Josh Sasto

NAME Josh Sasto
EMPLOYER Value Partners Management Consulting
UNIVERSITY BA Philosophy, Politics, Economics, University of Oxford (2007)

Why consulting?

I was primarily attracted to the idea of getting underneath the skin of businesses – understanding what drives them commercially, and how people within organisations respond to change. Management consulting is also a nice transition between university and business – there is a lot of thought leadership and intellectual thinking, combined with an acute awareness of commercial reality.

I completed a summer internship in the M&A team at a major Canary Wharf investment bank, which as it turned out wasn’t for me. After I graduated I took about six months out to try a whole host of different things – journalism, politics, and a fair bit of travelling – before I returned to focus on getting ahead in business.

The business objectives of my employer are to help senior management of major companies and governments resolve key strategic problems. This may be about the type of business in which their companies should be operating, how a government or regulator can best foster the development of a given industry, or about more ‘micro’ projects such as how best to launch a particular product or service.

My current role

I am a business analyst, which means I get all the day-to-day responsibilities on a project. Typically I will work on only one project at a time with 100 per cent of my time committed to it. A manager or partner will have a range of ongoing projects at any one time. On a project I am generally responsible for doing the research, writing the reports and building the models – plus a fair amount of dayto- day client interaction. When we bid for a project I would normally write the contextual section and play a major role in brainstorming our approach to solving a problem. I also do a lot of ‘marketing’, which is ongoing research into interesting areas to find new ways to help our clients.

I definitely think in a much more structured way now.

The work/life balance

The work/life balance really varies. Generally I am out of the office by 8.00 pm. On a good day I can leave at 7.30 pm, but very rarely before. The latest I’ve left has been midnight, but I know people who have worked all through the night. You do have to work the occasional weekend, but everyone is pretty good at trying to avoid this if possible! It can be difficult to balance a social life, particularly during the week, but friends and family quickly adapt to your new responsibilities.

Continuing personal development

We do a lot of work in the media and telecoms sectors, which are so dynamic and changing all the time. I love being ahead of the curve and knowing about new products and ideas before they become mainstream. It is also a fantastic experience learning about something completely new and then trying to explain it to a partner in thirty seconds.

I have been on a number of training courses on communication, finance, excel and problem-solving. I am also being funded to do level I of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) programme. I definitely think in a much more structured way now. I no longer get completely fazed by complex problems about which I know very little – so long as you can structure the problem into manageable pieces, you can always go away and do some research to find the answer.

Best and worst

Best: Spending five weeks in Johannesburg – the project actually wasn’t too intense, so we managed to fit in a trip to Cape Town and a nature reserve.

Worst: The biggest crises happen when you find out on a Sunday afternoon that you have to write a full proposal which needs to be ready first thing on Monday!