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Fabiana Clemente, Bentley ’21
Recently, the Pulsifer Career Development office had a chance to speak with Bentley Alum, Fabiana Clemente, about her path to a consulting career and her experiences with Massaro Consulting. Fabiana graduated from Bentley in 2021 with her major in Creative Industries and LSM in Global Perspectives.
Path to Consulting:
As a Creative Industries major, Fabiana had initially not given any thought to pursing consulting as a career. In fact, Fabiana admits she wasn’t very familiar with the role of consulting at all, until she had the opportunity to take an Organizational Behavior class where she was introduced to Professor Mateo Cruz. Through conversations with Professor Cruz, Fabiana learned that careers in consulting can offer diversity in work experiences, with “no two days being the same”. The more she learned about this career path, she was drawn to the potential for continuous learning provided in working on a variety of projects and the need to come up to speed quickly on client issues.
Fabiana then began speaking with others about her new interest in consulting, where she heard conflicting opinions about the nature of the work. Some of her contacts described consulting work as following a prescribed approach/process to each engagement. While, conversely, other contacts suggested consulting work provided ample opportunity for devising creative approaches to problem solving. To a Creative Industries major, identifying a firm that would enable her to leverage her creativity in solution identification would be crucial to Fabiana’s fulfillment in this type of work.
Finding Massaro:
As Fabiana continued her work in researching consulting roles and firms, she came across Massaro Consulting, a firm that first caught her eye when she thought the name sounded Italian. (Fabiana hails from Italy!). Seeing that a Bentley alumni worked at this firm, Fabiana attended an information session to learn more about the company, its work, and its culture. The first thing that struck Fabiana was the interaction amongst the Consultants during the session. Their ability to seamlessly build from each other’s commentary and ideas gave her a sense of the chemistry and collaboration of the team, and the depth of their trusted relationships. Additionally, through the information session and subsequent conversations/ interviews Fabiana learned that Massaro was seeking consultants who could identify creative / bold approaches to solving client problems. Fabiana expressed that after her conversations with the Massaro team, she knew this was the place for her.
Fabiana’s Experience:
Fabiana has very much enjoyed her first year working at Massaro, finding it to be the challenge and learning experience that she craved. She describes Massaro as having a very unique culture, one that offers consultants exceptional autonomy, but with a team that is always willing to collaborate and share ideas and approaches when asked. She states that her CEO, Mikhail Papovsky, describes the approach as “we will tell you what to do, but the “how” is up to you”.
Massaro also deliberately builds a culture based upon trusted relationships among its consultants and the encouragement of continuous learning. Fabiana has described multiple opportunities provided to the teams to connect outside of the work, to further develop their relationships. Additionally, she has very much enjoyed the opportunity to already have taken 4 different courses to enhance her professional development.
How did Bentley prepare a Creative Industries major to be successful in Technology Consulting?
When asked this question, Fabiana admitted that joining a technology consulting firm was a little intimidating in the beginning. But Fabiana quickly learned her Bentley experience and creative mindset have well-prepared her for the challenge. First, she found that the culture at Bentley and learning how to balance “a million different activities and school projects” well prepared her for the fast-paced nature of Massaro’s consulting work. Additionally, she found Bentley trained her to employ “big picture” thinking and conduct thorough research, while deploying critical problem-solving skills which has been essential to her success. Finally, Fabiana stated that students should know there is a learning curve to the position, so maintaining a curious mindset and continually asking questions critical. However, students should be assured that the very technical aspects to a project will be given to subject matter experts, the consultants are expected to bring more of a generalist approach to client solutions.
If you would like to learn more about opportunities at Massaro Consulting, be sure to attend their information session on Sept 26 from 2-3 in LAC 340
