Case Interview Preparation & Management Consulting | Strategy | Critical Thinking

Welcome to an interview with the author of Crossing the Desert: The Power of Embracing Life's Difficult Journeys, Payam Zamani.    In this episode, Payam shares the most important lessons he learned from building a record-breaking billion-dollar IPO called AutoWeb, and how it fell apart. He took those early lessons and created his current company, One Planet Group, with the “people-first” culture he wanted all along for AutoWeb. As a result, One Planet Group’s success has allowed Payam to reacquire AutoWeb and bring it back to profitability.   In Payam’s book, Crossing the Desert, readers take an intimate look at how the paths we choose, the values we embrace, and the systems we decide to participate in (or not) can make or break us, not only financially, but spiritually. Payam’s story is a timely reminder that enduring and embracing life’s most difficult journeys can lead us to a brighter future—not only for ourselves, but for the people around us, and even the world.   Payam Zamani is an entrepreneur, investor, and the founder of One Planet Group, a closely held private equity firm that owns a suite of online technology and media businesses.   Born in Iran, Zamani was forced to flee at the age of 16 due to his religious beliefs as a Baha’i. He was offered asylum in the United States in 1988, settling in the San Francisco Bay Area. Upon graduation from the University of California, Davis, he and his brother founded AutoWeb, one of the first online car marketplaces, which they took public in 1999.    Since then, he has built and currently owns multiple technology and media businesses, has invested in more than 50 companies, and is striving to redefine capitalism in an attempt to elevate business to serve humanity. He has been named the “Best CEO for Diversity,” is the recipient of Tahirih Justice Center’s Hope Award, and received an Award of Distinction from UC Davis in 2018. Zamani and his wife, Gouya, have two daughters, Sophia and Ella.   Get Crossing the Desert here: https://rb.gy/pio8ht   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Welcome to an interview with the author of May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases―And What We Can Do about It, Alex Edmans. In this book, renowned economist Alex Edmans teaches us how to separate fact from fiction. Using colorful examples, he highlights the biases that cause us to mistake statements for facts, facts for data, data for evidence, and evidence for proof.   Alex Edmans is Professor of Finance at London Business School and an expert in the use and misuse of data and evidence. He has given the TED talk What to Trust in a Post-Truth World with 2 million views, spoken at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and testified in the UK Parliament.   Alex served as Managing Editor of the Review of Finance, the leading academic finance journal in Europe. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Harvard Business Review, and been interviewed by Bloomberg, BBC, CNBC, CNN, ESPN, Fox, ITV, NPR, Reuters, Sky News, and Sky Sports. He was previously a tenured professor at Wharton and an investment banker at Morgan Stanley.   Alex’s first book, Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit, was featured in the Financial Times Best Business Books of 2020 and has been translated into nine languages. Alex was named Professor of the Year by Poets & Quants in 2021 and won 25 teaching awards at LBS and Wharton. Alex has a BA from Oxford and a PhD from MIT as a Fulbright Scholar, and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.   Get May Contain Lies here: https://maycontainlies.com/ Learn more about Alex Edmans here: https://alexedmans.com/   Here are some free gifts for you:  Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Welcome to an interview with the CEO of Fireflies.ai, Krish Rameni. In this episode, Krish took us back to the early days of starting their company, Fireflies.ai, and how they stayed motivated despite the challenges. He shared valuable advice from the lessons he learned throughout his career that will be useful for individuals who are starting their careers or planning to transition into the world of startups.   Krish Ramineni is the Co-Founder and CEO of Fireflies.ai, an AI meeting assistant that transcribes, summarizes, and analyzes meetings. Named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, Krish graduated from UPenn. He was one of the youngest Product Managers at Microsoft, leading projects in customer voice and growth. He has guest lectured at Stanford on machine learning and holds patents in workflow automation. Krish is a thought leader in SaaS/AI and an active startup advisor.   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Welcome to an interview with the author of Solving for Why: A Surgeon's Journey to Discover the Transformative Power of Purpose, Dr. Mark G. Shrime. Solving for Why is an inspiring memoir about finding the answer to life's biggest question—"Why?"—and about following that answer through remarkable, unlikely places on the road to fulfillment, purpose, and joy.   "Turning your heart toward the poor doesn't have to be on a hospital ship in West Africa. It doesn't have to be grandiose. It doesn't have to be newsworthy. It doesn't have to be what your friends, pastors, rabbis, priests, or colleagues say it should. It just has to be." Dr. Mark Shrime   Dr. Mark G. Shrime is the International Chief Medical Officer at Mercy Ships and a Lecturer in Global Health and Social Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. He is the author of Solving for Why: A Surgeon's Journey to Discover the Transformative Power of Purpose (Hachette 2022).   He previously served as the O’Brien Chair of Global Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, as the founder and Director of the Center for Global Surgery Evaluation at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, and as Research Director for the Program in Global Surgery and Social Change at Harvard.    He has spoken at the United Nations, WHO, Harvard, Princeton, and around the world addressing issues of healthcare inequity, moral injury in the healthcare workforce, and the non-health outcomes of health policies. In 2018, he was awarded the Arnold P. Gold Humanism in Medicine Award by the American Academy of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery.   Get Solving for Why here: https://rb.gy/okpa08   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Welcome to an interview with the author of Better Decisions Faster: Unshakable Confidence When You Need It Most, Paul Epstein. In Better Decisions Faster, Paul draws from the green-light wisdom of Fortune 500 CEOs, Olympians, Shark Tank entrepreneurs, world-record holders, Ivy League professors, and Navy SEALs to reveal a revolutionary new system for maximally efficient and confident decision-making. Paul shares how to make better decisions using the Hands Equation, which is Head + Heart. This equation taps into the three most primal and powerful aspects of our humanity to make better, faster decisions.   Paul Epstein is a former high-level executive for multiple NFL and NBA teams and the bestselling author of “The Power of Playing Offense” and “Better Decisions Faster”. In 2022, he was named one of SUCCESS magazine’s top thought leaders who get results—alongside Tony Robbins, Brené Brown, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Mel Robbins—and his work has been featured on ESPN, NBC, Fox Business, and in USA Today.   In nearly 15 years as a leader in the world of pro sports, Paul helped take NBA teams from the bottom of the league in revenue to the top two, broke every premium sales revenue metric in Super Bowl history while in the NFL’s league office, opened a billion-dollar stadium, and founded the San Francisco 49ers Talent Academy, where he was known as the “Why Coach”.   As an award-winning keynote speaker, Paul’s impact continues off stage providing leadership development and culture transformation programs for companies and teams including Amazon, Disney, Johnson & Johnson, NASA, Los Angeles Lakers, and Dallas Cowboys.   He’s also the founder of the Win Monday community (an elite personal and professional development network) and host of the Win Monday podcast, where he interviews high-profile guests who reveal their secrets of confidence and work-life mastery.   Get Paul’s book here: https://www.paulepsteinspeaks.com/better-decisions-faster-book   Check out the Confidence Quiz: https://www.paulepsteinspeaks.com/confidence-quiz   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo  

Welcome to an interview with the author of Ping Pong Leadership: 18 Principles to Succeed at Any Table in Business, Sports, and Life, Justin Bookey. In this book, Justin distills lessons from a beloved global sport into 18 actionable and unforgettable “Pong Principles.” Justin has spent decades as a competitive table tennis player, trained with national and world champions, and won medals at the US Open. He is an Emmy-nominated content creator and strategist, and he’s worked with leaders at global companies to accomplish their business goals. As these two worlds overlapped, Justin realized that the core principles he learned while training to compete at the table also apply to success in business and leadership. Ping Pong Leadership is a powerful guide to success at any table.   Justin Bookey is a former lawyer, an award-winning marketing strategist, and global ping pong player. He’s had the good fortune of learning from some of the best and brightest in several arenas while working with leaders at Disney, Sony, Honda, Qualcomm, XPRIZE, and more. After practicing communications law for several years in Washington, DC, he transitioned to web content development. He’s earned Emmy nominations for feature documentaries he produced, and Telly, Viddy, and ADDY awards for digital marketing campaigns he spearheaded.    Upon moving to LA, Bookey stepped up his training with Olympian and world-class table tennis coach Wei Wang. His efforts with her and other national/world champions helped him win medals at the US Open and the US national championships. He learned different leadership cultures while studying in India and teaching in Japan, and has played table tennis on seven continents. He grew up in Seattle, Washington, and now lives and works in Santa Monica, California, where he also runs PongFit, a nonprofit that builds fitness and community through ping pong.   Get Ping Pong Leadership here: https://rb.gy/wbgkae   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Welcome to an interview with the author of Behind the Startup: How Venture Capital Shapes Work, Innovation, and Inequality, Benjamin Shestakofsky. This book draws on nineteen months of participant-observation research inside a successful Silicon Valley startup, and examines how the company was organized to meet the needs of the venture capital investors who funded it. Investors push startups to scale as quickly as possible to inflate the value of their asset. Benjamin Shestakofsky shows how these demands create organizational problems that managers solve by combining high-tech systems with low-wage human labor. Behind the Startup explains how the gains generated by these companies are funneled into the pockets of a small cadre of elite investors and entrepreneurs. Shestakofsky compellingly argues that we must focus less on fixing the technology and more on changing the financial infrastructure that supports it.   Benjamin Shestakofsky is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is affiliated with AI at Wharton and the Center on Digital Culture and Society. He is the author of Behind the Startup: How Venture Capital Shapes Work, Innovation, and Inequality (on sale March 19, 2024, University of California Press).   Shestakofsky’s research centers on the relationship between work, technology, organizations, and political economy in the age of AI.   Articles based on his research for Behind the Startup have been awarded the 2021 Star-Nelkin Paper Award from the American Sociological Association’s (ASA) Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology and the 2019 W. Richard Scott Article Award from the ASA's Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work. His research has been supported by the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy and the UC Berkeley Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. His work has been featured in the Financial Times, Axios, and in a publication of the World Economic Forum.   Author website: https://www.benjaminshestakofsky.com/ Book website: Behind the Startup: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520395039/behind-the-startup X/Twitter: @bshestakofsky   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Welcome to an interview with the authors of Fair Shake: Women and the Fight to Build a Just Economy, Naomi Cahn, June Carbone, and Nancy Levit. This book explains that the system that governs our economy—a winner-take-all economy—is the root cause of these myriad problems. The WTA economy self-selects for aggressive, cutthroat business tactics, which creates a feedback loop that sidelines women. The authors, three legal scholars, call this feedback loop “the triple bind”: if women don’t compete on the same terms as men, they lose; if women do compete on the same terms as men, they’re punished more harshly for their sharp elbows or actual misdeeds; and when women see that they can’t win on the same terms as men, they take themselves out of the game (if they haven’t been pushed out already). With odds like these stacked against them, it’s no wonder women feel like, no matter how hard they work, they can’t get ahead.   Naomi Cahn is the Justice Anthony M. Kennedy Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, as well as the Co-Director of the Family Law Center. Cahn is the author or editor of numerous books written for both academic and trade publishers, including Red Families v. Blue Families and Homeward Bound. In 2017, Cahn received the Harry Krause Lifetime Achievement in Family Law Award from the University of Illinois College of Law and in 2024 she was inducted into the Clayton Alumni Hall of Fame.    June Carbone is the Robina Chair of Law, Science and Technology at the University of Minnesota Law School. Previously she has served as the Edward A. Smith/Missouri Chair of Law, the Constitution and Society at the University of Missouri at Kansas City; and as the Associate Dean for Professional Development and Presidential Professor of Ethics and the Common Good at Santa Clara University School of Law. She has written From Partners to Parents and co-written Red Families v. Blue Families; Marriage Markets; and Family Law. She is a co-editor of the International Survey of Family Law.   Nancy Levit is the Associate Dean for Faculty and holds a Curator’s Professorship at the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law. Professor Levit has been voted Outstanding Professor of the Year five times by students and was profiled in Dean Michael Hunter Schwartz’s book, What the Best Law Teachers Do. She has received the N.T. Veatch Award for Distinguished Research and Creative Activity and the Missouri Governor’s Award for Teaching Excellence. She is the author of The Gender Line and co-author of Feminist Legal Theory; The Happy Lawyer; The Good Lawyer; and Jurisprudence—Classical and Contemporary.   Get Fair Shake here: https://rb.gy/r2q7rw   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Former Deloitte's Chief Learning Officer, Ashley Goodall, discusses the importance of stability in organizations over constant change, the impact of effective time management through color-coded calendars, and the significance of care and connection in professional relationships. He also reflects on his journey in consulting, challenges in leadership, and insights from writing a book on workplace dynamics.

Welcome to an interview with an award-winning marketer, TEDx speaker and authority in harnessing the instinctive mind to accelerate brand and business growth,  founder and CEO of Triggers, Leslie Zane. Leslie is the author of The Power of Instinct: The New Rules of Persuasion in Business and Life. In her book, Leslie shows that to grow a brand, business, or even a social movement, traditional persuasion tactics fall short. Instead, you must connect to the instinctive mind. And to do this, you need to understand the science of consumer choice and employ techniques that work with a person's brain, not against it.   Leslie Zane is an award-winning marketer, TEDx speaker and the foremost authority in harnessing the instinctive mind to accelerate brand and business growth.      In her early career at P&G and Johnson & Johnson, Zane championed the position that what people say is unreliable and that telegraphic cues are more powerful than direct communication, but her unconventional thinking was often disregarded. In 1995, she founded Triggers®, the first brand consulting firm rooted in behavioral science, where she continued to champion the primacy of the instinctive mind in brand decisions.   With her groundbreaking discoveries in boosting salience, the Brand Connectome® and Growth Triggers®, Zane and her team have delivered over $20 billion in incremental revenue for Fortune 100 clients.    Today Triggers’ strategies are evident in diverse fields from consumer-packaged goods, health care and insurance to fighting anti-Semitism, showcasing its versatility.    An alumna of Yale, Harvard Business School and Bain & Company, Zane is a recipient of the Congressional Women of Distinction and the Ogilvy Award. In 2021, she coined the term “Covid-stasis” forecasting the pandemic’s lasting psychological and behavioral effects.  Zane has been published in prestigious publications including Knowledge@Wharton, Harvard Business Review, World Economic Forum, Newsweek and Ad Age. Zane is a board member of El Centro Hispano, the leading non-profit empowering Hispanic immigrants with skills to thrive in the United States.   Get The Power of Instinct here: https://rb.gy/l3ofdo   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo