If you are a female student in your penultimate year of an undergraduate or postgraduate degree in Australia or New Zealand, please apply for our Women in Leadership Scholarship. The recipient will receive $15,000 and an internship in one of our Australian offices in 2020 (timing negotiable). Please apply online by 30 June 2019.
In my final year of law school, I decided to apply for McKinsey’s Women in Leadership Scholarship to learn more about management consulting. After completing an internship and working full-time at the firm for nearly three years, I can definitely say it was the right decision. I’ve learned a lot about myself, my passions, and my potential for leadership. I’ve built useful skills I can take with me wherever I go and a supportive community of diverse and talented colleagues and friends.
On the day of my first interviews for the scholarship, I remember standing in the elevator demonstrating all the visible signs of an arts/law student who was about to have her problem solving and arithmetic skills tested: sweaty palms, wild gesticulations, pounding heart, etc. During the interviews, my nervousness gave way to excitement. I worked through cases covering a range of topics. I learned more about my interviewers who came from a host of different backgrounds – a former surgeon, a mining engineer and an investment banker. I was amazed by the breadth of their careers and the difference they had made in their respective fields. Instantly, I fell in love with this seemingly crazy idea: maybe I didn’t have to pick one area of focus, and maybe maintaining broad interests would put me in a better place to solve some of world’s most challenging problems.
In my roles as a business analyst and now associate, this idea has been continually reaffirmed. I’ve worked across sectors, industries and functions. With each engagement, I’ve learned new skills or built on existing ones I wouldn’t have developed so quickly without such broad, varied exposure and the support of my colleagues to help me through each new situation.
I’ve reached a point in my career when I’m focusing more on my passion: achieving meaningful reform in the public and social sectors. I’ve worked with a host of federal departments in Australia, and within the public sector in the UK. This year, I joined Generation, a project run by the McKinsey Social Initiative, a not-for-profit global organisation founded by McKinsey. We’re designing and launching a program to tackle youth unemployment in Australia in a start-up environment. Next year, I’ll work on earning my masters of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.