Ondrej joined McKinsey in October 2005 armed with a Master's degree from the Czech Technical University, Department of Radioelectronics. He also spent a year at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. As a student, Ondrej received the McKinsey Scholarship. He also won a local competition for the best student-made electronic product and a local maths-physics competition.

6:15 The alarm clock seems unwilling to negotiate. I really need to get up. Monday morning can be pretty hard, especially after a weekend spent in the mountains and the Sunday night celebration of my girlfriend's birthday.

7:00 Jumping into a taxi to the Prague airport…the client is spread across Central and Eastern Europe, so our team covers Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, and Ukraine – with Russia potentially coming into our scope too. Checking my calendar in the car, I realize that today will be particularly tough: interviews with some local client team members in Zagreb from 11 a.m., then a mid-afternoon meeting, followed by a teleconference – and I'll need to be in Bratislava tonight.

7:45 I'm already checked in and downloading my e-mails when my engagement manager calls. His plane from Brussels has a 90-minute delay. That means I'll have to cover his first interview as well. Cool. We agree upon the final changes to the client docs as well as additional data that we will need to collect from the client during the interviews.

8:15 Take-off...I scan my new e-mails, nothing urgent. I make the agreed-upon changes to the client documents and prepare templates and definitions for the data that we need to collect.

10:15 In a taxi from Zagreb airport, I call one of the client team members: the schedule is confirmed, everything is ready, great.

11:00 The first two-hour round of interviews begins. As these are initial interviews with new members of the client team, I explain the project, its scope, the analysis planned, and the expected outcomes. I already gather a lot of useful information during the opening discussions. Then we dive deep into the data that we need to collect. The section manager contributes a high-level overview while the experts share their insights. We go through the list of data needed, discuss definitions, and agree on next steps. The good news is that they can prepare the data by the end of this week.

13:00 Lunch in the local canteen with my engagement manager…I debrief him on the interviews that I have done so far, and we agree on next steps and follow-ups.

13:30 Checking e-mails, making changes (yet again) to the documents for the afternoon, responding to missed calls…

14:00 Second round of interviews…this time we cover the second work stream. A little problem crops up: the experts say they cannot provide us with a particular piece of data because they don't have it in their systems. We definitely need to find a way around this, as it is a crucial part of the analysis we have to do. It takes quite some time, but in the end we arrive at a solution. There is a way to get it done. After the interviews, I again debrief my engagement manager and we draw our first conclusions.

16:00 During the meeting with the CIO and COO, the engagement manager explains where we stand and introduces our very first conclusions. Both execs are happy about the progress made and ask us to call anytime we need anything. We managed to establish a strong client relationship right from the start. Great!

17:00 Heading for the airport again…on the way we prepare a schedule for our analysis and do a little brainstorming about the data we currently have. We feel confident that we have gathered a lot of interesting and unexpected information today. Cool, it looks that this project is becoming even more exciting.

18:30 Flying to Vienna…I process the data we received today. Some of the results look promising, but further analyses will depend on the remaining data. We should get it within the next few days.

20:00 Now, during the drive to Bratislava, I have a 30-min teleconference with my colleagues in Prague. We need to discuss and agree upon next steps for one of our Junior Consultant Club initiatives. I also call my girlfriend: she's going to an interview for a new job tomorrow. She feels confident but still needs a little encouragement.

21:00 Already in my hotel room in Bratislava…I flip through my new e-mails. OK, there's nothing that can't wait until tomorrow. I also check my calendar. Tomorrow should be easier: only one team meeting with two senior client members and few short interviews with experts here in Bratislava. Thereafter, in the evening, I will need to go to Budapest.

21:30 Team dinner…apart from the engagement manager, I dine with two other team mates who also came to Bratislava for the meeting tomorrow. As we all had quite a successful day, we take it as a good excuse to have couple of drinks in one of the night spots in the center of Bratislava…