Welcome to the 3rd and final installment of our deep dive into Advancy! Today, we're talking about the future of this fast growing firm with Sylvestre Pires, Managing Partner of the New York office. Missed the first two parts of our series? Get an overview of the firm and its recruiting & interview process. Without further ado, let's dive in!
Table of Contents:
(click to skip to section):
- Sylvestre Pires Background
- Recruiting Advice
- Curiosity Matters
- Advancy's New York Office
- Growth Areas
- How Advancy is Different
- How Consulting May Change
- Advancy Culture
- Unique Experience
- Telling Your Younger Self
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MC: Namaan Mian
Sylvestre, I'm excited to connect today and continue to unpack more about Advancy for our community. Specifically, the theme of our conversation today is the Future of Advancy. You're the Managing Partner of the New York office, but before we dive into your work, what the firm does, and where it's going, I'd love to start with a sense of where you've come from. Do you mind giving us a quick overview of your background?
Sylvestre Pires Background
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
With pleasure. I primarily come from a scientific background and completed a PhD in Fundamental Physics at the CERN with Sorbonne Université.
Over the last year of my PhD, I had the chance to join INSEAD and added a business component to my scientific curriculum. Through that program, I was introduced to the business world and developed business acumen. I started to better understand business concepts and especially the reasons why consultants exist.
I really liked what I was doing daily in my PhD, but I didn't want to commit 20-30 years of my career to solely focus in one expertise. On the other hand, a consulting career looked very attractive to me given I could potentially explore a lot of different subjects, different themes, and different industries.
Recruiting Advice
MC: Namaan Mian
How did you decide which consulting firm to join? What was your decision-making criteria as you were starting your career?
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
I got some of the best advice from a friend of mine. What he told me was that during the interviews, you will understand the culture of the firm, so pay attention to the way your interviewers speak, the way they ask you questions, the way they act, the way the interactions are between management, recruiters and candidates, the way that you are treated during the process – all of that says a lot about the culture of the firm you're applying at.
And it was true. I did a lot of interviews, and I talked to a lot of people. The further you advance in the recruiting process, the more you find that people aren't alike from firm to firm, and that people in each company tend to act a certain type of way. And so eventually, when I got the offers, I of course compared the basics, like salary and position. If those elements were on par, I asked myself a simple question, 'Do I really want to work every day in an environment where I would be with these types of people day in day out?'
I realized I was a very good fit with the people I met at Advancy during my recruiting process. The people had quite different backgrounds, but all were very open, very dynamic, and very honest. They were open books. After the case interview, you can always ask questions and people at Advancy were really telling the truth. They were telling me, 'It's like this, it's like that. That's what we do, that's not what we do.' They were all good people. I chose Advancy because of that. It's been a lot of years now, and without a doubt, I made the right decision.
MC: Namaan Mian
At the end of the day, it's more about the people that you work with, even beyond the compensation and some of the other things we often look at first when it comes to job offers. Those other considerations are important as well, but you're going to be spending a lot of time with these people, so they might as well be people that you enjoy being with and that are of high character and high competence as well. It's a huge consideration for anyone reading this who is evaluating firms and going through interview processes. Make sure that you know the type of people that you're going to be working with. Otherwise, even if everything else looks good on paper, you may not be the right fit for that firm.
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
Yeah, exactly. The fit needs to be both ways. The company needs to recruit people that fit for the firm and the candidate should fit the firm. There are different cultures in different companies and if you feel that a culture is not one where you would blend in easily, I think you will be quite uncomfortable in the long term.
Curiosity Matters
MC: Namaan Mian
Sylvestre, you have been at Advancy for about a decade now. You started as a consultant, were a Manager, were a Principal, and now you're the Managing Partner of the New York office. Why have you stayed – both in consulting and at Advancy specifically?
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
I think I'm still in consulting because I'm inherently very curious. And if you're curious, I believe consulting is one of the best jobs out there because every day you learn something new and that’s exciting. The clients we work with are inspiring leaders in their respective industries. And we really work collaboratively with them to be on the cutting edge of innovation and forefront of growth.
Why have I stayed at Advancy? It's really about the culture and the opportunities that are offered within the firm. The founder of Advancy often reminds us that the core of our DNA is “intrapreneurship”. This means that you can really take ownership and grow something inside the firm that you think is worth developing.
I have hundreds of examples of people within the organization that decided to take the lead on a given initiative, grow it internally, and create something extraordinary out of it. For example, while I was truly enjoying my life in Europe, after a couple of years I thought 'What's for me outside of Europe?' So, I decided to first relocate to Asia, in Shanghai, where we have a beautiful office. I worked there for a bit and then, thanks to the help of the people in Shanghai that really mentored me during that period, I felt equipped enough to continue my intrapreneurship journey and open Advancy New York City office in Spring 2019.
Advancy's New York Office
MC: Namaan Mian
Can you tell me a little bit more about the New York office? It’s been around for three-and-a-half years now. Who are the types of clients that you serve out of New York, how large is the office, and what separates New York from Shanghai or some of the other Advancy office locations?
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
First, as a firm, we have 10 offices scattered around the globe. In terms of clients, we're very well balanced between two types of clients. Half of our clients are what you would call corporates, either listed companies or family-owned businesses, and they are mostly leaders in their respective markets. The other half are private equity clients. In that space, we work with majority of the top 20 private equity houses globally as well as leading PE firms in a specific set of sectors (e.g., life science, industrials).
Depending on the month, we do more work for one type of client than the other, but we always focus on strategy. We only do strategic engagements with half related to organic growth, which means helping our clients accelerate their organic growth by entering new markets, into new geographies, or by launching new products, and the other half related to external growth (i.e., M&A advisory).
These are the two legs on which we walk – organic growth and external growth.
MC: Namaan Mian
Those are the fun and sexy projects – strategic and growth oriented. It doesn't sound like there's any cost cutting or optimization projects happening at Advancy!
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
No, that's not what we do. The main reason is because we focus on what we are extremely good at, and we're very good at strategic engagements. That's the way the firm was founded 25 years ago. That's what the two co-founders had in terms of business acumen, background, and ambition. If you look at the New York office, we've never done a cost cutting engagement, because that's not our DNA. That's not what we are known for.
MC: Namaan Mian
It seems like the New York office is growing quickly. You've got over 20 consultants now and you regularly receive over a thousand job applications for one open role. It's a competitive job to land and a competitive office to break into! Can you talk to us about where you see the firm going in the next 5-10 years and how you see the firm evolving? And specifically, since you're leading the New York office, how you see the New York office evolving?
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
We will be close to 30 people in the NYCs office by the end of 2023. As you said, we are over 20 right now. Then, in the next three years, we will be around 50 consultants. As a matter of fact, we are moving into a new location, which, depending on the layout, has the capacity for between 40 and 50 workstations. I hope that we will fill this new office within the next three years, and that by 2026, we will be moving to a new location.
In terms of practice areas, we really focus on two verticals in New York. One is called Life Science, and the other is called Industrials.
In the Life Science vertical, first you’ll find ingredients – used within food, personal care, and feed industries. Second is healthcare, such as the manufacturing of API and FDF, and third is related to biotech, which is a fast-growing field mostly driven by new therapeutic areas such as mRNA or cell and gene therapies.
The second vertical is called Industrials where we have engagements related to chemical markets, construction materials, and the packaging ecosystem.
Growth Areas for Advancy
MC: Namaan Mian
Do you expect that, over the next few years, you will add verticals to your core competencies? Or do you expect to just double down in those two key areas?
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
I expect that we will first double down on the food ingredient space, as well as on the biotech field. I strongly believe that we will accelerate there given the breadth of competence that we've been gathering over the past five years globally.
The third area where we will accelerate is sustainability. That's an area where we are on the front foot in our European offices where sustainability engagements represent ~20% of what we do there on a yearly basis. Our clients in Europe are really asking for help to transition energy sources. They are also trying to determine how to reduce their carbon emissions, and how to help finance this transition. Because the U.S. is still very independent from an energy standpoint, those topics are still addressed, but much less in depth than what you’d see in Europe. I strongly believe that with the expertise we've been developing in Europe over the past three to four years on that topic, and the partnerships we have with some amazing firms that are doing, for example, carbon tracking (e.g., Traace), we have built a strong methodology in this area that will be translatable to the U.S. market over the next few years.
MC: Namaan Mian
With the way the economy and geopolitical events are going, that's going to become a more and more important topic for companies to have a handle on. Do consultants at Advancy focus specifically in one vertical? Or do they get a chance to work on projects across Industrials, Life Sciences, and perhaps Sustainability as well?
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
The fun part of being a consultant is doing a lot of different things. So, if you were to join Advancy, you would be working on a lot of different projects. At Advancy, the typical length of a project is a month, give or take. Within a year, you would do anywhere from 10-12 projects touching between 8-10 different industries.
For example, in January, you might work in the biotech space for a company which is related to the development a new vaccine. In February, you would work for a company making new ingredients for food. In March, you could work with a company manufacturing electronics chemicals that end up in smartphones. You will learn something new every day and gain new industry exposure almost every month.
At least for the first two to three years, you are a generalist. At that level, you can specialize a little bit. Some of the consultants tell me that they prefer the food space or that maybe they prefer the pharma space. And of course, if you prefer one area, we'll try our best to over-expose you to that specific area. You would still be a generalist, but we will try to help you to be a little bit closer to what you really like to do.
But specialization really happens at the Manager level. Once you become a Manager, half of your time is spent on one of the specific sub-sectors I mentioned earlier. Some will be more focused on the ingredient play, some more focused on the specialty chemicals, some more focused on pharma, some are focused on biotech, and so on and so forth.
MC: Namaan Mian
It really sounds like you get broad industry exposure from day one.
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
Actually, when you join Advancy you have one full week of training, so a week from day one, I would say!
How Advancy is Different
MC: Namaan Mian
Okay, from day eight! You mentioned that you get the option to specialize once you hit Manager. Does Advancy employ an up or out model?
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
Our model is quite flexible. The firm was founded in Europe and the European model is quite different from the traditional one in the US. It's different in three key areas.
The first is that we do not force people out of our firm. We recognize that people could be excellent at doing a specific job, let's say Consultant, but then as soon as they've been promoted to a Senior Consultant role, it might take a little bit more time to get comfortable with what's asked of them. And that's normal, everybody is different. Sometimes you're great with one skill set, but you need a bit more time to adapt to another one. You're still a great professional, you just need a little bit more time to blend in.
The second difference is that we don't require MBAs. At Advancy, you can join with an undergrad degree and advance up to the Partner level. There is no glass ceiling. You don't need to go out, do an MBA, and come back. That's not a requirement. And if you look at the partnership model globally, you have people that have entered the firm out of undergrad who are now Partners.
The third thing that makes us different is that weekends are really protected. No one expects you to work on the weekend. At the Consultant level, nobody is working on a weekend. Partners are the only people to work weekends (if they’re preparing the workload for Monday on Sunday afternoon). But again, at the Consultant level, and even at the Manager level, you won't work on the weekends, and they are really protected.
How Consulting May Change
MC: Namaan Mian
That's unique. And we'll link to our interview with Keith, who is a Manager at Advancy. Keith and I had an in-depth conversation around how weekends are protected at Advancy. If you're interested in that, then please read that interview with Keith as well. It was really eye opening.
Sylvestre, you mentioned that sustainability is becoming a much larger part of your business and it seems to be a trend in business overall. Are you also seeing trends in how the day-to-day nature of consulting is changing?
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
That's an excellent question. Yes, Covid changed the way we approach engagements, for the better. Historically, just because of the way projects were organized, consultants were traveling more and had a lot more face to face meetings, workshops at clients’ sites, etc...
What Covid brought, on the positive side, is that now, everybody – including clients, have had to deal with the remote work situation, especially during the lockdown situation. Since then, our clients got more comfortable on organizing meetings through Zoom or Teams, and that's the way we work now. There is much less traveling now. No more taking the plane on Mondays at six in the morning, spending four days in Arkansas, and coming back home on Fridays.
I think that's good progress and the right direction both professionally and environmentally. It's making the job much less hectic, and it's making it much more productive because you talk to the client when you need to talk to the client. You organize a meeting when you need to organize a meeting. You set a time-limited session and then you need to condense the conversation into that timeframe versus, going there, waiting, losing time, and then having a session which might not be tailored to exactly what you need. I think we gained a lot of efficiency and a better quality of life.
It is also much less impactful on the environment. Beyond helping clients with their emissions, we also take our own environmental impact at Advancy very seriously. We have made internal estimations as to how large the environmental impact was from the constant travel. It truly is astounding the difference that can be made by not running a Monday to Thursday travel model.
MC: Namaan Mian
I love that. That sounds like just what I'm hearing from our other partners – they're able to deliver better quality output faster because there's less wasted time. Obviously, there is less wasted time with travel, but also, when clients are always accessible on site, we sometimes take for granted that they're always there. When you're scheduling a one-hour meeting, you've got to get everything done in the one hour. I'm all for greater efficiency and less travel, and it sounds like you are too.
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
Yeah, exactly. If you could do things better and faster, everybody's winning.
Advancy Culture
MC: Namaan Mian
Sylvestre, we've talked a lot about the work that the firm does and where you see the firm going in the next three to five years.
Can you talk to us a little bit more about Advancy's culture and the pillars that underlie it? You've mentioned it a couple of times already, but can you explicitly call out what you think makes Advancy different from a cultural perspective as opposed to some other firms in the space?
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
Three elements make Advancy different. The first one is collaboration. That's something that again, you feel when you do the interviews, by how people talk to you and the way they act. I felt that from day one and across different offices, from Europe to Asia to obviously here in New York.
First, people are genuinely willing to take some of their time to help you go through any hurdles you might face. Consultants take time to help you understand the issue you might have, whether it’s using Excel, understanding something during a presentation, or something else. We really have a team-oriented mindset.
Our projects typically have six people staffed on them. You're in a boat and everybody is rowing in the same direction and at the same pace so that everybody can arrive in due time at the harbor. Our work is a team exercise, and that's the way we see the job. And that's the way the job is organized as well, internally.
The second cultural element is really about dynamism. We are a very fast-paced organization. When I look at when I joined versus now, we've almost quadrupled in size globally. When I opened the office in NYC three and a half years ago, it was one person. Now, we're more than 20 and on a journey to be 30 next year. There's been tremendous growth in people and projects for the organization.
The people here are very energetic, vibrant, and taking initiatives. That's what I liked when I joined, because you feel that you can make a change, you can have an impact, you can make things move. And you aren't part of a boring, procedural organization where you need to do repetitive administrative blocking tasks.
The last thing that sets Advancy apart, from a cultural standpoint, is that it is an international firm. That's something that is extremely important. As I was saying earlier, we have ten offices – three in Europe, three in Asia, three in the Americas, and one in Africa. In New York City, we have up to nine different nationalities represented at any given time. People coming from Asia, Australia, Europe, Africa, and America, of course. That's something I value – the fact that you're in an organization where the people you work with are coming from different cultural and educational backgrounds.
Because you're spending time together, your colleagues always teach you something new. Especially in non-work-related discussions. They could have read this great book or watched this amazing movie, and you get richer from their experience.
In addition, at Advancy, you can transfer between offices. As an example, here in New York, one of our consultants transferred from Australia for six months, and before him we hosted someone from Europe.
MC: Namaan Mian
As the firm continues to grow, do you think that you can keep that fast-paced culture intact?
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
When I joined about a decade ago, the mantra was “we're doubling every four years.”. And this is exactly what happened over the past decade where we more than quadrupled. Honestly, I think we're very, very far from having reached a ceiling. There is so much more we could do in terms of doubling down in industries we currently serve or accelerating in industries which are adjacent to what we do. I've got a lot of ideas for where we could accelerate. We only have 24 hours in a day, so we need to focus on what’s most important right now, but in the coming years, the team will be broader, and we will be able to capture many more opportunities.
MC: Namaan Mian
It sounds like the firm plans to protect its entrepreneurial culture.
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
Yes, indeed. We're in process of opening an 11th office in Singapore to be closer to our clients in Southeast Asia. The new office will launch early 2023. And again, that will help us to keep accelerating the growth we see.
MC: Namaan Mian
Congratulations on the new office and the continued growth of the firm. We're excited to learn more about the Singapore office as things get started there.
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
Of course! Happy to put you in touch with our local team in due time.
Unique Experience
MC: Namaan Mian
As we wrap up our conversation, I want to come full circle and talk about you again. We started the conversation learning a little bit more about your background and I'd like to end the conversation learning a little bit about your experience. If you could pick one highlight from your time at Advancy, what would it be?
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
That's an easy one. It's when we organized a surprise company-wide trip. Nobody knew where we were going to go, except, of course, the key organizers. At that time, I was in the Paris office. They told us the date and that everybody should come at the office at 8am with bags packed for multiple kinds of weather.
On that day, we met in front of the office and a bus took us to the airport. On the airport TV was a flight listed as “Advancy – Unknown Destination”. We had tickets, but there was no destination on them! We boarded in a private commercial plane and flew to the northernmost city on the globe: Svalbard.
It took us maybe an hour to understand that we were flying up north and to figure out where we were going exactly. When we landed, people were waiting on us with extremely warm clothing. We then walked for about an hour into the most magnificent empty snow landscape you could imagine, and we arrived at some small tents that were set up for us. We spent the night there with our colleagues from across the world who had also flown with us from Paris. It was amazing, and we had a tremendous time. It was a unique, truly once in a lifetime experience.
Telling Your Younger Self
MC: Namaan Mian
That sounds fantastic. You've given me an idea for our own company and what we need to do for our next off-site! I can't blame you for choosing that as your defining moment because that sounds tough to beat.
Here at MC, we're always being asked for advice from prospective consultants and candidates who are looking to break into the industry. If you could go back in time and talk to younger Sylvestre and say, 'Hey, you're about to start consulting. Here's one piece of career advice.' What would you tell your younger self before you broke into the industry?
Advancy: Sylvestre Pires
That's a tough question. I think it's about being curious. Keep maintaining a strong level of motivation and curiosity and you will do great in the consulting world!
MC: Namaan Mian
You heard it straight from the Managing Partner himself. Stay curious, stay hungry, and you'll be okay!
Additional Resources:
- Advancy Firm Profile
- Advancy Recruiting Process Overview
- Consulting Resume: Complete Guide
- Case Interview: Complete Prep Guide