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The Strategy Skills Podcast: Strategy | Leadership | Critical Thinking | Problem-Solving

The Strategy Skills Podcast is the channel where strategy partners teach you the tools and techniques to solve mankind’s greatest problems. Learn all the skills of McKinsey and BCG consultants without having to work at a consulting firm. Our podcasts have been downloaded over 2 million times worldwide and we rank in the Top 10 career podcasts in most countries. Opt-in to our newsletter at www.firmsconsulting.com to receive free sample Insider content that we share nowhere else.

Each year we pick one consulting study and narrate the analyses, client interactions and recommendations so you can understand how the strategy is developed. Detailed videos and power-points to accompany the podcasts can be found on our website.

The podcast teaches both technical analyses and soft skills like communication. We discuss concepts to help listeners advance their strategy, operations and implementation skills, enhance their critical thinking ability and build their executive presence.
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Feb 25, 2026

Charles Steel reflects on “more than two decades in private equity, banking,” combined with “public service roles, including advising Tony Blair,” and how these experiences led him to a late but powerful discovery: “the best way to really find purpose in life is to be creative, to make stuff.” He...


Feb 23, 2026

Lorraine Marchand, startup CEO, advisor to Johnson & Johnson, member of the Pharmaceutical Advisory Board at Columbia Business School, and faculty at Wharton, discusses how leaders can sustain growth through disciplined experimentation in an era shaped by AI and institutional risk aversion. 

Marchand’s perspective is...


Feb 18, 2026

Ashley Herd, former Head of HR North America at McKinsey, joins this episode to discuss what effective leadership looks like in practice, especially in environments defined by speed, pressure, and increasing expectations around AI.

Drawing on her experience training more than 250,000 managers, she introduces a simple...


Feb 16, 2026

John McGinnis, law professor at Northwestern University and author of Why Democracy Needs the Rich, examines constitutional design, democratic stability, and the accelerating force of artificial intelligence. Drawing on the Federalist Papers, Tocqueville, and public choice theory, he argues that a...


Feb 11, 2026

Dr. Guy Winch explains why we must treat emotional injuries with the same urgency as physical ones. “We ruminate, we beat ourselves up, we criticize ourselves, we think we’re weak… and we end up compounding the emotional injury.” He introduces the idea of “emotional first aid” and why we need a psychological...