There's a moment in any future consultant's life when they think:

"Hm, why not go into investment banking instead of management consulting?"

I had this brief moment about 8 years ago. I got invited to a Morgan Stanley interview, flew from Milan to London, and spent as many as 8 (!) hours preparing for IB interviews. Needless to say, I failed.

And this failure was one of the luckiest events in my career 😉

Despite the job slavery, mental health risks, poor work-life balance, and other "features" of investment banking careers, they provide a great quant foundation for management consulting. If consultants are wizards of modelling, then investment bankers are its gods.

Today I will save you from a few years in investment banking and share the essential financial modelling skills a future consultant needs.

The skills are:
#1. Building an operating model for a business;
#2. Making projections;
#3. Creating a simple discounted cash flow model.

I routinely did #1 and #2 on 80% of my projects, while #3 on a certain project set me apart as the investment expert among fellow consultants. However, my command of these skills did not go far beyond the videos linked above which you can watch in under 2 hours.

So if you are looking for a brain upgrade over the weekend, you've found it. Take your time, watch, internalize. And do not forget to write a thank-you comment for my friend Sergey Pestov, ex-VTB and Goldman Sachs banker who sacrificed a few years of his youth to learn this stuff and then pass it to over you 😉

Have a great weekend!