First Day-Shubra

This is the beginning of my first week in Stamford, CT as an intern for McLagan.  McLagan is a management consulting firm that was founded in 1966.  It is an independently operated subsidiary of Aon Corporation (AOC) since 2001.  McLagan works in three main lines of business: compensation and performance benchmarking, market share studies and expense benchmarking.  There are 8 offices worldwide, with Stamford as the corporate headquarters.  McLagan employees about 180 individuals and has a revenue of $60+ million. 

Most people don’t understand what a management consulting firm does…well McLagan’s goal is to help clients interpret market trends so they can apply that knowledge to their business (basically McLagan conducts studies related to compensation and performance for financial service firms).

McLagan works in three main lines of business: compensation and performance benchmarking, market share studies and expense benchmarking

There are several different teams at McLagan including: Asset Management, Banking/Capital Markets, Corporate and Consumer Banking, Infrastructure, Process, Executive Compensation, Private Equity and (most importantly) Private Client.  I’m an intern on the Private Client team.  We work with private banks, retail brokerage firms and shared private banking/retail brokerage support group firms.  These institutions helps consumers with lots of money decide where they are going to invest their money; this means at least 1 million dollars or more.  Those who have $1-3 million are considered Mass Affluent, $3-25 million are considered High Net Worth, and $25+million are considered Ultra High Net Worth.  For those of you who don’t know, the difference between Private Client and Asset Management is that Private Client works with individuals; whereas, Asset Management works with business to help them manage their assets.

As interns, we are here during one of the busiest parts of the year.  During the summer months, McLagan is working on mapping/matching meetings with clients, managing client input, folder review, submit changes to Compedits, review preliminary reports and YOY Reports and finalize survey input files.  Interns are a big part of finalizing survey input files.  I help manage client input, complete folder reviews, and submit changes to Compedits.  The whole goal of these processes is to have the most accurate data when we finalize survey input files at the end of the summer.

This is the most tedious part of the year but also the most important.  Once the survey information is finalized, the consultants can start to sell the information.  The consultants may also have specific projects for a client which they will base off of the survey results.  For example, a client may ask McLagan “Are our compensation levels appropriate based on how our performance levels align with our competitors?” By looking at the survey information, consultants can come up with a report to answer this question and others like it.  This is where McLagan makes its money.

One of the most important values at McLagan is complete privacy for our clients.  Unlike some other firms, we never mention client names in public.  This is important because that ensures our clients trust because we work with some of their most valuable information.  Also unlike other firms, we have the actual data.  Some other firms work only off their knowledge of the industry and make predictions.  McLagan has concrete data to base its predictions and market trends.

Throughout the first week, I have learned about what the firm does and its general process.  I’ve also learned numerous Excel tricks and met tons of people.  There are 13 other interns, 10 of which work in Stamford.  McLagan put on an orientation program to train its new interns.  We had classes every morning which ranged from subjects such as information design, Excel Tricks, consulting and financial services. 

I have really enjoyed the first week because the workers are very friendly and want to help you learn more about the financial services industry.  My boss, Tom, took me and the other intern on Private Client, Chris Shields, for lunch to say welcome!  It was a very nice gesture and much appreciated.