What has been customary in international law firms for a long time is now prevailing in consultancy firms. After a long period of time where graduates were brought in straight from the lecture hall into the office due of their unspoiled relationship towards practice, now more and more consultants with extensive knowledge and experience are sought after.

A lawyer wrote the following about his craft and I think the same can be said about management consultants: “Top commercial lawyers mature like vintage wine with long shelf life. Experience is the most important ingredient for successful consulting. “

Even though, due to my many years as management consultant I can count myself as part of the ‘old’ I would like to stick up for the ‘new’. I think, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

We need ‘old’ as well as ‘young’ consultants equally. Not everything we subsume under the term experience can be taken into the future offhand. And surely, what is taught at the universities is going to be practicable. Metaphorically speaking, young wine can be a true indulgence, just the same as old wine. Occasion and opportunity determine the ‘correct wine’.

When I think of new markets, markets that didn’t even exist yesterday and markets where it is imperative to appeal to and win over young consumers, young consultants can be of vital importance for the development of correlating strategies.

Experience is valuable if it allows consultants to bring in their sovereignty. In general, experience allows us to view and accomplish tasks from an elevated and freer position. He, who took the long and winding road to get to the top knows, how to get to new goals via long and winding roads.

Experience allows us to consider facts more precisely and experience of a certain quality can be paired with the intention to combine courage and responsibility in its entirety. This is why I think that especially in management consultancy it all depends on the right mixture between experienced and young consultants.

We need young people, especially the elite. Here I would like to take up the example of the wine again: In order for old wine to become truly valuable and noble, a young wine of very good quality is required. Stockpiling alone won’t do.