The Idea
Most professionals spend years developing sharp analytical minds, and then take jobs that use only part of that capacity. The instinct to diagnose a situation, frame a problem cleanly, and advise a client — those muscles exist, but they can go unused for a long time.
Consulting Club is a recurring, low-stakes arena for exercising them.
Each month, one member plays Client and brings a real problem — something they're genuinely wrestling with. The rest form an ad hoc Consulting Team and deliver a structured engagement: problem framing, analysis, recommendation, all inside 90 minutes. Then everyone sits down together for a candid debrief.
No one gets hired or fired. That's the point.
The Format
A Consulting Club session runs roughly as follows:
The “Would I Hire These People?” Round
The debrief closes with a structured round: every person in the room — including the Client and observers — answers Would I hire this team? Not "did they have the right answer" but "would I put them in front of my actual client?"
The question is deliberately uncomfortable. It focuses the debrief on what matters in real consulting: not just whether the analysis was correct, but whether the team was organized, whether they listened, whether their communication was crisp enough to be trusted with something real.
The rule is candor over comfort — and that's what makes it developmental.
Roles
Each session has five roles, rotating across members:
- Client — brings the problem, briefs the team, answers questions, evaluates the recommendation
- Lead Consultant — owns the team's process and the final recommendation
- Analyst — does the analytical heavy lifting; owns the data and the frameworks
- Skeptic — pushes back, tests assumptions, makes sure the team isn't just agreeing with each other
- Scribe — captures the work in real time; keeps the team on track against the clock
Everyone rotates. Playing Client is at least as valuable as playing Consultant.
What It’s For
Consulting Club is developmental, not transactional. Nobody is getting paid. There's no client relationship to protect. The stakes are calibrated so the room is safe enough to try things, honest enough to be useful, and real enough to matter.
For members who are curious about a pivot into consulting or advisory work — whether as a second act, a portfolio career, or just a more formal way to use their expertise — it's a no-risk test drive. You find out fast whether you enjoy the work, and you leave with a cleaner picture of what you'd need to sharpen.
How It Started
Consulting club started when a few college friends reconnected at various stages of career transition and asked "what will you do next?" We all enjoyed working on projects together in school, why not "get the band back together" and see what we've learned since then, and what we still need to learn?
Join Us
Consulting Club is small by design. If it sounds like something you'd find useful — or if you know someone who would — we'd love to hear from you.