A room full of SAIS students, coffee in hand, working through a case study together. Ideas fly, approaches are debated, and everyone learns by doing, guided by someone who’s been in the room where decisions happen. This is what the SAIS Consulting Club’s Bi-Weekly Sessions have become: a space where curiosity meets practice, where alumni share hard-won wisdom, and where a genuine consulting community is taking shape.
The concept emerged from a simple question: How can we bring the consulting world directly to SAIS? The idea took shape over the summer – conversations about making consulting more accessible led to the Bi-Weekly Sessions, a space that combines the intimacy of a book club with the rigor of peer review. Invite seasoned practitioners to pull back the curtain on their careers, then immediately apply those insights through collaborative case work where students learn from each other as much as from the experts.
Two sessions in, and the response has been strong. As Joey noted, the sessions are “making consulting accessible at SAIS, offering students real cases, practical skill-building, and invaluable guidance from alumni and industry professionals.”
Session One: Inside McKinsey with Jeeny Kim
When Jeeny Kim (SAIS ’12) walked into our first session, she brought eight years of experience at McKinsey & Company with her. As a strategy and operations leader who advised Fortune 500 companies and nonprofits on enterprise transformation, Jeeny knows consulting inside out. But her most valuable credential? Seven years as a certified McKinsey interviewer, sitting in the decision room for hundreds of candidates.
“What is consulting?” she asked the room. Then she showed us. Jeeny traced her own journey to McKinsey, demystifying what once seemed like an opaque path. She broke down what makes a good consultant, what the day-to-day actually feels like, and the question everyone wanted answered: Who gets the offer, and why?
For Shu Yu, the session clarified her approach to case prep. “I really enjoyed the different fields of consulting that the biweekly sessions tapped into, from management to geopolitical and risk consulting. Running through ‘a day in the life’ of a consultant and the case sessions allowed us to do a deep dive into the thinking and psyche of a consultant. I found the management consulting cases with Jeeny extremely helpful in understanding what interviewers lookfor and how to go about my case preparation.”
After the presentation and Q&A, we dove into cases applying the frameworks Jeeny had just outlined, learning to think like consultants in real time. Vidur captured what made it special: “Like most SAIS events, the Bi-Weekly case sessions are insightful and great for understanding industry hiring practices. More than most SAIS events, it is fun! To be asked to apply your understanding of trends and make assessments quickly, and learn from peers, is a lively change of pace from work.”
Session Two: Public Affairs with Erin Dempsey
If Jeeny showed us the analytical rigor of consulting, Erin Dempsey, a former director at Brunswick Group and current SAIS student, revealed its relational soul. Her session on regulatory and public affairs consulting opened an entirely different window, one where strategy depends as much on stakeholder relationships as on spreadsheets.
Maham walked away with a new understanding: “It was really interesting to be part of Erin Dempsey’s Bi-Weekly case discussion. It helped me see how effective public affairs consulting means balancing client objectives with stakeholder interests and how strategy isn’t just analytical, it’s relational and depends on working with multiple stakeholders. Overall, the session taught me the importance of stakeholder management while working on strategy.”
For Francesca, the sessions have become essential: “I have found the Bi-Weekly sessions extremely insightful, especially the one focused on public affairs consulting. The session helped me learn how to approach cases, refine which areas of consulting I hope to pursue, and connect with a supportive community of SAIS students who work in or aspire to enter the consulting field.”
Edited By: Zeynep Reyyan Erdem