Case Interview Preparation & Management Consulting | Strategy

Latest Episodes:

541: Are you trading time for money? (with Catherine Mattiske) Jan 11, 2023

Show notes

Welcome to an episode with Catherine Mattiske, a leading training professional, author, and publisher, with an internationally acclaimed career spanning 30 years across an array of industries including banking, insurance, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and retail.

In this episode, Catherine speaks about her journey of becoming a successful entrepreneur and how she broke out of trading time for money. Catherine shares her advice to people who are trying to build a company from the ground up and also build a passive income. She highlighted the value of communication in forming and strengthening client relationships, leading to business success.

Catherine Mattiske established 'The Performance Company,' a leading-edge training and consulting organization, in 1994. The Performance Company has offices in Sydney, Los Angeles, New York, and London. Catherine has earned a reputation for helping clients achieve their personal and business goals across Australia, the USA, United Kingdom, Europe, Africa, New Zealand, and Asia. Her client list has a global reach, including high profile Fortune 100 and 500 companies.

Catherine Mattiske is an accomplished author and publisher. In 2021, Mattiske published her thirty-first book: UNLOCK INNER GENIUS: Power Your Path to Extraordinary Success.

Recognized globally for her achievements in business, Catherine Mattiske was a member of the US Congressional Business Advisory Council. Mattiske has been awarded for her influence on US business and has also been nominated on several occasions for the prestigious Australian Business Woman of the Year.

Since expanding her Australian business to the US and Europe in 2001, Catherine has worked with her team remotely and built a global virtual organization. Catherine knows the highs and lows of leading virtual teams, and she is passionate about helping leaders overcome their barriers to success when leading virtual teams.

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540: The commonalities of thriving female leaders (with Julia Boorstin) Jan 09, 2023

Show notes

Welcome to an episode with CNBC's Senior Media & Tech Correspondent, Julia Boorstin. Get Julia's Book here: https://amzn.to/3ekjT4Y

In this episode, Julia speaks about female leaders and their struggles in facing gender bias and "pattern matching" in largely male-dominated industries. She discusses the key commonalities of female leaders who thrived in spite of the challenges that made them uniquely equipped to lead and grow successful businesses.

Julia also shared her journey of becoming a CNBC senior media and tech correspondent. As an expert, she shares tips on how to prepare for interviews, how to become a better communicator, and how to respond to opportunities.

Julia Boorstin is CNBC's Senior Media & Tech Correspondent and has been an on-air reporter for the network since 2006. She also plays a central role in CNBC's bicoastal tech-focused program "TechCheck" delivering reporting, analysis, and CEO interviews with a focus on social media and the intersection of media and technology.

In 2013, Boorstin created and launched the CNBC Disruptor 50, an annual list she oversees, highlighting private companies transforming the economy and challenging companies in established industries. She also helped launch the network's 'Closing the Gap' initiative covering the people and companies closing gender and diversity gaps. Julia is a graduate of Princeton University, she has been a reporter for Fortune magazine, as well as a contributor to CNN and CNN Headline News. She also was an intern for Vice President Gore's domestic policy office. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.

Get Julia's book here:

When Women Lead: What They Achieve, Why They Succeed, and How We Can Learn from Them. Julia Boorstin. https://amzn.to/3ekjT4Y

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539: A strategy to navigate a paradox (with Wendy Smith) Jan 04, 2023

Show notes

Welcome to an episode with an expert on organizational paradoxes, Wendy Smith. Get Wendy's Book here: https://amzn.to/3fF1b8C

When faced with a tough decision-making situation, it is common for us to assess and select what we believe is the best deal and then move on. We tend to assume that we need to pick one option and eliminate the other. But what if we could actually succeed in pursuing both options?

In this episode with Wendy Smith, we discuss how leaders and individuals can effectively respond to contradictory yet interdependent demands and have the mindset shift needed to successfully navigate a paradox.

Wendy Smith is the Dana J. Johnson Professor of Management and faculty director of the Women's Leadership Initiative at the Lerner College of Business and Economics, University of Delaware. She earned her PhD in organizational behavior at Harvard Business School, where she began her intensive research on strategic paradoxes—how leaders and senior teams effectively respond to contradictory yet interdependent demands.

Working with executives and scholars globally, she received the Web of Science Highly Cited Research Award (2019, 2020, and 2021) for being among the 1 percent most-cited researchers in her field and received the Decade Award (2021) from the Academy of Management Review for the most cited paper in the past 10 years. Her work has been published in such journals as Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Harvard Business Review, Organization Science, and Management Science.

She has taught at the University of Delaware, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania–Wharton while helping senior leaders and middle managers all over the world address issues of interpersonal dynamics, team performance, organizational change, and innovation.

Wendy lives in Philadelphia with her husband, three children, and the family dog.

Get Wendy's book here:

Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems. Wendy Smith, Marianne Lewis, Amy C. Edmondson. https://amzn.to/3fF1b8C

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538: Success to downfall: The story of Carlos Ghosn (with Sean McLain) Jan 02, 2023

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Welcome to an episode with a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Sean McLain. Get Sean's book here.

This episode with Sean McLain revolves around the story of Carlos Ghosn, one of the world's most feared and admired business executives who had remarkable success, yet faced a catastrophic fall. He was accused of financial misconduct and arrested for a bevy of alleged crimes—all of which he vehemently denied.

Sean is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal based in Los Angeles, covering EV startups like Rivian, Lucid, and Japanese and Korean automakers.

Since 2016, Sean McLain has overseen The Wall Street Journal's coverage of the largest automakers in Japan, including Toyota, Honda, and Nissan, and received the Malcolm Forbes Award by the Overseas Press Club of America for his coverage of the former Nissan and Renault executive's arrest and detention.

Sean graduated from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, and lives in Tokyo.

Get Sean's book here:

Boundless: The Rise, Fall, and Escape of Carlos Ghosn. Nick Kostov and Sean McLain

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537: Do not read your interviewer (Case Interview & Management Consulting classics) Dec 28, 2022

Show notes

For this episode, let's revisit a Case Interview & Management Consulting classic where we discuss about the typical errors candidates make in trying to read too much into the behavior of interviewers: quiet, asking questions, rude, etc. One thing we always caution candidates is to be wary of assuming the friendly person likes them or that the unfriendly person does not like them. Friendliness does not equate to "like" and people display their emotions in very different ways. So, if the interviewer is very friendly, it could go either way.

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536: The financial freedom roadmap (with Candy Valentino) Dec 26, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to an episode with a sought-after business leader and an expert in finance and investing, Candy Valentino.

How do you create wealth and financial freedom?

This question roams around almost anyone's mind. Yet, not everyone has achieved the "financial freedom" level.

In this episode, Candy shares the most effective tips to build wealth through investment, sustainable and long-term business, and how to earn and save more. She discussed the right mindset about money and covered the six ordinary steps to achieve extraordinary financial freedom.

Candy Valentino has over 24 years of business experience building and exiting companies in service, retail, product manufacturing, and real estate investing.

During her two-and-a-half decades as an entrepreneur, Candy Valentino has been named to Top Business Leaders 40 Under 40, Top 50 Women In Business, 10 People Making a Difference, Top 10 Business Consultants by Yahoo Finance, and was the youngest female to receive the Governor's Award in Entrepreneurship in Pennsylvania. Success Magazine named her "Women of Influence" and "Leaders Who Get Results" alongside Tony Robbins and Brené Brown. She shares her gritty, real-world business and investing strategies with an audience of millions through her Founders Organization. Candy Valentino lives in Scottsdale, AZ.

Get Candy's book here:

Wealth Habits: Six Ordinary Steps to Achieve Extraordinary Financial Freedom. Candy Valentino

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535: The vast possibilities within knowledge management systems (with Jennifer Smith) Dec 21, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to an episode with Jennifer Smith, the CEO and co-founder of Scribe, Jennifer Smith.

In this episode, Jennifer shared her career journey and how she came up with the ideas that led her to founding Scribe. We discuss the value of institutionalizing knowledge and unleashing know-how from a single person into an asset that's available across the company. We also speak about the massive possibilities that a knowledge management system can have for a company and the impact it can have on a business.

Jennifer Smith is a former VC and McKinsey consultant turned accidental CEO. She interviewed more than 1,200 business leaders on a quest to understand everything there is to know about processes, best practices, and productivity. Now, with her startup Scribe, she's empowering people to own their processes by building the world's first operating system for know-how.

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534: MOVE: A framework to reinforce the leader in you (with David Noble) Dec 19, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to an interview with a leadership coaching legend, David Noble.

Most leaders experience a lack of motivation to continue the things they once had a passion for. So, how do you rekindle the fire of motivation when it starts to die? The key is to know your "why" and assess if your reason is strong enough to continue the journey.

In this episode, David shares the role he plays in reframing things and bringing the best out of leaders, executives, and CEOs. David shares a powerful new framework called MOVE that characterizes great and extraordinary leaders. Most of us dislike having only one strategy to win. In David's framework, he discusses the four simple yet powerful options that will take you to the same goal: lean in, lean back, lean with, and don't lean.

David Noble has more than twenty years of global experience advising CEOs, their teams, and major investors on leadership and strategy, and an additional fifteen years as a top executive. He was named by Thinkers50 as one of the world's top coaches. Noble has served as a senior adviser to Egon Zehnder and Oliver Wyman.

Get David's book here:

Real-Time Leadership: Find Your Winning Moves When the Stakes Are High. David Noble and Carol Kauffman.

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533: Starting a business from scratch (with Jeff Lerner) Dec 14, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to an episode with a renowned digital entrepreneur and founder of ENTRE institute, Jeff Lerner. Get Jeff's book here.

In this episode, Jeff discussed how he was able to build a multi-million dollar company from scratch and the key elements behind his success.

At the age of 18, Jeff started his first business after dropping out of high school and becoming a musician. After the first one failed, Jeff continued starting more businesses and failed at them too. Despite years of trying and numerous unsuccessful businesses, one of which had left him $500,000 in dept, he chose to keep going and eventually built multiple successful businesses.

Instead of retiring early, Jeff chose to spend his time inspiring and helping others build their businesses. After becoming an authority in startups, he established ENTRE institute, an online education company dedicated to helping entrepreneurs how they could start their own businesses. To date, ENTRE Institute has taught over 150,000 across the world.

Get Jeff's book here:

Unlock Your Potential: The Ultimate Guide for Creating Your Dream Life in the Modern World

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532: What makes you a great leader? (with Dr. Richard Winters) Dec 12, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to an episode with a practicing emergency physician at Mayo Clinic, Dr. Richard Winters. Get Dr. Richard's book here.

As a physician, Dr. Richard shares how he managed, adapted, and remained calm during times of covid. He discussed some of the best practices that can be adapted from the medical field into the space of business. We speak about leadership, administration, and leveraging your expertise to be effective in your career.

In this episode, we also discussed one of the traps that most leaders face today where they strive to become successful in their career, and groom and develop new leaders while taking into account the fear of being replaced.

As director of Leadership Development for the Mayo Clinic Care Network, Dr. Winters facilitates retreats and delivers programs that train leaders at healthcare organizations worldwide.

Dr. Winters graduated from the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine in 1994. He is board certified and residency trained in Emergency Medicine from the University of California, San Francisco at Fresno. He graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas Executive and Professional Coaching Program and is a professional certified coach through the International Coaching Federation. He completed a Healthcare Management Executive MBA from the University of Texas at Dallas and UT Southwestern Medical Center. He obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Prior to his work at Mayo Clinic, Dr. Winters served as managing partner of a democratic physician group, chair of emergency medicine, president of an 800-physician medical staff, and CEO/founder of a managed care startup.

He lives in Rochester, Minnesota with his family.

Get Dr. Richard's book here:

You're the Leader. Now What? : Leadership Lessons from Mayo Clinic. Dr. Richard Winters

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