Varun Desai
5.0
(8)
Helping Non-Target Candidates Break Into Strategy Consulting | BCG & OW
Studied at College of William and Mary
Worked at Oliver Wyman
Successful clients at
Available tomorrow at 10:00 PM UTC
Questions? Start chatting with this coach before you get started.
Varun's Coaching Offerings
Custom hourly · $129/hr
Get help with Cover Letters, AI Fundamentals, and .
Varun’s Management Consulting Qualifications
Experience level: Consultant
60+ people coached for Management Consulting
Varun has helped clients get into these companies:
Hi! I’m a former consultant with offers from Boston Consulting Group and Oliver Wyman, based in New York. I now work in Strategy and Ops in big tech - across topics like A/B testing, planning and performance management, and AI Center of Excellence. I'm a first-gen immigrant coming from a non-target background. Neither of my parents worked in business - I broke into consulting by networking strategically and performing well in interviews. I now coach early- and mid-career professionals from non-target schools who want to break into management consulting (MBB and Tier 2). Over the years, I’ve helped dozens of candidates land offers at McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Oliver Wyman, and other top firms. My approach focuses on turning your real experience into consultant-ready stories, building structured and data-driven thinking for cases, and helping you communicate with clarity and confidence in interviews.
Varun can help with:
Cover Letters
AI Fundamentals
Presentations
General Exploration
Skill Building
Job Search Strategies
Case Interview Prep
Resume Review
Frameworks
AI Automation
Behavioral Interview Prep
Case Math
Salary Negotiation
Promotion Strategy
Networking Strategy
LinkedIn Review
AI Strategy & Plans Development
About Varun
Hi! I’m a former consultant with offers from Boston Consulting Group and Oliver Wyman, based in New York. I'm a first-gen immigrant coming from a non-target background. Neither of my parents worked in business - I broke into consulting by networking strategically and performing well in interviews. Over the years, I’ve coached dozens of students and working professionals from non-target schools who have gone on to land roles at McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Oliver Wyman, and other top consulting firms. I now work in Strategy and Ops in big tech - across topics like A/B testing, planning and performance management, and AI Center of Excellence.
Why do I coach?
I coach because I know how opaque and unfair the consulting recruiting process can feel, especially if you didn’t come from a target school or a traditional business background. I’ve been on the other side of that uncertainty - figuring out networking from scratch, learning how to think and communicate like a consultant, and translating my real experience into something firms would value. Coaching lets me shorten that learning curve for others, cut through the online noise and bad advice, and help people approach the process with clarity, structure, and confidence
Work Experience
Consultant - Senior Consultant
Oliver Wyman
August 2020 - September 2022
Generalist management consultant working across financial services, healthcare, and private equity. Led multiple relationships with mid- and junior clients, structuring and execution of quantitative analyses, and presentation of project work to senior clients. Project experience includes growth strategy, go to market, investment strategy, and process improvement. Select experience below: ● For a Fortune 500 bank, o Led project workstream and directly managed consultant while supporting commercial bank with their data analytics strategy o Reduced end-to-end reporting process time to Federal Reserve by over 30% through identified efficiencies and streamlined processes o Consolidated five reporting outputs and 20+ data sources into a single centralized “golden source” of data o Presented to senior-most client (SVP) on multiple occasions ● For a Fortune 50 insurance carrier building a new personal finance app, o Built multi-year, multi-million revenue and cost projections in the creation of their new financial wellness app offering o Researched product offerings and strategic alignment of BaaS providers and credit bureaus o App was later launched on App Store and Google Play Store ● For a new $1BN investment fund, o Co-created investment strategy for fund, including a market map of investment opportunities across returns, deal volume, and fund size o Developed a pro forma multi-sector model to assess sector and sub-sector performance o Investment fund was later established by CEO and other C-suite based on Oliver Wyman recommendations Data Analysis, Microsoft Excel and +3 skills
Summer Analyst
Goldman Sachs
May 2019 - August 2019
Received full time offer for New York office.
Financial Analyst Intern
Ferguson
May 2018 - August 2018
FTSE 100 firm $3B+ eCommerce division
Varun was also given offers to work at
Boston Consulting Group
Education
College of William and Mary
Bachelor’s Degree, Economics, Minor in Math
2016 - 2020
Grade: Summa Cum Laude Honors: Archibald-Finifter Economics Scholarship, Student Leadership Foundation Scholar, Diversity in the Workplace Scholar Howard J. Busbee Finance Academy - Vice President '18 Founder of Lazarus Rising W&M Chapter (non-profit) Resident Assistant Research Intern - Systemic Text Analysis for International Relations (STAIR) Lab Afsana - Competitive Bollywood Dance Team (Competitive Dancer) W&M Model UN (Director) Debate - APDA
McGill University
Exchange, Desautels Faculty of Management
2019 - 2019
Grade: 3.85/4.00 Activities and societies: MyVision Consulting
8 Reviews
Overall Rating
5.0
Varun has helped clients get into these schools:
Varun has helped clients get into these companies: