefore, they need extra support to achieve equity.

Yes, [I hear men complain] frequently: This goes from „Luckily I got in a while ago, as my firm now only hires women“ to „Person X (female) is so stupid, she has obviously only been hired/ promoted because she is a woman“. Funnily enough, most of the complaints have been stated by men who are in very good positions right now or who have climbed the ladder much faster than the average, so they actually would have nothing to worry about. To be frank, I know only very few male consultants who have ever praised performance of female colleagues.

The situation has largely changed over the years and large corporate clients have changed their approach, implemented several internal diversity initiatives, and started to promote women even at top management level. In addition to that, even if many clients are still male-dominated, I have never felt a different treatment. On the contrary, I saw clients perceiving the presence of a woman in the meeting as a positive thing. So, I would conclude that nowadays your credibility mainly depends on your skills rather than your gender.

I think it really depends on a person you are rather than consulting per se. I naturally find it easier to communicate with males and whenever I had to spend months on projects where I was the only woman it has never occurred to me that something is wrong or strange or scary. If you are, however, a person for whom it is much easier to talk to women - the chances are that someone from your client counterparts will be a woman. At the end of the day, I would not focus too much on whether it is a man or a woman you are talking to, but your client who has specific needs and your job is to understand and address these. 

I think this is a much wider question than consulting. I would argue that it really depends on your personality and the company culture. 
1. Personality: personally, most of my mentors were and still are men who supported me to reach my goals and paved the way for my success. It did not matter whether they were men or women. What mattered is that I created a trust relationship with them.
2. Company culture: bro culture can be very destructive for young women. Yes, it builds thick skin but you would rather work for an open-minded company. I think this is wider than consulting (look at large corporates where C-suites are most frequently only men). If we have more women clients on the top (and we see that change happening), we will for sure get more women at the top in demanding jobs and fewer bullies across the board.