Consulting programs with former McKinsey/Bain/BCG Leads
consult for companies like Airbus, Revolut, and more
The Beacon Fellowship is a consulting abroad program for undergraduates & post-grads interested in business. During a 1-6 week program, Fellows work full-time under the guidance of McKinsey/BCG/Bain alumnus on a real project for a client and receive dedicated training in key consulting skills.
Our alumni have secured offers from prestigious consulting firms like McKinsey, BCG, L.E.K., Deloitte, PwC, Accenture, EY, KPMG, & Booz Allen Hamilton, and top companies, like Deutsche Bank, Citibank, Amazon, Visa, and UBS across banking, entrepreneurship, & corporate finance.
Fellow: emma | Co school of mines | 2018 Summer, Madrid:
worked under mckinsey alumnus Project lead & received 2019 McKinsey & co. internship offer.
“[Beacon] gave me really valuable experience to add to my resume... and helped get me in the door to McKinsey... I have just accepted an internship offer with McKinsey & Company for the summer. I am so excited for this opportunity and am very grateful that Beacon gave me the gateway to this field!”
Fellow: Jarred | UT Austin | 2019 Summer, MAdrid:
Worked under BCG alumnus project lead & received 2020 Goldman Sachs offer (* offers from Deloitte & KPMG)
“…Beacon gives you applicable consulting experience while also showing potential employers that you can adapt to various situations. The fact that the internship is abroad is also an incredibly advantageous talking point that makes you memorable during the interview process…Beacon enables you to get unique advice from a project lead who can give you an accurate picture of the consulting industry. ”
Beacon is a member of The Forum on Education Abroad and a Business Education Alliance member of AACSB.
work with a former mckinsey/bain/bcg consultant
With extensive experience at the MBB firms (McKinsey, Bain, and BCG) and formal education from prestigious business schools such as Harvard Business School & MIT Sloan, Project Leads are uniquely equipped to guide their cohort of Fellows through an immersive consulting project. This past summer, in addition to all having extensive experience at McKinsey, Bain or BCG, all our Project Leads were Harvard MBA candidates or graduates, except one MIT Sloan candidate. See our line-up of 2019 Project Leads here.
Project Lead: Daniel | Summer 2019, Madrid:
Harvard MBA and Bain & co. alumnus
“To maximize learning, I put Fellows in the driver’s seat, pushing them to use their own best thinking to solve our client’s problems. We then walked through their thinking and my thinking side-by-side as a collaborative team so we could all learn from one another. We used…whiteboarding sessions, brainstorms, trainings, workshops, and one-on-one coaching to facilitate this learning.”
Fellow: Samuel | Princeton | 2019 summer, London:
worked under Project Lead from Harvard mba with 3 years of mckinsey experience
“The Beacon fellowship is an amazing opportunity to work under the supervision of a consultant from Bain, BCG, or McKinsey. The Project Lead is what makes Beacon unique. While working with the client, the Project Lead gave me feedback on how I could improve. They not only help the Fellows with their project, but provide career advice, resume assistance, software training, and case study practice. Most programs only focus on the job part, but Beacon’s Project Lead structure ensures each student grows and learns the necessary skills to be a consultant.”
train & acquire key business skills
Business is a broad field; consulting is one of its most dynamic subsets, a proven place to develop early career business skills. Put talented yet inexperienced people under the guidance of an amazing experienced consultant and you’ve got a dynamic combination of talent, experience, & ambition with the potential for high impact. No matter what career you choose to pursue, early consulting experience will equip you with valuable transferable skills that make you attractive to employers in any industry.
Modeling itself after the structure of the top management consulting firms, The Beacon Fellowship is specifically designed to cultivate these skills. During a 1-6 week program, Fellows train and work full-time under a seasoned consultant with experience at McKinsey, Bain or BCG to solve real-world problems for a Europe or D.C.-based client.
Fellow: Taylor | BYU | 2018 Summer, Madrid
worked under Mckinsey & co. alumnus Project lead & Secured 2019 Booz Allen Hamilton internship.
“I’ll be interning with Booz Allen Hamilton this summer in their San Diego office! [Beacon] was the big reason I started seriously considering the firm…The most valuable skills I learned were presentation skills, market research, how to conduct a thorough competitive analysis, and how to professionally interact with a client company and their employees. The confidence I gained from acquiring these skills has translated into other areas of my professional life. I would recommend the Beacon Fellowship to anyone in search of any of these things.”
Why Beacon?
Typical business and consulting internships are often designed for the benefit of the company; regardless of the organization’s reputation or profile, summer associates or interns often engage in lower-level, administrative work that fits with their current level of experience rather than expanding it. Beacon is unique in that it is designed above all to facilitate Fellows’ learning, and the interests of the client are secondary. Its goal is to expand and challenge the Fellows’ horizons by exposing them directly to MBB-level consulting which will stand out on their resumes and equip them with new skill-sets.
Fellows this past summer reported progressing in key consulting skills, per a study that assessed them on the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes’ Competency Framework. Overall, Fellows believed they had progressed on 92% of these Core Competencies, which include analytical skills, consulting knowledge, business insight, assignment management, & professionalism. According to Beacon’s Chief Academic Officer, Brian Whalen, “This data shows the significant educational value of the Beacon Fellowship and how it is helping to educate the next generation of management consultants.
Below is a resume entry from one of our alumni displayed alongside typical resume entries for a traditional business internship & business study abroad program.
Fellow: Cameron | Northwestern | 2018 Summer, Madrid:
“My team and I developed a novel financial model that is now the basis of our client’s international expansion plan. Interviewers have been very eager to hear about Beacon. The projects we undertook as Fellows were absolutely integral to the success of our clients, and…at an internationally elite level…Beacon’s components undoubtedly make it the best summer program available to ambitiously successful business students.”
dates & fees
We offer 10 day winter break programs both before and after Christmas that start at $2,749. Our summer programs are up to 6 weeks long, with different dates throughout the summer, and start at $2,999. Choose a location to learn about the dates and fees for a specific program.
exciting Locations
Our Fellowships are the perfect opportunity to study abroad in a meaningful way outside of the regular academic calendar. New surroundings offer the possibility of exploring history, cuisine, geography and language. That’s why we offer Fellowships in major European hubs as well as our own nation’s capital.
Choose a city below to See date offerings and program fees:
lisbon
washington, d.c.
London
Barcelona
Madrid
milan
budapest
Client site: BaseKX hatchery near UCL campus in London.
impactful Clients
Beacon’s client partners range from large industry leaders and government organizations, to non-profits and innovative start-ups, each facing distinct complex challenges. Beacon filters potential clients to find projects that solve real problems and maximize the Fellows’ impact.
For the duration of their Fellowship, Beacon Fellows work at the client site, developing real solutions to solve clients’ complex needs under the guidance of their MBB Project Lead. Visit our clients page to read more.
2019 Fellows working at client site in Madrid.
challenging Projects
In the past, Fellows have worked on client projects ranging from market expansion and competitor analysis to digital marketing and user experience.
Projects are often large and multifaceted, and the Project Lead will divide Fellows into smaller teams for collaboration based on their skills and interests. Individual Fellows and distinct teams will be responsible for focused workstreams of the client project. Visit our projects page to learn more.