We are excited to kick off the next round of Real Humans – Alumni, in which we hear from recent MBA graduates about how b-school prepared them for the next phase of their careers.
Brian Khorshad joined Bain & Co. after graduating from Chicago Booth in 2020. Bain was founded in 1973 and employs nearly 12,000 people across 63 offices in 38 countries. As an MBB consulting firm, they advise global and company leaders on issues including private equity investments, mergers and acquisitions, corporate strategy, finance, operations and more.
Read on for how the Chicago Booth MBA prepared Khorshad for the dynamic life of a Bain consultant, his advice about graduate management education and much more.
Brian Khorshad, Chicago Booth MBA ’20, Consultant at Bain
Brian Khorshad, Chicago Booth MBA ’20, Consultant at BainAge: 29
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Undergraduate Institution and Major: UCLA, Economics and International Development
Graduate Business School, Graduation Year and Concentration: University of
Chicago Booth School of Business, 2020, Entrepreneurship, Finance and Strategy
Pre-MBA Work Experience: 4, Aerospace and Healthcare Entrepreneurship
Post-MBA Work Experience: 1.5, Consulting
Why did you choose to attend business school?
After working at NASA for several years, I was ready for a new challenge. I wanted to hone my leadership skills, switch careers and build lifelong connections with new people that would enrich both my personal and professional life. I also missed being in an academic setting where everyone was collaborating to solve business problems, and I knew going to business school would be the best place to find this environment.
Why Chicago Booth? What factors figured most prominently into your decision of where to
attend?
As an undergrad, I was drawn to studying economics because of the book, Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. Levitt taught at UChicago, so it was automatically at the top of my list when I was looking at business schools. However, as I interviewed and visited campus I became convinced that it was the right business school for me. The people were incredibly open and willing to help one another, and secondly, the academic environment was incomparable. I knew I would learn a lot at Booth and do it alongside brilliant, talented and helpful classmates.
What about your MBA experience prepared you for your current career?
In business school courses, I learned to generate insights from a limited amount of information. Additionally, balancing my surprisingly busy schedule as an MBA candidate taught me to work efficiently with limited time. These skill has served me well as a consultant, where I often have to figure out the core of an issue after one or two days on a project. Booth trained me to look at the pertinent facts quickly and use them to form insightful perspectives.
What was your internship during business school? How did that inform your post-MBA career
choice?
I worked as a Summer Associate at Kearney in San Francisco. After working as a consultant over the summer, I knew I wanted to solve complex problems and work on dynamic teams with brilliant people.
Why did you choose your current company? What factors figured most prominently into your the decision of where to work?
I decided to join Bain as a consultant in the San Francisco office since it aligned with my long-term career plans. Many of Bain’s clients are in the tech industry, which I like because I plan to go into tech long-term. I also wanted to do a stint in the Private Equity Group, which would teach me more about evaluating companies through an investor’s lens. The combination of Tech and PE experience I have gotten at Bain sets me up to work at a cutting-edge technology company in the future.
How has COVID-19 impacted your industry/career plans?
Covid-19 has made it more difficult to develop proficiency in my current role. Since consulting firms follow an apprenticeship model, it has been harder to learn many skills when you are not sitting alongside your team. I have been fortunate since my teams have been willing to go out of their way to teach me what I need.
