Noah Pratt

What's your job about?

As a Business Analyst, my role is to support my engagement team by conducting analysis and delivering key insights and producing the materials required to drive change. Since joining Partners in Performance, I have had the opportunity to travel to many different places around Australia for work: from visiting a gold mine in Queensland, to working with a financial services company in Sydney, to working with a technology-based service provider in Melbourne… The list goes on!

As a consultant, every day is different as you are exposed to a large range of activities, people and industries, meaning your daily tasks will vary greatly. You could be analysing production data and identifying the process bottlenecks for a heavy industry company one day; then, you could be hosting workshops with senior client management to generate improvement ideas for their business the next; and a few days later you could be interviewing client stakeholders to help improve business processes. 

What's your background?

After graduating high school in 2017, I chose to study finance and economics at the University of Queensland. I love to travel, so I knew I would really enjoy any job where I got to travel, which was one of the reasons that attracted me to consulting.

Throughout my time at university, I was fortunate enough to have undergraduate jobs in venture capital and the finance sector more broadly. I was also involved with student societies and case competitions, which is where I got my first taste of consulting. I decided to pursue a career in the industry, and started as a graduate in early 2022. Whilst work can be challenging at times, it has been very rewarding.

Could someone with a different background do your job?

Absolutely! Many of my colleagues come from different backgrounds: clinical science, engineering, defence force roles, law and mathematics backgrounds, to name a few. While these backgrounds may give you greater expertise in certain areas, they are not the key differentiating factors which determine your success in this role. As long as you have a passion for problem-solving, intellectual curiosity and enjoy working in teams, you can become a great consultant.

What's the coolest thing about your job?

I love  it when clients are genuinely impressed with the work we do. Hearing comments like “thank you for helping us, we should’ve brought you in sooner” or “that’s a great a piece of analysis, I never thought of it in that way” is very rewarding. It is great to be able to form relationships with the client team and make a real change in their business.

3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...

1. Don’t stress the small stuff. It doesn’t matter as much as you think!
2. Think and act long-term. While you are young you have the unique benefit of leveraging long-term gains, so try to adopt this mindset whenever you can.
3. Nurture your relationships. Good relationships with friends and family enrich your life and career.