1

What’s different about Berkeley for our clients? 

Everything about Berkeley is constructed and operated inside out, in a manner to maximise the value we offer to our clients. Our ethos, principles and values all pivot around the ingrained ambition of “delivering 110%” to our clients. This is reflected in the fact that +90% of our business comes from repeat referral. We build genuine relationships with our clients and their wider organisation to help them achieve success, relationships that outlast the duration of our engagements. Also, we don’t just stop at delivering what is written in the contract. Every person at Berkeley is encouraged to go above and beyond, which is recognised by our clients so clearly that anytime they have a job that needs done properly, they know who to call.

Another thing my clients often tell me what they find refreshing about Berkeley is that we don’t bring armies of people to “do the job” but team up with our clients often in ones or twos to get the “job done”. This is quite rare and we are able to deliver this service to our clients as we hire the best consultants who broaden their thinking and bring leadership when its lacking within the client’s organisation. 

Our modus operandi is centred around trust, which develops over time by delivering great work to our clients, time and time again, every single time...

2

What’s been your favourite assignment and why?

There seldom is any assignment that you don’t enjoy, mostly because you have a voice in the kind of work you want and you can accept or turn down an assignment if it doesn’t whet your appetite. For me, the work I did in setting up a new business function for selling “Direct to Consumer (DTC)” holds a special place in my heart and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This goes back a few years when DTC was becoming big and all big corporations were trying to acquire start-up DTC businesses to diversify their portfolio and ride on the big wave. Our long standing global FMCG client had invested heavily in acquiring many such DTC businesses and they were setting up what they called as “Hatch House” to incubate the newly acquired businesses and integrate them into their core business model. This was a very new concept to them and our client asked Berkeley to help setup their operating model for the new revenue stream.

The reason I enjoyed this assignment so much was the principles I had learnt all along still applied to this challenge but in a very creative and fun way - working alongside marketeers and design agencies. Taking a new idea or a newly acquired business and “hatching” it through a full journey from getting funds approved, re-inventing the product, integrating it to wider business and finally acquiring and retaining customers. Working alongside people with entrepreneurial mindset with great ideas and helping them put some structure and repeatable methods was very exciting.

The fact that this involved some travel to cool offices between London and Rotterdam was an added bonus!

3  Why did you become a management consultant?

When I was growing up in India, I never thought of becoming a management consultant. The concept was not that mature back then in India and opportunities were limited. I completed my degree in Engineering in Robotics and Automation and if anyone had asked me then what I wanted to become, my instinctive response would have been to become a Robotics Engineer.

However, I also wanted to live internationally and experience different cultures and travel the world, so as soon as I completed my education, I grabbed my first chance of working in London and I fell in love with the city. Even then, being analytically strong, I chose to become a Software Engineer and coding became my passion. I loved problem solving so for the first three years of my life, I wrote and debugged complex code in several programming languages. 

It was not until I joined Accenture that I could apply my passion of problem solving to problems outside of a programme code. At Accenture I learned all about project management and delivery and how to “do things right”. However, it was not until I joined Berkeley, I used my knowledge of doing things right and apply it for “doing the right things”. Being a management consultant has opened infinite opportunities for me to apply my passion in almost all walks of life.