Baringa Partners Reviews

Pros

Baringa’s biggest selling point is genuinely caring about its people whilst providing challenging work and the opportunity to grow. Like many others I left a larger consulting firm to join based on better culture and work life balance. I was worried that the good rep was just branding, but still here almost five years later and wouldn’t go back to a big firm.

Cons

Individual projects can still be tough/boring, but it’s definitely not a Baringa-only issue. Some senior leadership stick to their big four way of managing which is at conflict with company values and culture.

Pros

Good parties and really fun people to work with. We do interesting work and there is scope for moving sectors within the company.

Cons

The main problem is workload. There is constantly far too much work to be done, resulting in people working all hours and then getting stressed. This is a business decision, by the partners at the top of the company. If they took less in profits out of the business and employed more staff the workload issue could be eliminated. But the partners want to emulate the obscene incomes seen at other consultancies. The managing partner earned £7m last year. That's the equivalent of 200 analysts! Baringa is making a big deal of its BCorp status, but I don't see how you can be a progressive company when you have such extreme extraction of wealth from the partners, at the expense of the workers wellbeing. Luckily, there is a very easy fix to this, the partners just need to show a little restraint and let the workforce get their lives back.

Pros

Partners and leaders very approachable and responsive. Autonomy and client exposure Easy to work across different clients, industries and with smart people. Always trying to improve, quickly make changes to address issues. Really supportive people, not competitive across teams due to 1 P&L and profit share Fast promotion (4 chances to get promoted per year) Great that vision is aligned to B-Corp /Sustainability not just profit

Cons

No company mobile (although contracts /Sims are paid for biz purposes) Super fast growth means its more serious than it used to be.

Pros

Super smart people Amazing culture Great pay and benefit

Cons

sometimes the culture is too nice

Pros

Very smart people who care about each other and care about the client. People are kind, curious and bring the best they can everyday. Superb senior leadership. Growing, profitable and gives clients a different experience of consulting. It feels different to work with Baringa. Work 'side-by-side' with clients World leader in many fields Whole company taken away each year (with partners) and you get to know your colleagues as people (so they're not a timesheet resource!) It's probably as good as it gets in terms of culture and working, or another way to put it given the intensity of consulting as a career it's "the least bad"! It's growing so you can shape your own path more than with larger consultancies that have rely more on processes and systems to manage it's global workforce and operations The way it runs systematically embeds collaboration. No "pointy elbows" needed like at other consultancies. Typically more experienced consultants are in the term, so it's not a pyramid where client doesn't get the team they met at first. This means those starting learn from more experienced managers

Cons

Super busy and highly utilised so you have to be far more 'on it' than with larger consultancies that might allow you to be on the bench for weeks/ months! Need to be quite entrepreneurial and 'can do' to thrive. We do a huge amount internally which if you don't manage well can overload you so you need to be smart on where you focus

Pros

Generally very good colleagues - sharp, energetic, easy to work with Prominent position as advisors at heart of energy transition in UK and beyond Some good perks: through parties, financial planning support, paid paternal leave etc

Cons

Pay for Senior Partners has become out of hand. The Managing Partner takes £7m per year, and many Partners are on more than £1m. The ratio of pay from top to bottom within Baringa, is around 300/1 which is obscene by any measure. Baringa make a big deal around their support of staff with respect to wellbeing. But there is a chronic "over working" culture in Baringa, nobody does their contracted hours, with people burning out regularly. This could be eliminated if the pay over £1m was capped, and the money was used to expand the number of staff. You'd be able to have 10-20% more staff from the same revenue, which would completely transform the workload required.

Pros

The consultants themselves are generally a lovely group of people

Cons

- Being told that I (a 3rd generation Indian woman who was born and raised in the U.K) need to work on their English by management. - Dickensian workhouse'esque expectations on the IT, Finance and HR workers, to the point of burnout, exhaustion and mental breakdown. - Throughout the pandemic hundreds of dirty broken laptops were sent to each of the IT analysts with the expectation that they store them in their homes. For a company that turns over nearly £270 million per annum, they were clearly too greedy to rent out storage facilities for these laptops. - In my 18 months working in this position I saw 10 people resign in my department. Mainly due to burnout, a complete lack of respect and normal human empathy from leadership and an intrinsic believe that corporate is a cost rather than an asset to the company. - A member of my team unfortunately had his best friend commit suicide during the pandemic and booked off bereavement leave as a result. Leadership's response was to emotionally blackmail him to not take the bereavement leave as "your colleague will have to take the brunt for you". - There is a highly clandestine culture of racism at this place. Apart from my own experiences, I witnessed a colleague being referred to as a monkey by someone more senior than him, and another colleague constantly being laughed at for having her natural afro hair out. Baringa constantly harp on about being pro-equality, but I did not see this in the slightest. - An almost deity like view of senior leadership, who must be shielded from any form of criticism on their brutal working practices.