After a decade of inactivity due to low club membership, the Hamilton Consulting Group is back in action. The student-led club hosted their first meeting of the year on Sunday, Oct. 12 in the Dwight Lounge of the Bristol Center. While providing catered food and refreshments, the Hamilton Consulting Group led an hour-long meeting outlining their vision for restarting a consulting-oriented club on the Hill, something that had not been done since 2011.
Hunter Howard ‘27, the club’s President and Group Managing Partner, opened the meeting. He spoke about the ideal alignment between Hamilton’s liberal arts education and the skills necessary to thrive in consulting. “Our school’s liberal arts background fits into what consulting is all about: teamwork, approaching a problem collaboratively and working hand in hand to find solutions.” Among the various goals set on the table for the coming year, Howard emphasized the need to “clarify what consulting is with the help of the Career Center,” and “help solve casing problems and conduct behavioral research on behalf of clients.” In the consulting world, casing is an interview style where a consulting candidate solves a mock business case with their interviewer in order to evaluate their teamwork skills, creative brainstorming and analytical interpretations.
Hamilton Consulting Club has already begun a study in collaboration with FoJo Beans coffee roasters on campus. Howard hopes this pro-bono client work will be an “initial opportunity to learn and solve complex business goals,” with an eventual project for “revolutionizing the coffee system on campus by conducting market analysis into Hamilton students’ coffee buying nature.” In the end, Howard hopes “Hamilton Consulting Group will be able to “provide suggestions and recommendations that will allow FoJo Beans to make more insightful business decisions.”
With regards to the club’s structure, Howard outlined each member’s position and responsibilities. The club is “organized like a firm, where there will be a pathway to progress in seniority through the various positions we offer. This merit-based structure is similar to that of many consulting firms.” While in its initial testing phase, each leadership position, if deemed fit, would be amended into the constitution and retain a permanent status. Dan King ‘27 oversees club events as Vice-President of Operations, Garrin Brandl ‘27 serves as Secretary, Quinn Liu ‘26 serves as Programming Partner and Maddie Ledbury ‘26 is in charge of Data and Analytics. While the club leaderboard is currently small, Howard believes expanding leadership in the coming years will only strengthen the group: “Having additional leadership roles would help spread responsibilities around, like marketing, scheduling events, programming and preparing presentations. By delegating tasks, we have the idea that by promoting teamwork and collaboration, by having teams that work on these things, we strengthen our mission and achieve greater success.”
Howard firmly believes that Hamilton Consulting Group is primed to set its members up for success post-graduation: “Other clubs on campus aren’t as ambitious as us. We are actively looking after college on how to leverage resources, tools and opportunities. We are collaborating with the career center to make that happen.” After Howard concluded his speech, John Ossowski, Consulting Career Coach and Associate Director of Career Development at the Career Center, continued the discussion. He spoke about how fundamental reaching out to alumni was in establishing connections and finding internships, volunteer opportunities and jobs. “The Career Center is ready to provide you with those resources, so come see me if you need any industry-specific advice!”
Nick Solano ‘14, who serves as the club’s Consulting Alumni Coach, spoke about his past in the field and how he can help facilitate career growth. Solano’s history with consulting started his senior year at Hamilton, which facilitated his transition when working for L.E.K. Consulting in Boston after graduating in 2014. He urges students to consider consulting since it is “an accelerator, where you get open doors that are always beneficial early in your career.” He also encourages students to sharpen their “analytical chops” prior to starting full-time consulting, to gain experience “analyzing using Excel or Tableau,” two business intelligence and analytics softwares often relied on in the industry. Solano’s door is open for any career advice, discussions about preparing for interviews or polishing resumes. Students can schedule a meeting with him through the Career Center website.
During the final segment of the meeting, Hamilton Consulting Group gave Dan Joseph, Founder and CEO of FoJo Beans coffee roasters, time to pitch FoJo beans to students and faculty in attendance. He presented two coffee blends and suggested pairing them with various types of FoJo-made beignets (matcha and vanilla cream) and FoJo-signature coffee cake. While students took time to pair each coffee profile with a dessert of their choice, I spoke with Brandl and King about their visions for the club in the coming years. Brandl hopes he can see Hamilton Consulting Group begin working consulting for political figures of the Clinton area. King sees Hamilton Consulting Group expanding their outreach into Clinton by helping small businesses flourish.
No matter the direction Hamilton Consulting Group decides to take, Howard summed up the vision for this up-and-coming club: “We want to leverage the different relationships that people have within the club and build from there. Our vision for the future is open-ended, but I believe that we will make it work, because the world is our oyster.”
