MBA & Company: Service Firm rents out MBAs

His firm is basically an internet platform allowing companies to find MBAs for short-term consulting work. It was created in order to help companies gain access to top talent in a flexible and efficient manner. At the same time the founders – a team of MBA graduates from some of the world's leading business schools – wanted to help fellow MBAs to get access to real world experience and to find means of income in a difficult economic environment.

The business model is timely. With fewer students finding jobs with McKinsey and the likes, MBA & Co can draw from a big pool of MBAs. In a climate that focuses on cost savings and flexible labour force, while trying to maintain the quality of work companies are keen on his service, says Callaghan. “Some of our students were due to start work at big consultancies in September, but had their job offers pushed back to January. So our clients are getting a guy for 40 Euro an hour who would normally charge 300.” For this service MBA & Co takes a ten percent commission on the value of the project that is debited from the fees paid to the MBA and does not cost the hiring company any extra. “The idea is to remove as many barriers to entry for the companies to submit projects,” says Daniel Callaghan.

The business models work, he claims. “Round about a hundred companies so far have registered with the service and we are in talks with several large blue chip organisations about setting up corporate accounts.” The firm already placed a number of projects on an international level: “The type of project is entirely dependent on the client, however the most common are based around business development, sales strategy, international market analysis, financial modelling.”

Callaghan himself graduated this year with an MBA from IESE in Spain. Then he saw what he believed to be a gap in the market and started MBA & Company with finance coming predominantly from angel investors that in many cases have been nurtured by IESE. Mr Callaghan felt the need to go to a business school to become an entrepreneur because he wanted the technical and financial skills taught there: the ability to have a conversation with professional investors and the presentation and document-writing skills. “These are the things that you can learn at business school. What you can’t learn there are the courage and conviction to keep pushing it on.”

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