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Well hello everyone.
This is Alex Mannella.
And many of you seen me throughout the course, for better or for worse.
And hope you've enjoyed it.
But now trying to make it a little bit more personal for you.
And one of the main questions I get is, what is a typical day like for you?
Being a consultant and in the quantitative area.
And I have to say, each day is a little bit different, but the same.
And I'll take that in reverse order.
The same is each day I really
do have a opportunity to work with some of the smartest people in the world,
both from a client perspective as well as from a firm perspective.
And that, to me, is incredibly energizing and a whole lot of fun.
And it challenges me each day to think about how I can bring something new and
innovative to the table given the people that I'm working with.
Then the other part is the diversity of the problems that
I get to solve on a daily basis.
One day a client might be asking me about how to solve
some of their problems as it relates to their network.
Or how they think about acquiring customers.
Or the value of those customers.
Or to think about this world of big data, and what it means to their organization,
and what it means to organizational transformation.
Having the opportunity to work on these diverse sets of problems and
projects with our clients and with our people make each day very much the same,
but very much different, and that is kind of a neat variance to get,
not just out of a job, but truly out of a career.
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One of the other things that I kind of talked about that a little bit is,
what do I enjoy most about my work?
I have to say it really is the people.
And quite frankly, it's why I dedicated so much time and effort to doing Coursera.
I believe in my heart that this is something very special that we're doing
as a firm, as a group, and to give something back
to all the great people I work with or could potentially work with.
And I hope to have been able to communicate that throughout the course.
And to me, seeing our people develop, seeing them almost be able to say,
we don't need you anymore, Alex, because we've got this.
And they have grown and they've been able to take the core principles
we taught them over the years and own that with their clients and careers and
drive their own people and mentor people is incredibly empowering for me.
And I think one of the most rewarding pieces to me is on social media,
some of the feedback that I've received from people and how it immediately
impacted their lives and changed their day to day approach on how they do their jobs.
To me that is not only incredibly gratifying, but
it's one of those moments that gives me an opportunity to say,
while we've really done something special here, we've done something right, and
it manifests itself in not just the confidence that our people have but
the fact that our clients continue to come back to us and
ask them to help solve their most difficult problems.
And I think when I take a step back and I see that and
have had an opportunity to be a part of that over the course of the past 20 years,
I'm incredibly grateful and quite frankly humbled to have the opportunity to have
that kind of impact on our people first, our clients and in our brand.
One other piece that I get inevitably whether I'm speaking at a university or
it's in the recruiting process or again even at our clients is what advice
do I give to somebody that's trying to enter into this field?
And I say this, look, take the things that make you who you are and
that make you great and really build on that.
It seems that a lot of times with all the different options and
choices people have when it comes to analytics, when it comes to visualization,
when it comes to big data that they often forget themselves in that tapestry.
And I always remind people, remember what brought you into this store,
remember why a client asked you to work with them.
Remember what makes you great, and
then build upon that with all of these other options,
whether it be courses, client work, mentoring people, developing courses.
I think that is the part that really rounds us out.
But don't ever forget the person who you are and
what makes you great, given all the choices that we have.
In consulting, we sometimes have to shape ourselves to our clients.
Absolutely right.
But remember, our clients are people too, and
they buy people first, solutions second.
And that's what they really pay for, you.
And really developing that brand and that platform for yourself,
in inculcating it with all other the client experiences, education and
relationships, that's what makes, I think, a great consultant,
a great quantitative consultant and in the end, great leaders.
So hopefully I've been able to answer a couple of your questions and thoughts.
I'm always here for you and I really enjoy speaking with people.
So in the world of big data, I'm sure our bits and bytes will cross.
I very much look forward to getting to know more of you over time and
I certainly hope to have the privilege to work with you.
Thank you.
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