Our introduction to consulting

I’m a member of a remuneration project with a company from the United Kingdom. With almost a month completed, the project has been rewarding and challenging. Our client organization is seeking to understand the causal relationship between executive compensation for ESG metrics and ESG performance to aid her future consultant activities. Her consultant operations have great background information in remuneration, but she lacks ESG understanding and experience, which explains the need for the Columbia SIPA team. Her involvement in the project has been great - she conducted an hour-long session with us where she provided a background on remuneration in the United Kingdom, which none of our team members have any prior experience with. Additionally, she created a shared folder with our team to share resources pertaining to remuneration and whatever relevant sources she finds. Next, she has helped hold our team accountable for our work. She set up a WhatsApp chat with our group, which is very helpful in communication. As we have neglected to submit some files, she has sent us reminders and helped gear us in the right direction. In comparison to other projects, where engaging with the client is a challenge, we are thrilled to have clear communication and conduct work for a client who is eager to hear our opinion, provide input, and receive our work. Our team is composed of three members. Our working relationship is strong, and we’ve all shown each other to be highly competent. Our work remained strong during the first two weeks but, during this previous week, has slacked off. This lack of work isn’t a concern as our team understood our timelines and our other academic responsibilities, which took precedence over any consulting work during the week. Writing this on September 28, 2023, we will conduct a lot of work during the weekend to catch up and get ahead on responsibilities and activities. Fortunately, I have complete confidence in the other two members of my team and am happy to have them.

The project workload can be challenging and has been a bit of a task during particularly busy periods of the semester. However, these challenges are preliminary. Our team hasn’t completed an analysis of a single company yet - completing an analysis will involve deep dives into the company’s annual report and any ESG related documentation. Without having completed an analysis, I believe our group is experiencing information overload whereas there’s too much information presented to us, and we haven’t fully synthesized it yet. Once we sit down and go through a company, we will have a better view of the project timeline. Additionally, we believe our client is keen to have us review one company and present our findings to her to ensure we’re on the right track. Again, when this whole process is completed, I believe our project will be very smooth sailing. As it’s early in the semester, we have a lot of work to complete, and more structure will appear as the project progresses. There are areas where our group could be doing a better job but I’m confident in our performance, future ability, and our understanding of our current limitations and what we need to do to overcome those limitations. The project has been a success to this point, and I look forward to continuing it.