The Beacon Fellowship - Consult abroad under a McKinsey/Bain/BCG consultant

The Beacon Fellowship is four weeks of developing business and consulting skills under expert guidance (consultants come from Bain, McKinsey, etc.) for a partner organization in Madrid. For me, the international exposure and opportunities to travel were fantastic additions to what would have been, even in the US, a very helpful intensive internship environment. Fellows worked on meaningful projects for the client organizations, and several Fellows even received return offers from the clients. I would recommend the fellowship to those considering business and consulting seriously, with the lone caveat being that in many cases, you may have to fundraise to afford the cost.

I was so impressed by the drive, enthusiasm, and knowledge of the other participants and was inspired by them to take my own pursuits to the next level.

Meeting with leading business people in Madrid offered me some international perspective and insight on business, consulting, and finance. Travelling is not only good for broadening personal horizons but professional ones, too. There is something about being in a foreign setting that stirs imagination, creativity, and innovation.

In an increasingly globalised world, it's essential to have international experience. Thanks to the Fellowship, our visits with business leaders as well as our cultural excursions were well organized, which made it easy for us to learn a lot in a short, intense period.

Any venture in business, consulting, or finance which fails to recognize that these endeavors are ultimately about helping people flourish is inherently myopic. I know of no other fellowship that appreciates and builds upon this principle better than the Beacon Fellowship for Business.

This fellowship aims to elevate the individual by recognizing that we are intimately connected to our communities and the world. Consequently, Beacon first aims to bring together a group of individuals who are diverse in thought and experience, yet united in ethics and virtue. The group is then submerged in a community abroad which simultaneously encourages unity and individual exploration.

The foreign cultural element is absolutely essential to this program, because exposure to diversity equips the observant mind with new insights into the human experience. These lessons help fellows embrace new cultures, as well as their own, which ultimately empowers them to be more effective servants of humanity through business, consulting, and finance.

Beacon accomplishes so much in just a few weeks due to synergy among ambitious fellows and insightful instruction from foreign professionals. As the world becomes increasingly international, American students have much to learn from foreign professionals who have engaged in international business as a matter of necessity for many years. These insights are invaluable to rising young professionals who posses the desire and character to be future leaders in business, consulting, and finance.

I usually don't give 10/10 ratings as there is almost always something that could be improved, but quite frankly the Beacon Fellowship left so little to be desired that demoting any rating category to a '9' just wouldn't be fair.
When the opportunity to embark on the Beacon Fellowship presented itself to me, I was hesitant at first – primarily because I was so late to the game, and had to make a go-or-no-go decision in a matter of a few days. Beyond vague generalizations, I had little idea what to expect, and still less confidence in my ability to thrive in the program and turn it into a truly positive window of personal and professional development. But with Emerson’s famed exhortation in my mind’s ear – “Do what you are afraid to do” – I punched my ticket to Madrid.
Writing this memo the week after the trip, I can say without hesitation that I made the right call.
I harbored admittedly few concrete expectations, true; but my adventure in Spain could have shattered expectations ten-fold greater than my own. Together with my peers in the Beacon program, I was able to experience the local culture on every level: from the way daily life is carried out and how the world is viewed, all the way down to the rich history of the place – captivatingly expressed through the very art and architecture that permeates nearly every line and angle of the public space. Add to this the occasion to sample the uniquely delectable local cuisine, and it becomes a nigh-irresistible proposition.
But these are elements which would be present in most any variety of international travel. What stood out to me as an unmistakable advantage of the Beacon Fellowship specifically was the opportunity for professional growth and maturation. We came face-to-face with a new market possessed of its own singular economy, and were forced to think outside the one-dimensional framework necessarily instilled in a person – no matter how smart – when confined to the sphere of their own country for too long. We connected with and learned from top industry professionals across the board – including partners of the boutique wealth-management firm Zechman Capital and representatives of the MBA programs at Instituto de Empresa (IE) and Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE), respectively the second- and third-ranked business schools outside of the United States.
In all these remarkable aspects of the program, it would be easy to overlook the one advantage which may yet surpass all those prior: the Beacon Fellows themselves. Your comrades in this program, the young professionals with whom you share your adventures, will invariably be highly ambitious, extremely motivated, surpassingly intelligent, and riotously fun. If this sounds like the type of professional colleague and personal friend you’d like to have, there is no better environment to find them than from among your Beacon Fellowship peers, and the unforgettable overseas excursions which you share together present the ideal furnace in which to forge your friendship.
Needless to say: I’d do it again.