Vault’s Verdict

L.E.K. insiders love its collaborative and entrepreneurial culture, as well as its merit-based promotion system. They applaud how the firm enables them to dramatically increase their salaries in their first few years on the job, plus its commitment to building a learning culture—shown through its international transfer programs, mentorship programs, and transparent path to partnership.

However, working at L.E.K. is not for everyone. Hours at the firm are demanding, even for consulting, and they’re often more rigid than at competing firms. While insiders say the firm’s leadership has made progress to address work-life balance issues, particularly by requiring employees to turn off at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays, there’s still a way to go. 

That said, the firm is an excellent fit for the right candidate. If you want to work somewhere with the potential to reach the very top of the firm—and if you’re willing to put in the effort to get there—L.E.K. is worth considering.

Firm Culture

• “Little travel is required, which is great to foster a strong company culture working together in-office. Our culture is strongly biased towards entrepreneurship, transparency, collaboration and democracy which is extremely satisfying at all levels.”
• “We have one protected evening every week and appropriate days off and benefits for working late. However, the status quo is working late and you rarely finish work within the contracted hours.”
• “We have a great culture with good, intelligent, and hardworking people.”
• “We have a flat hierarchy and one global team.”

Quality of Life

• “Broadly, L.E.K. has got a lot better at managing work-life balance compared to when I started. There's been a lot of effort there for a while, which I think is bearing fruit, but there's still work to be done.”
• “The hours are long and intense, which doesn’t leave much room for anything else during the week. However, weekends are protected well, and it is very rare to have to work between the end of the day on Friday and the beginning of the day on Monday.”
• “There’s a lot of rigidity around working hours, particularly in the first year, but the hours don't seem to get better as you climb through the ranks. The limited travel requirements are a positive, and there are good opportunities to take time off, including unpaid leave”
• “We have protected weekends and vacations, so we don’t have to work when we’re off. We also have protected nights on Wednesday and Friday with no work after 7:30 p.m.”

Career Development

• “The firm offers an office swap program, MBA sponsorship, and a private coach. It’s a meritocracy with performance-based promotions. However, it could invest more in high performers.”
• “L.E.K. is an open partnership, so every person who joins the company has a chance to become a partner. The training is intensive, both form and (especially) on the job. Partners are very hands-on and share their experience with their case teams.”
• “The company promotes on merit and encourages a proactive approach and entrepreneurship at every level. In essence, if you are an associate and perform the job of a consultant, you’ll be promoted to consultant in no time.”
• “There are material opportunities to work internationally and relocate within the firm’s network.”

Compensation

• “Your salary rises rapidly over the first few years after joining, and bonuses are generous. However, it is nearly impossible to achieve 100 percent of your target performance bonus, with only about 1 percent of staff doing so.”
• “The firm offers good salary progression, and the profit-sharing plan is generous as it accounts for about 10 percent of your salary, and that’s on top of your bonus. Salary per hour worked could be better, though.”
• “The company offers almost linear salary progression, without major jumps, which means that the longer you stay the more you make. This can be good or bad, depending on your individual career plan. Profit sharing is also great, though, it would be great to have a minimum sum or percentage.”
• “Every employee gets a £250 allowance per year to spend on health and wellness activities or equipment. Every employee also has access to counselling and therapy services.”

Community Engagement/DEI

• “Once people are in the team, I see very little differentiation in how the firm treats them, and the employee resource groups that represent different minorities are quite strong and active. However, we still need to do better at recruiting and encouraging long term careers from different groups of people, as I don't think the pipeline is as strong as it could be yet, despite considerable effort.”
• “The firm has a lot of DEI activity. We have a mandatory in-person training from a professional company, we hired a chief people officer, and we are developing respect and inclusion trainings and a series of regular events for the LGBTQ+ community.”
• “We have various active employee resource groups: Women@lek, Parents@lek, Mosaic (which focuses on race, ethnicity, and religion), and Pride@lek. There’s also a DEI committee, and as an inclusive firm, leadership encourages and endorses these initiatives to ensure there is no discrimination.”
• “There are numerous initiatives around stress management, mental health, sports groups, yoga training, better nutrition, and so on. which is a positive legacy of the COVID days. These initiatives help us find a good balance between a demanding-but-rewarding job and inevitable stress.”

Business Outlook

• “We're very good at what we do, but the markets we're deepest in (primarily growth strategy for corporate clients and commercial M&A advisory) aren't sufficiently deep to enable us to grow as we'd like. So, the outlook for the business is good and our markets should sustain us, but to achieve our growth ambitions we need to work out how to broaden services, which isn't easy to do while maintaining profitability.”
• “All in all I am confident because in turbulent times L.E.K. has always grown faster than the market, which is a tribute to the entrepreneur culture mentioned.”
• “Overall, we are seeing growth, but overdependence on the private equity market is slowing us down now because M&A is currently rather stagnant. This said, the company realized this early and we now have more corporate projects.”
• “Conservatism may undermine the medium- and long-term prospects of the firm.”

Hiring Process

• “We have three to four rounds of typical case interviews. The results are not important—only your approach and ability to work with artificial pressure.”
• “The interview process is normal for consulting, with three to four interviews with employees in increasing levels of seniority. The ideal candidate is somebody who works very well in a close-knit team, makes the environment good, and has a good analytical mind to carry out the tasks.”
• “Each candidate gets a debrief and suggestions on how to improve. The ideal candidate could be analytical, curious, a team-player, always in doubt, and honest.”
• “The ideal candidate should be a motivated person, with good communication skills and genuine interest in consulting and M&A. They should speak perfect English and at least one other language. A good level of Excel and PowerPoint will also be an asset.”

Interview Questions

• “There is always a combination of market sizing and a strategy case. It can be anything that falls into these two categories, such as sizing the market for vaccines after COVID or finding a solution to a retail chain’s loss of profitability.”
• “Expect to see market sizing cases and end-to-end case studies that go from the initial structuring of your approach to data analysis, to brainstorming exercises, to synthesizing and concluding.”
• “How would you be able to find out why new businesses starting in the U.K. struggle to scale up compared to other countries? Are vehicle repair service providers more like restaurants or taxi firms and why?”
• “What should a company consider before opening a new facility in Europe.”

Uppers

• “The strong entrepreneurial spirit coupled with working with some of the brightest minds in the industry.”
• “The compensation at more junior levels, the steep learning curve, the prestige in the private equity space, the culture, and the flexibility in working hours and locations.”
• “The historical work-life balance, parental leave, and collegiality.”
• “Work-from home, plus interesting projects with very smart people.”

Downers

• “The hours and the work-life balance.”
• “We could be bolder in making strategic moves.”
• “The lack of support and training for any non-case efforts.”
• “The firm lacks a clear vision to innovate the business.”