The Lehigh Consulting Group hosted its annual summit on Sept. 21, giving Lehigh students the opportunity to network with alumni and professionals while learning about consulting and the business world.
The Lehigh Consulting Group aims to provide students with real-world business skills while placing a strong focus on leadership and analytics. The summit is just one opportunity for students— Lehigh Consulting Group also has an analyst program to which students can apply and a case competition in the spring.
“We want students to learn what consulting is, and also help them find companies they haven’t heard of and connect with alumni or recruiters at those companies,” Abbhi Sekar, ’21, president of the Lehigh Consulting Group said. “The goal is for the summit to be a network of firms that may not come to campus all the time so they can get more exposure to different students.”
Faculty Adviser James Brennan said this is the third year Lehigh Consulting Group has hosted the summit. He said Lehigh Consulting Group gains popularity each year, and around 200 students, alumni and company representatives attended on Saturday.
Brennan said the 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday event is a significant commitment.
“(The summit is) impressive because you get to see the Lehigh students at their best,” he said. “It’s really special when you see them and imagine them in an organization.”
The program included networking, two alumni panels and a keynote speaker. The panels held were, “Climbing the Ladder: Succeeding as an Analyst,” and “Advances in Tech: The Evolution of Consulting.”
Keynote Speaker Mike Gausling gave his presentation, “The Ethics of Entrepreneurship and Raising Capital.” Sekar said the group chose Gausling for this year’s summit because of his demonstrated business success.
“He is an entrepreneur who started a company from scratch called Orshore Technologies that he sold for tens of millions of dollars,” Sekar said. “After that, he started his own investing capital firm called Originate Ventures. Now he is investing in local, tri-state area companies and has done a lot with the local community and Lehigh.”
Joseph Musolino, ‘22, said the summit was inspiring and helped him confirm his interest in consulting as a career path.
“I chose to go to the summit after the career fair because it is a more personal way to learn about consulting, a pretty specific field that I want to go into,” Musolino said. “It offered more networking opportunities and was less crowded than the career fair, so I would be more likely to have a face-to-face conversation with recruiters.”
Although he was not part of Lehigh Consulting Group before the summit, Musolino said the summit motivated him to apply for the Lehigh Consulting Group’s analyst program. The analyst program organizes students into teams of five to seven to complete semester-long projects, such as completing market-based research, designing a new website or optimizing a certain service for a real company
According to Lehigh Consulting Group’s website, some of the companies that attend the summit are Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, International Business Machines Corporation, West Monroe Partners, KPMG, Aon plc, Deloitte and Factory LLC.
This event is free and is open to all students.
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